Albany Lawmakers Take Up Sweeping Pension Reforms. A Big Winner? Themselves.

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Sweeping reforms to New York’s pension system long sought by public sector unions appear likely to be part of the final state budget, with Gov. Kathy Hochul, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins all publicly backing fixes to what is known as Tier 6.

A controversial reform approved in 2012, Tier 6 slashed pension benefits for public employees hired after April of that year and raised their retirement age to 63, up from 55 for teachers and 62 for other civil servants.

More than half of public employees in New York now belong to Tier 6, according to the state Comptroller’s office.

The United Federation of Teachers has spearheaded the campaign to unwind some of those measures, including rolling back the retirement age for Tier 6 teachers to 55 after 30 years of service, allowing workers to include overtime earnings to help set pension rates and increasing the state’s contributions to pensions. The reforms are estimated to cost taxpayers $1.5 billion annually.

Hochul spoke in favor of reforming Tier 6 at a massive rally hosted by the union last month.

“Instead of taking the average of five years, we’re taking the average of your three consecutive years,” Hochul said at a UFT rally in Albany on March 8. “We’re taking a shorter vesting period from 10 years down to five. And also, I’m fighting for a fairer pension plan because it’s essential that we continue recruiting people.”

But among the teachers, train operators, sanitation workers and other civil servants in Tier 6 stands a lesser-known group of employees: State lawmakers who have power to push reforms.

Like all New York State employees, lawmakers belong to the state’s pension system. And a growing number of them have been affected by the 2012 changes. Roughly a third of lawmakers currently serving in the state legislature belong to Tier 6, according to a list that THE CITY obtained from the state comptroller’s office via a public records request.

Out of 213 legislators across both the state Senate and Assembly, 74 are in Tier 6, including 11 Republicans.

According to multiple sources and news reports, the biggest obstacles to nailing the state budget — including the UFT’s proposed changes to Tier 6 — are Hochul’s efforts to weaken the state’s sweeping 2019 climate laws and car insurance reform, both of which are opposed by members of her own party.

“Everybody knows. It seems to be stalling everything,” said Michael Mulgrew, the UFT president. Still, he said, the governor understands that Tier 6 is hurting the workforce and making it more difficult for the state and local governments to recruit workers.

THE CITY spoke to several lawmakers who belong to Tier 6. Though they all said their priority is to the civil servants they represent, they said their pension status has helped inform their position on the issue.

Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (D-Queens) said that as a Tier 6 member she is “fully aware I have to work longer to get less benefits” upon retirement.

Claire Valdez, also a Queens Assembly member who is running for New York’s 7th Congressional district, said that her status as a Tier 6 member gives her “solidarity” with the civil servants she represents.

“While I am supportive of these reforms, it really is because workers deserve excellent benefits. That’s the only way we’re going to attract a really qualified workforce that’s going to be here for the long haul and help make our state and city run effectively,” she added.

The list of lawmakers in Tier 6 includes some prominent Democrats, including state senators Jamaal Bailey, the chair of the Bronx Democratic Party, and Jessica Ramos, a chair of the Senate’s labor committee who ran for mayor last year and is facing a spirited primary to her left from González-Rojas. (Bailey and Ramos did not return THE CITY’s request for comment, but Ramos said on the campaign trail last year that she supports changes to Tier 6.)

Tier 6 also includes nearly all Democratic Socialist of America members elected to the state legislature in recent years, including Valdez and Sen. Jabari Brisport of Brooklyn, a former public school teacher.

Tier 6 was enacted with bipartisan support in the state legislature in an effort spearheaded by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The changes ultimately enacted were controversial from the start, but ultimately more moderate than what Cuomo, then in his first term as governor, said was necessary at a time of fiscal uncertainty and rising pension costs.

In the end he compromised, raising the retirement age to 63 for new hires, banning the use of overtime pay to pad pensions and increasing the employee contribution rates into the state pension system by three percentage points to 6% for the highest earners. New York City was poised to save $21 billion over the next 30 years, state and local officials said at the time, part of an overall $80 billion in projected savings.

Tier 6 has saved taxpayers in state and local governments outside of New York City $1 billion annually since it was enacted, according to a 2021 estimate from the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank.

But unions have said the changes amounted to new hires working longer and contributing more to earn a reduced pension.

The push to “fix” Tier 6 also counts a prominent former state lawmaker among its supporters: Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was elected to the state Assembly in 2020, endorsed the effort on the campaign trail last summer and pointed out he himself is in that tier.

Brisport, who told THE CITY he’s “very supportive” of the changes to Tier 6, said he’s been heartened by the governor’s support for the issue — but he’s been frustrated by the slow pace of movement on an agreement on pension reform and the state budget in general.

“For my knowledge, there hasn’t been much movement on it,” he said. He added that the projected $1.5 billion annual price tag underscores the need to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, which the governor has been reluctant to do.

Hochul insisted that Tier 6 reform is a live issue as recently as last week, though she hasn’t specified which of the UFT’s proposals she actually supports.

“Tier 6 is on the table,” she told reporters in New York City on April 9. “Over half the workforce is now Tier 6, and they have a different dynamic than the people who came before them.”

Claudia is a senior reporter covering labor and work for THE CITY.