Analysis shows Legislature driving up public worker pension costs

ALBANY, N.Y. — Lawmakers want to give unionized public employees _ who already get some of the best benefits in the country _ more sweeteners to pensions that are helping fuel New York’s high taxes, according to a study released Tuesday.

State lawmakers this year passed at least 36 bills to expand pension benefits for public workers. If they are all signed into law, local and state government costs would be driven up by at least $189 million this year, according to the Empire Center for New York State Policy.

Many of the bills were approved during the flurry of votes in the closing days of the six-month legislative session that ended in late June.

“These benefits add taxpayer costs at a time when we need to do everything we can to cut taxes,” said Robert Ward of the Public Policy Institute, the research arm of the Business Council of New York State. “Everyone in Albany says we have to cut taxes, but actions like these make it all the less likely that will happen.”

The fiscal watchdog group found the added expenses include about $84 million in one-time costs and $105 million in recurring annual costs. As of July 12, Republican Gov. George Pataki had signed at least one of the bills.

The Legislature and Pataki this year increased the state budget to $113.4 billion, up from about $106 billion in 2005-06. That’s an increase in spending this election year unseen in 33 years.

In a separate report last week, the Public Policy Institute said the state and local tax burden in New York remains the heaviest in the country. The state ranks at or near the top in property, income and sales taxes.

State and local taxes averaged $5,260 for every New Yorker in 2004, according to the institute. That figure, culled from U.S. Census data, was the highest in the nation and 53 percent above the average for all states.

There is much more….

We were able to track down 17 of these Bills and I have them posted here..
And Jim Ostrowski has them here….