If Governor Cuomo agrees to allow school districts outside New York City to not pay required pension contributions in excess of 8.6% of payroll, even as New YorK City’s pension contributions for teachers soar above 30% of payroll (and that probably isn’t enough), he’s just like all the rest. In two years, those school districts would claim they couldn’t pay the pension funds back without “devastating” cuts. And the legislature would offer Cuomo two options. Raise taxes, some of which would be collected in New York City, to pay for the pensions of those who worked outside New York City (even as city services are gutted to pay for its own, separate pension system), or cut New York City’s share of state school aid to pay for the pensions elsewhere.
Over the past 20 years, while local government employment has fallen in New York City, it has risen by 130,000 plus future pension recipients in the rest of the state. New York City public services are already being cut back due to is own irresponsibility, and the irresponsibility the state government forced on it, and now the even more irresponsible local governments in the rest of the state want New York City to pay for that too. And the members of the state legislature who proposed this are the moral equivalent of the federal government’s Paul Ryan, who wants even more spending on senior benefits for those 55 and over with massive cuts for those younger. They are members of Generation Greed, and among its worst members.