The stock-market crash of 2000-02 lit the fuse on a decade long explosion in taxpayer-funded contributions to New York City’s municipal-pension systems. But a new report from Comptroller John Liu shows that roughly half the damage was avoidable -- resulting from the city’s own bad policy choices and mismanagement. Read More
Gov. Cuomo seems close to unveiling his promised pension-reform plan for New York’s state and local governments. Read More
More than 1,200 retired New York State school teachers and administrators are entitled to annual pensions of more than $100,000, according to pension data posted today on www.SeeThroughNY.net, the government transparency website. The database from the New York State Teachers Retirement System (NYSTRS) includes name, benefit rate, retirement date and last known employer when available, for 136,644 people collecting pensions in 2010. Read More
In his opening message to the Legislature, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointed out that public-pension costs are “exploding” across New York state. Read More
New York has always paid its pension bills on time," state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said recently. We've heard that boast from the comptroller before. Unfortunately, that's only technically true. Under a 2010 budget provision championed by DiNapoli himself, the state is now delaying payment of significant portions of its pension bills. Read More
When the New York State and Local Pension fund announced last month that it had earned 14.6 percent on investments this fiscal year, a top NY union official said the robust returns “call into question the need for so-called “pension reform.” Since then, however, the Standard & Poor’s 500 has dropped about 13 percent. Read More
Thirteen percent of newly retired members of the state Police and Fire Retirement System (PFRS) in 2010 qualified for a pension of more than $100,000, according to data posted at SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Most of the 125 new PFRS retirees with six-figure pensions worked for agencies on Long Island and in the lower Hudson Valley, including the Port Authority of NY & NJ, continuing a trend that has developed in the past decade. Read More
The names, pension benefit rates and retirement dates of more than 16,000 New York City Fire Department retirees were added to SeeThroughNY today, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Read More