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
The Empire Center for Public Policy says it will ask the state’s highest court to review an appellate decision that would, for the first time in New York’s history, restrict public access to the identities of public pension recipients. Read More
A searchable online database of earnings for 373,971 employees of New York State school districts outside New York City was posted today at www.SeeThroughNY.net, the transparency website sponsored by the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
The Empire Center for Public Policy has asked the state’s highest court to review an appellate decision that would hide public information from public view. The Center’s efforts have been bolstered by an amicus brief filed on behalf of the state’s leading newspapers. Read More
Just over two years ago, New York State enacted what then-Gov. David A. Paterson presented to the world as "landmark pension reform." In his 2012-13 budget proposal this week, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo raised the subject of pension reform all over again. Why? Because Paterson's bill was a "landmark" only in the annals of Albany political hyperbole. Read More