New York’s two teacher pension systems last year had 26 retirees eligible to collect pensions of more than $300,000, according to data posted on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website.

Data reported from Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York (TRSNYC) reflect actual payments (which include annuity payments from optional contributions by some plan participants) while New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) reports maximum allowable benefits.

Among the newest 3,185 pensioners from TRSNYC and 5,790 pensioners from NYSTRS who retired during 2023 and received a full year of pension benefits in 2024, the top five pension recipients were:

• Ira Bloom, Law Professor at Lehman College, $561,463;
• Grace Schulman, English Professor at Baruch College, $537,321;
• Morey Ritt, Music Professor at Queens College, $393,264;
• Laura Blank, Senior University Executive Director for Labor Relations at CUNY, $272,412;
• Marilyn Alesi, Principal of PS 129, $267,595;

TRSNYC Distribution

Among all 92,826 TRSNYC pensioners, who include teachers, college instructors, and school administrators, 21 received $300k+, 90 received $200k+, and 2,567 received six-figures in pension payments.

NYSTRS Distribution

Among all of NYSTRS’s 170,395 pensioners, five were eligible to collect $300k+, 69 were eligible to collect $200k+, and 5,783 were eligible to collect six-figures. James Feltman, former Superintendent of Commack Union Free Schools who retired in 2010 topped the list with a maximum allowable pension benefit of $328,752.

Some of the TRSNYC retirees have received higher than usual pension payments due to retroactive pension revisions to many class members of Gulino v. Board of Education. A retiree may receive such one-time retroactive payment during certain years raising their pension payments to higher than usual amounts. The pension amounts include benefits from optional investment programs that can provide taxpayer-guaranteed returns of as much as 8.25 percent.

Among the 818 TRSNYC pensioners who retired in 2023 with at least 30 years of service credit and received a full year of pension benefits in 2024, the average pension received was $66,864. The 2,787 new retirees in the rest of the state were eligible to receive an average of $75,320, according to NYSTRS.

The data were obtained from the Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York (TRSNYC) and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) thanks to the Empire Center’s years-long effort to litigate and protect the public’s right to know the names of pension recipients which culminated in a landmark 2014 Court of Appeals decision.

The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.