Padded Pensions Add to New York Fiscal Woes

[Liberal_in_LA]

Padded Pensions Add to New York Fiscal Woes
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH and AMY SCHOENFELD
Published: May 20, 2010

In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.

WORKING OVERTIME Yonkers has arranged for its police officers to put in overtime as flagmen on Consolidated Edison construction sites. Though a company is paying the bill, Yonkers is reporting the work as city overtime to the New York State pension fund, thereby increasing future payouts.
It’s what the system promised, said Mr. Tassone, now 47, adding that he did nothing wrong by adding lots of overtime to his base pay shortly before retiring. “I don’t understand how the working guy that held up their end of the bargain became the problem,” he said.

Despite a pension investigation by the New York attorney general, an audit concluding that some police officers in the city broke overtime rules to increase their payouts and the mayor’s statements that future pensions should be based on regular pay, not overtime, these practices persist in Yonkers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/business/economy/21pension.html?hpw