(The Center Square) — Legislation to “sweeten” public employee benefits and increase costs to New York state and local governments outside of the budget process are being rejected by the Citizens Budget Commission.
The group is asking Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to veto the package, nearly two dozen it says would drive up costs for the state’s taxpayers. In a letter to Hochul, the commission says the bills would not improve services or offset savings.
Collectively, the group said, the bills would increase the state’s costs by an estimated $50.7 million a year immediately and $30.3 million a year after that.
“Granting targeted benefit enhancements not only increases costs but also may encourage further expansions that also increase the public’s costs,” Andrew S. Rein, the group’s president, wrote in the letter. “These 20 bills are in addition to 6 sweeteners that — despite rightly being vetoed last year — were included in the Fiscal Year 2024 Enacted Budget.”
At least 10 of the bills pending action by Hochul would expand public pension benefits for state and local workers.
One proposal would extend a one-year final average salary calculation to members of the state police and fire retirement system, allowing them to boost their pension payout. The commission said the bill would cost an estimated $23.4 million in retroactive pay, with annual costs beginning at $3.9 million.
Another bill would allow uniformed court officers and peace officers employed by the New York State Unified Court System to retire at 55 without an early age reduction with 30 years of creditable service. It would also reduce the retirement age from 63 to 62 and lessen reductions in benefits for some workers.
That would mean $12.2 million in immediate costs for the state, and $1.6 million after that, the group said.
The state would create a 25-year pension plan for positions in fire districts of Suffolk County that participate in the New York State and Local Employees’ Retirement System under another bill. The panel says the bill doesn’t have a fiscal note, but suggested those costs will be equal to approximately 20% of employee salaries.
Other bills flagged by the group would expand death and disability benefits for state workers, including one that would extend the “death gamble” benefit – which allows beneficiaries to receive an employee’s full pension benefits if the retiree passes away before taking retirement.
The bill’s price tag is more than $10 million in retroactive costs, and $1.8 million annually, the group wrote.
Another benefit “sweetener” bill would provide special accidental-death benefits to eligible beneficiaries of members of the state retirement system who are employed in certain deputy sheriff titles and die as a “natural and proximate result” of an accident sustained in the performance of duty.
In the letter, Rein noted that all of the benefit enhancing proposals had been vetoed by Hochul or other New York governors in previous budget cycles.
Last year, Hochul vetoed a bill that would have allowed state environmental, forest rangers and university police to be eligible for retirement after 20 years, similar to other law enforcement agencies. The move prompted a fierce backlash from police unions and Democratic lawmakers who backed the proposal.
