The fight between Mayor Bloomberg and the police and firefighter unions is getting nasty. Last week, it was revealed that Bloomberg was interested in eliminating a $12,000 bonus to current and future NYPD and FDNY retirees, leading heads of those unions to call him a liar. Steve Cassidy, head of the Uniformed Firefighters Associations, said, "As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Mike Bloomberg wants to say to firefighters and police officers who were there that day and didn't die, 'I'm going to steal money from your pocket.'"
Bloomberg has pointed out that the city doesn't have enough money to pay generous benefits, saying yesterday, "We have to make a decision: do we want to send out Christmas bonuses or have more teachers?" However, unions are arguing that these payments are simply byproducts of longstanding deals—in this case, the $12,000 variable supplement fund bonus was put into place by former Mayor Ed Koch, who Bloomberg tasked to head pension reform.
For what it's worth, the Manhattan Institute's Edmund J. McMahon tells the NY Times that the average annual pension for city cops who retired in 2009—not including the extra $12,000—was $58,563.
Only retired police officers and firefighters, not those on active duty, collect the payment; union officials estimated that about 50,000 retirees currently receive it. All but about 2 percent of current workers start accruing the benefit after 20 years of service, and the city must budget for them. Those who receive disability pensions are ineligible.
“I think one of the things you see here is the differing interpretations by workers and management over whose money it is,” Mr. McMahon said. “If you want to get the answer to it, well: Who has been dishing out $6 billion, or more, to all the pension funds to backfill the fund’s losses in the last few years? And the answer is, it’s the taxpayers.”
And if you look at the NYPD's recruiting website, it gives average pension payments after 22 years of service (meaning someone who joined the NYPD at 21 could retire at age 43) at various levels in the NYPD. "The Department of Health and Human Resources reports that the life expectancy of a person born prior to 1990 is approximately 76 years old. The estimated earnings scale below assumes a life expectancy of 76 years."
Oh, yeah, Bloomberg also wants the pension retirement age to start at 65.
