Considering the massive hang up surrounding the Legacy Replacement Project (LRP), we should take a careful look at what NYCERS is spending on administrative operations. They were $129 million in FY-2025.
God forbid we look at the investment expenses, $634 million in FY-2025.
A year ago at the December 2024 Board meeting, the executive director reported that because of delays in the LRP project, the payments for the project were $24 million lower than budgeted. The executive director retired in May 2025.
It then became clear from the NYCERS FY-2024 Annual Comprehensive Finacial Report (ACFR, released at the end of December) that at some time in FY-2024, the Accenture LRP contract hit a major obstacle and that a solution would be presented to the Board at the February 2025 Board meeting.
At the Febuary 2025 Board meeting NYCERS staff was supposed to present a new strategy with corrective details. What they presented was a four year delay with a promise to present the operational details in June 2025. As of December 2025, there are no details.
This year at the December 2025 Board meeting, the interim executive director, the mastermind of the LRP fiasco, reported that because of a pause in the LRP project, admin expenses for FY-2025 came in at $39.7 million under the amount budgeted for FY-2025 ($128M instead of $168M). Wasn't that the message last year? Of course, no questions from the trustees about the $39.7 million.
The Accenture Contract
In the Febraury, 2021, NYCERS awarded the LRP contract to Accenture at a cost of $85 million for 5 years. That is roughly an annual charge of $17 million. Work started in June 2021 and was scheduled to finish in September 2026. Best guess now for a completion date is the end of 2030.
Based on the ACFR reports NYCERS has paid Accenture:
| FY-2025 | not reported in ACFR |
| FY-2024 | $17.9 million |
| FY-2023 | $817,492 |
| FY-2022 | $9.8 million |
| FY-2021 | $926,341 |
We can see possible probelms even as early as FY-2023.
From the chart below we can see consulting costs going from $11 million in FY-2020 to $31 million in FY-2025. Because of the holdup with LRP this amount dropped from $42 million in FY-2024 to $31 million this year but there still is a lot money being paid to someone. NYCERS failed to report contracts for FY-2025.
In addition, software costs have climbed to $23 million in FY-2025 from $13 million in FY-2020. There is no pause in spending here. There is also no public reporting of the details of these costs.
Runaway Payroll Costs
In the midst of this chaos, payroll costs have gone from $46 million in FY-2020 to $66 million in FY-2025. That is 44% increase over five years.
There was a serious service problem with processing retirement application which NYCERS staff has supposedly gotten under control. In FY-2024 the trustees expanded personnel resources to solve this problem. In the FY-2026 budget, the trustees have continued to hold the full-time head count at 501 but have increased personnel costd from $70.2 million to $73.6 million, an almost 5% increase.
History of Admin Expenses
The chart below is a breakdown of all NYCERS administrative expenses from 2017 to 2025. The information comes from NYCERS Annual Comprehensive Financial Report ACFR).
| Fiscal Year | Budgeted F/T Head Count | Personnel Expenses | Contracts & Consultants | Phone, Mail, & Printing | Rentals | Software, Hardware, Support, Supplies, & Maintenance | Total |
| FY-2025 | 501 | $66,035,631 | $31,321,363 | $1,145,708 | $7,247,706 | $23,133,146 | $128,883,554 |
| FY-2024 | 501 | $60,156,204 | $42,434,468 | $1,236,809 | $9,257,263 | $17,189,819 | $130,274,563 |
| FY-2023 | 485 | $57,736,915 | $19,910,959 | $1,037,015 | $9,282,322 | $17,825,949 | $105,793,160 |
| FY-2022 | 483 | $52,303,943 | $27,418,528 | $1,029,424 | $9,329,701 | $14,906,397 | $104,987,993 |
| FY-2021 | 474 | $48,693,043 | $14,058,975 | $1,290,546 | $6,617,040 | $16,753,334 | $87,412,938 |
| FY-2020 | 438 | $45,736,806 | $11,337,750 | $1,173,896 | $6,870,614 | $12,548,240 | $77,667,306 |
| FY-2019 | 428 | $43,717,712 | $15,884,418 | $1,114,263 | $6,637,059 | $14,719,873 | $82,073,325 |
| FY-2018 | 415 | $40,444,145 | $4,310,427 | $1,072,077 | $6,348,888 | $7,513,233 | $59,688,770 |
| FY-2017 | 401 | $39,505,894 | $3,829,758 | $1,561,282 | $5,909,352 | $8,864,342 | $59,670,628 |
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