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Thread: Do you approve of overtime stacking to increase life time pensions ?

  1. #1
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    Question Do you approve of overtime stacking to increase life time pensions ?

    Heres the question/issue :

    Originally Posted by Greg Sojka and posed by many others :

    "But I ask all of you to respond to this question PLEASE!

    Do you appreciate it when town village, county , state , and federal workers pad their overtime so they retire with $70,000-140,000 a year pensions and full health benefits that we all pay for ? Do you get these same benefits in your job? Use your make believe names but be honest .End quote !


    Do you, as a tax payer feel its OK for tax funded employees to manipulate work hours and or overtime pay ? By doing this some employees can take a base pay range from $40,000.00 a year up to $100,000.00 a year.(numbers of final yearly gross depends on beginning salary - some have been tripled).

    What this does is inflate their final calculations for their life time tax funded pensions. Some employees should receive maybe a $20-30,000.00 a year pension - instead they end up with as much as double or even triple their base rate.

    One of the affects of this is our tax funded pension system is being drained faster than reasonable estimates could have predicted. This causes the yearly cost to Villages, Town, Cities and States to constantly increase the amount home owners pay in taxes yearly.

    So the question is, What should our Leaders/Politicians do about it ?

    Ignore it and hope employees stop doing it ?

    Change the rules/laws involved with how final retirements are calculated ?

    Not count over time in those calculations ?

    Governor Cuomo and past Rochester Mayor Duffy started investigateing this during Mr.Cuomo's campaign. They have spearheaded the prosecution of many who commit pension fraud in NYS. It seems pervasive through out NYS -

    How should we deal with this manipulation ? Or should we just hope it goes away ?
    #Dems play musical chairs + patronage and nepotism = entitlement !

  2. #2
    Member dtwarren's Avatar
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    The availability of overtime is caused by poor management of our elected and politically appointed public officials not the employee. Pension fraud has nothing to do with overtime, usually pension fraud is being paid a pension based on a calculation that includes hours not worked (regardless of whether they are regular or overtime hours).
    “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” ― Thomas Jefferson

  3. #3
    Tony Fracasso - Admin
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    Keep the over time but remove it from the pension equation. It's being padded. You have to be very naive if you think it's not.

    401ks. No grandfathering of any employee. Done. That would be in the best interest of us property/business owners.

  4. #4
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    Office of the State Comptroller
    Go to this website:http://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/rel...=100615release
    Type in Overtime costs, fraud abuses -

    This is some examples of how it affect tax payers and service users :

    OSC Monitoring of MTA Found:
    Financial Outlook – Unsustainable spending has created larger and growing budget gaps Annual spending increases for last 5 years averaged 7 percent. Revenues increased through new taxes and fees, and 44 percent hikes in fares and tolls.

    Initial actions to close budget gaps focused more on service cuts than reducing wasteful spending. Use of Overtime – Spent $586 million in OT in 2009 Acceptance of high OT has been ingrained in management culture. OT budgets are seriously flawed and OT is often unnecessary. Recommendations could save $56 million annually.

    This is just one agency - this is factual and undeniable !

    You can point fingers anywhere you want - its a growing problem costing Billions in NYS overall , every year and once carried over into inflated pensions - billions will only be the beginning.

    What DTwarren stated was "Politically Correct" - "The availability of overtime is caused by poor management of our elected and politically appointed public officials not the employee" - its not factually correct when he stated, "Pension fraud has nothing to do with overtime, usually pension fraud is being paid a pension based on a calculation that includes hours not worked (regardless of whether they are regular or overtime hours)" - he left out the fact overtime hours/pay is counted and calculated in for final life time tax funded pensions.

    So we have to start by eliminating those Party Boss's and Politicians that continue to turn a blind eye and even worse those who excuse the abuses and incompetent mismanagement. If they themselves worried less about votes or being "Politically Correct" - we wouldn't be saddled with yearly tax increases.

    Go to seethrougny and many other sites and see what's really raising our taxes.

    What should we do about it ?


    --------------------------------------------------------

    Yes, the info quoted above is Upstate NY - we help support upstate NY our taxes support our Town and we pay State and County taxes too !
    #Dems play musical chairs + patronage and nepotism = entitlement !

  5. #5
    Member BorderBob's Avatar
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    Only some federal employees get overtime credited as part of a "high three" for pension purposes. Mostly in the law enforcement, fire and I believe air traffic controllers. In my case, the applicable overtime was subject to withholding at the same rate as my salary and was subject to annuity integrity exclusions. Meaning, if I was not already earning the maximum amount of overtime three years prior to my retirement eligibility, I could not pad my pension set the end of a career.

    But I was.....

    Health insurance is still paid in the same employer/employee split as it was when I was working. Until I reach Medicare eligibility anyway.




    b.b.

  6. #6
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    [QUOTE=BorderBob;1583238]Only some federal employees get overtime credited as part of a "high three" for pension purposes.
    So are you stating no current tax funded employee, that is tax funded and included in the NYS retirement program here in Lancaster "can include overtime into their final retirement calculations" = Yes or No - if you know ?
    -------
    Also, if a person has entered into the NYS Tax Funded pension system under employment from one or more positions/jobs/employers in the past or at present - doesn't those years/credits also get combined to increase final pension ? If you know ?

    --------
    BB states, "Meaning, if I was not already earning the maximum amount of overtime three years prior to my retirement eligibility, I could not pad my pension set the end of a career. But I was....."
    So your saying your overtime was already at the max level - Yes or No ?

    Are you saying your pension was based "Soley on your base pay" ? Your adding a bit of unneeded info and forgetting some important points - not saying you cheated - unless you manipulated or purchased overtime from others !

    Do think its OK for one employee to pass OT to another employee ? Yes or No - Why ?

    Thanks

    Last question - what should we do to correct the abuses if they can be documented ?
    #Dems play musical chairs + patronage and nepotism = entitlement !

  7. #7
    Member gorja's Avatar
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    Change the rules/laws involved with how final retirements are calculated and not count over time in those calculations.

    Georgia L Schlager

  8. #8
    Member Wow in lanc's Avatar
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    I think B.B. was a federal employee. I think state and local employee s are held to a different standard where OT is calculated into pension amt. New York should use the federal standard for calculating pensions based on base pay or move in with the rest of the country with a 401k plan with matching fund up to 2% of pay. In the private sector that would include OT but in the long run it would be a hell of a lot cheaper on the taxpayer than fully funded pensions. 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰

  9. #9
    Member BorderBob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wow in lanc View Post
    I think B.B. was a federal employee.
    Yea, he quoted it, but didn't read it. I was a federal employee. Full disclosure, I retired under the original defined benefit program, called CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System). Employees earned 2% per year up to a maximum of 80% after 40 years, 11 months of service. In 1983 that program was replaced with FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System). Regular employees earn 1% per year in the defined benefit portion and can participate in the Thrist Savings Program (TSP) which is similar to a 401k. It allows the employee to participate in close to a dozen different annuity programs, stocks and bonds and distribute their pre-tax earnings as they wish. Plus they pay into Social Security. A federal employee retiring under FERS then has the defined benefit, Social Security when eligible and whatever he or she socked away in the TSP. The government matches 5%.



    b.b.

  10. #10
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    So the question is,

    What should our Leaders/Politicians do about it ?
    Ignore it and hope employees stop doing it ?

    Change the rules/laws involved with how final retirements are calculated ?

    Not count over time in those calculations ?

    Governor Cuomo and past Rochester Mayor Duffy started investigateing this during Mr.Cuomo's campaign. They have spearheaded the prosecution of many who commit pension fraud in NYS. It seems pervasive through out NYS -

    How should we deal with this manipulation ?

    Or should we just hope it goes away ?
    #Dems play musical chairs + patronage and nepotism = entitlement !

  11. #11
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    Good post, very complicated problem.

  12. #12
    Member Save Us's Avatar
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    Ride the gravy train while you still can. The government debt bubble wont take any prisoners when it pops. Too bad people in charge are too short sighted and stupid to see it , and people that are pulling this crap are too greedy to stop it.

  13. #13
    Member dtwarren's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Save Us View Post
    Ride the gravy train while you still can. The government debt bubble wont take any prisoners when it pops. Too bad people in charge are too short sighted and stupid to see it , and people that are pulling this crap are too greedy to stop it.
    And people would rather treat the symptom - overtime included in pension calculations which would take an act of the State Legislature - rather than the root cause electing officials and their appointees who allow overtime in the first place which would require action by voters rather than the State Leg.
    “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” ― Thomas Jefferson

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by dtwarren View Post
    And people would rather treat the symptom - overtime included in pension calculations which would take an act of the State Legislature - rather than the root cause electing officials and their appointees who allow overtime in the first place which would require action by voters rather than the State Leg.
    I agree,, but even if you showed them the plotted trajectory they would not veer off their course. You can only escape a deficit up the chain for the so long. The federal government takes 3 trillion in taxes every year and has a deficit 6 times that, and now they have to raise that??, Sanders sees no problem there,, seriously? . Tell me how long you can function with a 6 to 1 debt to income ratio. Eventually you'll see even the most robust states run deficits which they will have to increase taxes which as we see low tax states gain population. I keep waiting for intelligence to kick in but never seems to happen.

  15. #15
    Member Wow in lanc's Avatar
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    You are correct it would have to go to the state legislature. Problem is it will never be brought to the table as most legislature have family and friends this will affect. A very strong nonpartisan grass roots drive across the state would have to begin to light a fire under the asses of our elected to reform the outdated pension plan. Any ideas on how to gat anything like this started as I feel most New Yorkers are unaware of this problem.

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