May 19, 2008
Union bill drafting backfires
Bills promising pension sweeteners and early retirement incentives will not sail through the Legislature as quickly as unions hoped, thanks to the revelation that a union-paid actuary was admittedly minimizing the costs of these proposals.
Instead Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver says his house will retain another actuary to calculate the cost to state and local governments. A total of 238 bills (about half Assembly, half Senate) carry fiscal impact estimates from actuary Jonathan Schwartz, whose financial ties to unions was disclosed in the New York Times last week.
In a statement Friday, Silver said:
In light of the statements made by Jonathan Schwartz reported today that he acted irresponsibly in his professional duties as an actuarial consultant, I have determined that the Assembly cannot have confidence in any of the fiscal notes prepared by Mr. Schwartz for legislation that is currently before us.
Sunday's Times Union reports on the 899 retirees whose annual pensions exceed $100,000. They include George M. Philip, age 60, who collects a $261,030 pension while moonlighting as interim president of the
University at Albany for $280,000 per year.
No. 241 on the list is Albany attorney James W. Roemer Jr. The 63-year-old lawyer retired in 2001 with a $119,874 pension. His package came together from credits for part-time employment with municipalities, including Utica and Schenectady, despite being a private attorney. Roemer filed a class-action lawsuit last week aimed at blocking Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and DiNapoli from stripping pension credits from lawyers.
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