State lawmakers are showing renewed interest in legislation that would rattle municipal finances and crowd out local services such as police and fire protection. Read More
Tag: Retiree Health Care
For most New Yorkers, employer-sponsored health benefits exist only while they are on the job. When they retire, the benefits end. Not so for public employees. Read More
New York governments at all levels owe a combined $359.7 billion in debt to pay retired public employees health benefits, according to a new Empire Center report. Read More
In what's become an annual tradition, New York state lawmakers have re-introduced bills designed to prohibit or restrict changes to expensive continuing health insurance coverage for current and future government retirees—which would effectively lock in a growing unfunded liability of more than a quarter trillion dollars for taxpayers across the state. Read More
A Republican-sponsored bill that would impose a massive unfunded state mandate on local governments was unanimously reported out of Senate committee this week. Read More
New York's unfunded liability for state government retiree health coverage has reached $90.5 billion—an increase of $3 billion over last year's estimate, and nearly $13 billion in just two years, according to the just-released First Quarterly Update to the state's FY 2019 Financial Plan. The liability for other post-employment benefits, or OPEB, reflects the net present value of continuing state health insurance coverage available to all employees who retire directly from a state government payroll after at least 10 years of service. Read More
On the whole, New Yorkers can breathe a sigh of relief if the state Senate’s gridlock forces an early end to the 2018 regular session of the Legislature. Otherwise, the next two weeks will still leave plenty of time for lawmakers to get up to no good. Read More
New York’s public building costs are the most expensive in the world partly because taxpayers are subsidizing skyrocketing pension and health care costs for the construction industry, according to a study released on Monday. Read More