PBANYS Pension Parity Belongs in the Budget
For three consecutive years the New York State Legislature has passed critical pension parity legislation for 1,100 state police officers with near unanimous bipartisan support, and for three consecutive years it has been vetoed citing the need to include it as part of the state budget. This year, the PBA of New York State is calling on the legislature to include it in their one-house budget bills to force budget negotiations on this very important labor issue.
Governor’s Hochul’s 2023-2024 budget proposal omitted pension parity for the hardworking women and men of the PBA of New York State, but the union is hopeful an agreement can be reached. These state law enforcement officers are still working under an outdated and inequitable 25-year retirement plan but have illustrated that a 20-year retirement will help diversify its member agency workforces and ultimately save the state money.
James McCartney, president of the PBA of New York State, said, “We’re losing highly qualified, experienced, and diverse officers with unique skillsets to agencies that offer a superior retirement plan for their officers. This is unsustainable, has cost the state tens of millions of dollars, and leaves the public at risk. If we want to protect our state university campuses, state parks, state forests, and our precious natural resources we must ensure that we recruit and retain the highest quality community police officers in the nation. The state legislature recognizes this, our state agency heads have echoed these sentiments, and now is the time to make pension parity a reality by including it in this year’s state budget.”
Pension parity is the most affordable and effective means to stop attrition and provide New Yorkers with the expert community policing and protection PBANYS members excel at and take pride in providing. As both Governor Cuomo and Governor Hochul indicated, this is an issue that must be included as part of the state budget. Now is the time, and there is no time to lose. PBANYS thus respectfully calls on the state legislature – which has overwhelmingly supported a 20-year retirement year after year – to include pension parity in their one house budget bills to force negotiations on this critical labor issue.
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