TALKING POLITICS — PEF
Secretary-Treasurer Jane Hallum, left, talks with NYC
Democratic Party official Miguel Martinez, PEF Field
Services Director Robert Jackson, state Assembly Member
Adriano Espaillat and PEF Region 11 Political Action
Committee Co-Chair Nithia Chatterjie at a January PEF
Region 10 Legislative Reception in New York City. —
Photo by Ken Dischel
Bills could boost final average salary
More tier/pension reforms sought
By SHERRY HALBROOK
While state budget issues dominate action at the Capitol
in Albany for now, many other bills are also being
drafted or reintroduced.
Few of these are drawing keener interest from PEF members
than tier-reform legislation that would correct an
inequity in pension benefits for members of the state
Retirement System who joined after April 1, 1972 and
before July 26, 1976.
“This legislation would affect some PEF members in
Tier 1 and everyone in Tier 2,” says PEF Legislative
Director Brian Curran. “It was introduced last year,
but did not come up for a vote in either house.”
The legislation would allow the affected members to
include up to 30 days of accrued vacation pay in
calculating their final average salary for determining
their pension benefit.
The legislation been reintroduced in the current session.
Bills S1345 and A2060 would correct the inequity for Tier
1 members hired after April 1, 1972. And bills S2361 and
A4381 address the problem for Tier 2 members.
Members hired earlier and later already have the benefit.
However, the final average salary for Tier 3 and 4
members, which is based on the employee’s top 36
months of pay, cannot be more than 10 percent higher than
their average salary for the previous two years,
according to Curran.
He says legislation also may be introduced that would
raise that cap to 20 percent for Tiers 3 and 4. That
limit now applies to members of Tier 2.
Another tier/pension reform measure that could surface
this year, Curran says, is a bill to give additional
service credit to members of Tiers 3 and 4 who have paid
into the pension system for more than 10 years.
All of this follows on the heels of last year’s
bumper crop of pension improvements.
“From 1973 to ’94, just about every pension
change was negative,” Curran says. “But since
1994, nearly all of them have been positive.”