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Fitzpatrick: Cut off pols' pensions
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After seven years of growing frustration with Albany's culture of corruption but little power to effectuate change from within the Assembly minority, Mike Fitzpatrick (R-St. James), is taking a reform plan out from the capitol to editorial boards across the state.
Fitzpatrick has devised what he characterizes as a more thorough method of upending the stale political patronage system and emboldening lawmakers to tackle more difficult issues than the imposition of term limits. A bill Fitzpatrick plans to reintroduce in the 2009-10 session aims to reduce the incentive for elected officials and their appointees to avoid job-risking controversial votes, by ending the growth of their state pensions.
Currently elected and appointed state employees, like their civil service colleagues, after five years of public employment in New York are entitled to defined-benefit pensions that grow in size as they put in years of work. Fitzpatrick's bill would cap their accrued pension entitlements, offering them and future employees defined-contribution plans.
The state would match up to a three-percent contribution by the employee, which is comparable to private industry, said Fitzpatrick, who handles retirement plans as an investment advisor with UBS Financial Services. The state comptroller's office would be responsible for selecting financial institutions to invest and supervise their retirement plans.
"Pension reform for the political class is the first step to change things," he said in a Friday interview in Times Beacon Record Newspapers offices. Based on his observation of his political colleagues, "we're not solving our very real problems because [we] don't want to lose the job," the assemblyman said, due to the "pot of gold" at career's end — the guaranteed, entirely-taxpayer-funded pension.
"The motivation is so strong that you will never under any circumstances take a tough vote," Fitzpatrick said. "I'm trying to discourage longevity."
The elimination of a guaranteed pension may send those who are only in politics for the guaranteed pension to the private sector, freeing up the room for those dedicated to public service, according to the assemblyman. At the least it would make the deck less stacked in favor of voting to ensure re-election over accomplishing systemic reform, he argued.
Tying politicians' retirement fortunes to the fate of the stock market and economy as a whole may also lead to better economic governance, said Fitzpatrick. "They are going to be more sensitive to that because their benefits are going to be tied to the success of the economy at large."
Fitzpatrick's plan would, of course, hinder his own pension maximization. He has 22 years in the state pension system due to his time as Smithtown Town councilman and assemblyman.
As a GOP lawmaker in the Democrat-dominated Assembly, and with state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli the only elected official thus far to take interest in the plan, Fitzpatrick's proposal is unlikely to ever escape committee on its own. His strategy instead is to foment editorial-board and popular support, leading to public demands for the reform that hopefully define the debate in 2010 state campaigns. He's been traveling around the state, recently trekking as far as Buffalo, to pitch his plan to media organizations. "In the next election cycle this will be the first issue I talk about," Fitzpatrick said.
The comptroller's office's initial reaction was concern over the plan's constitutionality, according to the assemblyman. Bring it on, is Fitzpatrick's response to fears of a court challenge. The New York Constitution protects against "diminishing a benefit" guaranteed to its employees, he explained, but his plan only eliminates the future accumulation of pension payments. "How can you diminish benefits you have not yet earned," he argued. Should the plan pass and a court strike it down, his response would be to re-offer the plan as a constitutional amendment., he added.
Politician pension reform "has merit, is the right thing to do, and is doable," Fitzpatrick said.
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