Hevesi's Pension

When New Yorkers go to the polls tomorrow, one of the things to keep in mind about Alan Hevesi is a moment during the debate on New York 1 between the candidates for state comptroller that pertained not to any of the abuses in respect of a state-funded chauffeur for Mr. Hevesi's wife, but to the state pension fund itself. Mr. Hevesi, the Democratic incumbent, accused his Republican challenger, Christopher Callaghan, of wanting to replace the current state pension plan with a private-sector-style 401(k)-type plan. He said it in the tone of voice that would normally be used in accusing someone of something horrible.

Certainly the current pension plan — in which the taxpayers are forced to guarantee a defined benefit to retired civil servants — is one in which Mr. Hevesi has an interest that it would be accurate to describe as vested. Before he was elected to statewide office, he had built a career as a professor at Queens College, as an assemblyman, and as the city comptroller. As a result, he now draws just more than $166,000 in defined-benefit pension payouts each year. The pension he's drawing dwarfs his current salary of $151,000.

So Mr. Hevesi has become emblematic of everything that's wrong with New York's public-employee pension system, though his windfall is a combination of luck and ambition. Say what one will about the New York pension system, most employees don't end up drawing more as retirees than they do in the workforce. Mr. Hevesi stands out mainly because he has worked for so long at so many relatively well-paid jobs. His pension is based on eight years spent as the city comptroller, 22 years in the assembly, and 26 years as a professor at Queens College.

It helps that he started at Queens College in 1967. As a result, he's squarely in Tier 1, the most generous band of pension benefits that applies to those lucky enough to have joined the state payroll before July 1973. Mr. Hevesi opted out of the TIAA-CREF defined-contribution pension plan available to CUNY professors and into the city's defined-benefit Teachers Retirement System. Because the tier rules base an employee's pension tier on the time at which the employee first entered any participating retirement system, this means that Mr. Hevesi's pension as city comptroller has been inflated not just by the high pay scale for the job but also by his membership in Tier 1. As a former government employee, Mr. Hevesi is spared having to pay state income taxes on his pension benefits.

In the private sector, such generous pension benefits have driven companies like General Motors and Delta and United Airlines into financial trouble, even bankruptcy. Here in New York, when the state pension fund faces a shortfall, the taxpayers are on the hook. In the debate, Mr. Callaghan noted that no one is talking about reducing benefits to any state workers already in the system — another contrast with the private sector. What is on the table — but only if Mr. Callaghan wins — is giving workers for the government a chance to save for their own retirements in accounts they could own and manage themselves and take with them if they change jobs.

That would be good for both the government workers and for the taxpayers. Mr. Hevesi compared Mr. Callaghan's idea to President Bush's plan to allow private investment accounts as part of Social Security for younger workers. That plan foundered amid opposition from congressional Democrats. If Mr. Hevesi loses and Mr. Callaghan gets a chance to try this reform, it would pose a test for Governor Spitzer if he's elected, for he proclaims on his television commercials: "Day one, everything changes." Will that include the pension system that has taxpayers on the hook for $166,000-a-year payouts that are increasingly rare in the private sector?