NYCERS is an Essential Service to its Members and Retirees

The following NYCERS members are essential workers:

• HHC hospital workers,
• Fire EMS workers,
• MTA subway and bus workers,
• correction officers,
• sanitation workers,
• DEP water and sewage workers,
• DOT highway/street/bridge/ferry workers,
• Police 911 & 311 workers,
• HA maintenance workers,
• TBTA line workers and
• countless others.

Besides getting out the monthly pension checks, NYCERS is required on a critical basis to process retirement applications, disability applications, and death benefit claims.

As of March 15, 2020, NYCERS has been AWOL.

The agency should have been on the front lines supporting the men and women who are risking their lives for people of New York City. The agency has 438 full-time employees and 27 part-timers along with 16 per-diem staff. If you take the time to look up the top salaries at NYCERS, there is no reason that NYCERS should not have committed administrators backing up the city workers out on the street.

These workers are dying and getting disabled. There are also many eligible workers at high risk because of other medical conditions who should be able to quickly and easily retire if their doctors are warning them to stay home.

NYCERS should open its customer service office a la Home Depot. Any member or beneficiary who has a retirement, disability or death claim should be able to directly meet with NYCERS staff and easily get follow up info.

At the very least members should be able file applications in person and receive filing receipts.

There should be at least 50 NYCERS staff on the call center phones every day. Voice messages should be avoided at all costs.

When you give damn, there is always a way.

Budgeting in the Plague Year

At the March 12, 2020 NYCERS Board Meeting, the executive director requested five additional workers to address a significant delay (eight to ten months) in finalizing the benefits for new retirees. She stated the delay was due to increased workload and staff turnover. I had previously commented on a six-month delay in producing final option letters in a December 2019 posting.

Obviously, the delay was longer than six months. The director was quite comfortable asking for the five new workers even though she had increased her staff by 36 new workers over the last three years.

One month later at the April 7, 2020 Board Meeting, the Chairperson asked the trustees to lay over the resolution approving the NYCERS FY-2021 Administrative Budget. The reason he gave was the uncertainty of the City’s own FY-2021 budget due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

NYCERS has been radically increasing its admin budget for several years now. In 2015 NYCERS had 392 full-time workers and a budget of $47.3M. In 2020, NYCERS has 433 full-time workers and a budget of $81.1M

Even with a possible federal bailout, the City is going to have to make serious budget reductions for non-critical functions. Prior to 1997, I spent many years dealing with savage budget reductions but this time it is going to be much worse. The NYCERS budget is technically independent of the City’s budget but the trustees are not immune from the impact of the virus.

It is not out of the question that NYCERS will be required to cut $20M from its FY-2021 budget.

While the FY-2020 payroll is only $35.3M, there will be, no doubt, a total hiring freeze in FY-2021 and maybe layoffs, if there is a threat to essential workers. The major contractions, however, will occur in the OTPS budget which is currently $45.9M in FY-2020. This amount was only $21.8M in FY-2018. You can see the possibility of an even greater reductions than the $20M.

The saving grace of these reductions is that NYCERS might get back to doing its basic work correctly and on time. NYCERS may even get back to designing improved application systems with career civil servants rather than with “remote” consultants.

Side Notes:

1. NYCERS currently subsidizes the Comptroller’s Office with $4M/year. That will have to stop.
2. NYCERS is currently spending $240M/year on investment expenses. That will have to be radically reduced. Most pension funds around the country are going to have a war with Wall Street, if the costs are not radically cut.