Multiply Albany county by the 62 counties across the state, how many politicians are in each from all the counties, local towns, villages and cities…? This pension problem has grown to an issue of epic proportions and is burying us in taxes while these politicians and state, county, city, town, village and federal employees reap the benefits that in most part people in the private sector will never see.
The health care alone that WE pay for is bad enough, now the pensions they receive, the lack of taxes that they pay in their pensions, and many, many of them leave to go to a place where the taxes are lower like Florida, Tennessee, the Carolinas.
Once again, how do we expect these people that benefit from all of this to fix it? They won’t, it will take a Leader with a set of Brass balls. Until then, we, the little people pay.
Elected officials pile up pensions -Times Union – Albany NY
Local officeholders often are listed as full-time employees to share millions in benefits
On paper, James Scalzo rarely sleeps. He works full time as a cook at the Albany County jail, five days a week, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
But he’s also serves on the Albany Common Council and, like most of his 15 colleagues, is listed as working 30 hours a week in that job at $13 an hour.
For both jobs, Scalzo, 58, is accruing pension credits in the New York State and Local Retirement System. He said he never wanted the council pension, but was told he had to be included in the system.
Scalzo is among an unknown number of local officials who are as a group racking up full-time pension credits worth millions of dollars for what is generally considered to be part-time work. In at least some cases, too, some participants accrue double pension credits, holding down regular full-time public sector jobs and elected positions.
A precise breakdown wasn’t available on Tuesday, but the state comptroller’s office lists more than 3,000 public employers, other than New York state, that offer pensions through the State and Local Retirement system.
Included in that are scores of towns, cities and counties.
And in those cities, towns and counties are elected officials who have the power to grant themselves full-time or nearly full-time retirement system credits, and who, in at least some cases, hold down full-time public sector jobs as well, allowing them to boost their pensions.
Scalzo says his job representing Albany’s 10th Ward takes a lot of time, fielding phone calls from residents about potholes, barking dogs, or apartments where the heat has died in the middle of the night.
Those 30 hours just happen to be the minimum for a full-time job in the eyes of the pension system. Below that, retirement benefits are less generous.
Council members are on the honor system when it comes to calculating the hours.
“Is there someone looking over our shoulder? No,” said Scalzo during an 8 a.m. interview last week at a neighborhood coffee shop.
In Albany County alone, $12 million of its total $114 million payroll went to pension costs, said Comptroller Mike Conners — and that was two years ago. What portion of that pension amount went to elected officials could not be determined.
But roughly half of the 39-member Albany County Legislature is currently accruing pension credits for two public sector jobs. In addition to their elected posts, many hold or have held additional public sector jobs, including posts in the State Police, Senate and Assembly, and in fire departments.
In addition to the Albany Common Council, Albany County lists its 39 county legislators as full time.
When they retire, their pensions will be based not just on the pay from their regular jobs, but on their $20,298 County Legislature salaries as well.
The full-time status they granted themselves allows them to maximize the benefits.
This isn’t quite the same as the “payroll padding” that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli have been cracking down on.
Tags: Erie County Insanity
