Search the News Archive

Tiering Up: The Unfinished Business of Public Pension Reform in New York

"The Tier 5 and Tier 6 changes combined are saving New York state and local governments outside New York City more than $1 billion this year. After record-busting investment returns in 2021, most of the state's public pension plans report they are fully funded -- but adjusting for financial risk, their combined unfunded liabilities still total nearly $400 billion."

New York City Public Educator Pensions Rise Again

"The pension benefits collected by 969 teachers, college instructors, and school administrators who retired in 2019 with at least 30 years of service credit and received a full year of pension benefits in 2020 averaged $75,212."

New York's Soaring Pension Bills

"The latest Empire Center for Public Policy report on New York's soaring pension costs focuses on six-figure retiree payouts, which have now crossed the 3,000 mark. It's a telling sign of how public employees continue to collect benefits far greater than most private-sector workers -- at a huge cost to the taxpayers.... Many of the latest additions are Long Island police and firefighters (whose salaries are also well above the national and even state average)."

Public Employer Retiree Health Costs Rising

"State and local governments in New York will have to come up with an additional quarter of a trillion dollars to pay the entire tab for retiree health care, according to a new report. The $250 billion bill for retiree health coverage is up from $210 billion two years ago, said the study issued by the Empire Center for New York State Policy on Wednesday. Referred to as 'other post-employment benefits,' or OPEB, the unfunded obligations represent a troubling strain on budgets."

New York's Regulatory Failure and an Insurance CO-OP Collapse

"Health Republic's growing financial troubles should have been no surprise to insurance regulators at the Department of Financial Services (DFS). The company's filings to DFS showed steep operating losses, mounting debt, unanticipated costs and heavy reliance on a federal risk-management subsidy that failed to materialize. Yet the department did not intervene to order an increase in Health Republic's premiums, as other states did in similar situations. To the contrary, DFS repeatedly cut the company's premiums below what the insurer had requested, aggravating the co-op's losses."