Total City pension funds leaving City? County?
It would be helpful to know the totals of city pension funds paid to retirees living outside the city (or outside the county? state?).
That is a huge amount that could stimulate the struggling cash & housing economies of the 2nd poorest & 2nd "most vacant".
Pension reform is obviously necessary to Bflo's & NYS's recovery. For example, a mechanism was proposed several years ago that the city place a 'surcharge' on pensions paid to retirees living elsewhere. Is anybody familiar with how it is done elsewhere?
Currently, former city employees can collect city pensions while holding new jobs elsewhere. For example, former BMHA ED Sharon West is apparently collecting a $50K city pension while holding a new HUD-funded $90K "poverty professional" job in Florida.
Ironically, she still owns her former home in Bennett Village Terrace (BVT) which she purchased 'new' for $50K in 1988. It is in a struggling complex of 84 townhouses next to former Central Park Plaza shopping center. The oft-foreclosed units are now assessed at $20K.
Yesterday a $13K sale deed was filed for #7 BVT . . as Sharon West's BVT unit should be worth $90K based on inflation alone.
Recent census etimates of loss of 5001 persons from Erie County over the most recent year counted likely translate to a 2500 loss in Bflo alone.
Assuming Bflo's average household of 2.5 persons, that added 1000 more Bflo vacant units in the past year alone. Meanwhile there is a frenzy of heavily taxpayer-subsidized new housing everywhere.
Same old, same old is not working!