Appearance on Fox
October 11th, 2010I was on Fox news the other day discussing the ways in which the costs of operating State prisons impact the New York State budget (click on the video below or see High Cost of Prison Workers).
I spent a fair amount of time discussing the issues, but very little of the material was used. However, I did echo the commissioner’s sentiment that the State is currently hamstrung by existing contracts with the unions representing State prison employees.
The practice of increasing overtime hours in the last three years of employment in order to goose one’s pension (which is based on a percentage of one’s pay in their final three years of employment) is not new. Nor is it limited to the Department of Corrections. The bad news for the State budget is that the practice is contractually protected by agreements put in place long ago between the various unions and the State.
Politicians, and those managing the various State agencies, have long been aware of this problem. In fact, the legislature recently approved sweeping changes to the pension system (creating a new Tier 5 employee system) that would limit this practice moving forward (see State Lawmakers Approve Deal to Fix Hyper Pension).
Overtime will no longer be included in the calculation of the last three year’s salary upon which employee pensions are based. This will be effective for all new State employees beginning in 2010.
Unfortunately, these changes won’t help the beleaguered New York State budget for some 20 years or so. In the meantime, the New York State budget remains in a fragile state…
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October 12th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Your point about staff-to-prisoner ration vs. teacher-to-student ratio is especially powerful. I know they’ve cut a lot of your discussion, but happy they kept this bit.
October 30th, 2010 at 11:21 am
The pseudo-bankrupt states like New York and California are totally hosed. Because migration out of a state is much easier than emigration out of a country.
The liberal reactionary response by the tanked states will be to raise taxes to pay for the unaffordable labor contracts. The obvious, unintended consequence is that any remaining profitable businesses that can leave those states will migrate. Bad for New York and California – good for Texas.
The outcomes will be economic death spirals that force the states into insolvency. The federal government’s existing hyperbolic deficit spending will not allow it to save those states.
Welcome to Dystopia…
P.S. The perverse irony is that the fat and happy state and municipal government pensioners will move to Texas too.