New York’s highest court overruled lower courts to rule that New York City didn’t have to make added pension contributions for the most recently hired cops and firefighters, reports the New York Post.
City officials estimated the savings to taxpayers at about $500 million over 10 years.
Police and fire unions have been working for years to equalize benefits for their members since those hired after July 1, 2009 have been placed into a “Tier 3” with reduced benefits.
The city contributes five percent toward the 7.5 percent that most cops and firefighters hired before that date have taken out of their paychecks for pension purposes.
But the city doesn’t contribute to the Tier 3 hires, who are making three percent pension contributions.
Police union officials argued that the city’s payments — known as the “Increased Take Home Pay” program — date back to a deal engineered in 1963 that traded higher pay for enhanced pensions that the city was supposed to help fund.
There were several changes made through the years to state legislation authorizing the deal, but the city maintained that none of them entitled the newest hires to the same pact as the older ones.
State Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead disagreed in a 2012 ruling that the unions hailed.
But in a 5-0 ruling Monday, the state’s Court of Appeals said its reading of the legislation was the same as the city’s, not Judge Edmead’s.
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