Any of you private sector folks have a sweet deal like this? Yes sir we are getting screwed good.And they say they dont steal our tax dollars!!!!!!


FOCUS: TAXPAYER FUNDED RETIREMENTS
New York's ‘public pension bomb’ ticking away
Municipalities face skyrocketing payments to statewide system
By Brian Meyer - News Staff Reporter
Updated: 04/06/08 8:47 AM


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WHAT'S IN YOUR WALLET? Comment on the pensions at Inside the News, 'Government pensions -- the ticking bomb'

Imagine your grocery bill ballooning more than 800 percent over seven years. Or your monthly mortgage eight times higher than what you were paying when the new millennium began. That’s what has happened to taxpayers’ payments to public pensions in this state.

These contributions for the pensions of police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public employees increased to $8.4 billion last year from $1 billion seven years earlier.

Some have labeled it a “public pension bomb” and warn that if it isn’t defused, local and state governments face devastating consequences in the years ahead.

Part of the problem, according to reform advocates, involves a system that allows many public employees to boost pensions by working vast amounts of overtime in their final year or years of service, on which their pensions are based.

Take Patrick McDonald, for instance, the Buffalo police officer who retired last week after 41 years of service. Last year, he earned $189,457, the highest pay ever recorded for a city officer, after working as many as 363 days and racking up $123,000 in overtime.

A preliminary projection by the state comptroller indicates McDonald will receive an annual pension of about $94,000, possibly a bit lower if private event sponsors reimburse the city for some of the overtime he put in.

Still, a $94,000 pension would be 56 percent higher than the base salaries of most city police officers.

“And he’s a piker when compared with some guys in Nassau County,” said E.J. McMahon, the head of an Albany-based conservative think tank that has been clamoring for pension reform. Several police officials in Nassau County recently retired with annual pensions ranging from slightly more than $135,000 to more than $156,000, McMahon said, citing media reports. Some of the officers earned as much as three-quarters of a million dollars last year in salary and termination payments.

Taxpayers foot the bill through the state pension system.

Erie County’s pension bill went to $25.4 million last year from $5.1 million in 2000.

Buffalo’s pension costs increased to nearly $22 million in the current fiscal year from $4.8 million in 2000.

McMahon’s group, the Empire Center for New York State Policy, favors a shift from the pension entitlement to a contribution savings plan, which would include contributions from employees. The group argues the reform would guard against practices such as loading up on overtime in the final years of employment.

But McMahon said he has not seen the slightest hint that anyone in Albany wants to make meaningful changes to the pension system.

“The unions have a complete headlock on this issue in Albany,” he said.

Locally, about 100 employees in Buffalo’s Police and Fire departments made more than $100,000 last year.

In the Erie County Sheriff’s Office, more than two dozen deputies made more than $100,000 in 2006.

Union officials and some government leaders insist staffing shortages and minimum staffing requirements have driven up overtime in some departments.

But the vice chairwoman of Buffalo’s control board said she was concerned that some employe es “bulk up” their pensions by racking up large amounts of overtime in the years leading to their retirement.

The pension burden is a looming fiscal threat to governments across the state, said Alair Townsend, a former New York City budget director and deputy mayor.

The head of Buffalo’s police union bristled at suggestions that officers devour overtime to boost their pensions.

All overtime is assigned according to seniority, as required by the union contract, and driven by a severe shortage of officers, said Robert P. Meegan Jr., union president.

The system, Meegan insisted, does not contain abuse.

“None whatsoever. Absolutely none. If there’s any abuse, it’s that manpower levels have gone so low over the years,” he said.

But Erie County Executive Chris Collins contends that overtime patterns in numerous municipalities signal clear abuse.

“Overtime should not be part of a pension calculation, and that’s where the system is broken,” said Collins, who sits on the state control board that oversees Buffalo’s finances.

“It’s a system that can be scammed and manipulated,” Collins continued. “In the end, everybody pays the costs across the state.”

The New York Conference of Mayors is proposing a pension reform plan that would include several major changes, said Peter A. Baynes, executive director.

Future employees would become part of a new tier that has “a more affordable” benefits structure. It would require workers to contribute to their pensions and would take into consideration only base pay — not overtime — when calculating final pension benefits.

“That way, you wouldn’t have these kind of excessive pensions caused by employees loading up on overtime in their final years,” Baynes said.

Mayor Byron W. Brown stopped short of endorsing plans to overhaul the pension system, noting such decisions rest with the governor and state lawmakers.

But he conceded that as retirements increase, pension pressures on municipalities will continue to escalate.

Brown noted that state law prohibits any action that would cut pension benefits already promised to employees.

“I think the only way to rein in pension costs in the future would be to create a new tier,” Brown said.

The city’s $17 million spike in pension costs over seven years would have been even larger had the state control board not imposed a hiring and wage freeze and had the state not reduced the percentage municipalities must contribute to the pension fund.

But Buffalo’s pension costs will be several million dollars higher next year, according to Donna J. Estrich, the city’s administration and finance director. Some of the increase results from the hiring of new police officers and firefighters.

A spokesman for State Comptroller Thomas P. Di- Napoli, the sole trustee of the state pension system, said describing the system as a ticking bomb that must be defused is unfair.

The state has the best-managed pension system in the country, Dennis Thompkins claimed, adding that changes have been made to smooth out fluctuations in costs that municipalities face each year.

The dramatic increase in pension contributions from 2000 to 2007 was an “aberration” caused by a booming economy in the late 1990s, Thompkins said.

The average pension for retirees in the system — excluding police, teachers and firefighters — was about $16,000 last year. Those who retired last year received an average pension of $22,000.

“I don’t see anybody getting rich, with the occasional exceptions,” Thompkins concluded.

But what about these exceptions — employees who end up getting lifetime pensions that are significantly higher than their base salaries because of the amount of overtime they worked?

“Overtime is a local government management issue,” Thompkins said.

Brown has told Buffalo’s control board he expects reductions in police and fire overtime in the coming year as a result of the recent hirings.

But Brown said the state clearly must forge a long-term strategy to grapple with the costs of providing pensions to a growing number of retirees who are living longer.

“As pension pressures escalate across the state, the issue is certainly going to require greater attention on the part of the State Legislature and the governor,” Brown said.

bmeyer@buffnews.com