Category: News and Opinion

You Keep Thinking The Next One Might Be Different

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You think that Bloomberg might be different. That Spitzer might be different. That Andrew Cuomo might be different. But in the end they do the same things. The Governor proposes to drastically underfund the state pension funds, which also cover local government (and school) employees in the rest of New York State, and make up the money later. Comptroller DiNapoli had pushed through a proposal to do the same a few years ago, but the higher payments from that deal are now due. Now Cuomo wants to pay for yesterday's pensions over up to 45 years, with disaster if optimistic assumptions do not come true. For reality, read the comments from outraged taxpayers and public employees, not just the article.

I guess the kind of tax burden we have, and declining quality of services we have, in New York City (for the second time) is not acceptable in the rest of the state.

JUST A LITTLE SOMETHING VOTERS SHOULD THINK ABOUT: FOR THOSE BRAVE SOULS ON THE “ROAD TO CITY HALL”

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It’s been exactly three months since I last submitted a column to my editors for publishing. This is the longest hiatus (by far) I have taken in the past 8 years writing on the blogs. Let’s just say that some of life’s challenges had me on the run for a moment; so I took a time-out.  Let me acknowledge those of you who took the time to contact me just to enquire about my health and wellbeing. It’s nice to know that my columns are appreciated worldwide.

What if the Pensions Are Never Paid For?

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New York's pension rules automatically allow the taxpayer contributions that are theoretically required today to be put off until tomorrow, through "smoothing." That makes it easier to, among other things, retroactively enhance pensions while deferring the costs until they could be blamed on something else. But that wasn't enough for State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who proposed that the pension contributions by the State of New York and local governments outside New York City be re-smoothed – by borrowing money from the pension funds to defer costs until the stock market went back up. Then-Governor Paterson and the State Legislature readily agreed back in 2010. Well, the stock market went back up and now it’s time to pay back the pension funds under the DiNapoli deal, but guess what? No one wants to do that. So now-Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed re- re-smoothing by having school districts borrow against the pension funds yet again. This will be counted as state school aid.