Harry Nespoli Fails to File a Final Appeal to Protect the Pension Rights of His Union Members

In January 2017, I wrote a post about how NYCERS was stripping pension rights from Tier 4 members who became sanitation workers after 4/1/2012 based falsely on the new Tier 6 law.

To make this issue simple, Tier 6 does not force Tier 4 members into Tier 6-3 just because the member becomes a sanitation worker and even if it did, it would be unconstitutional.

In November 2016, four and a half years after the passage of Tier 6 NYCERS changed its previous position on this issue and began sending notices to certain Tier 4 sanitation workers that their Tier 4 Sanitation benefits were being revoked and they were being forced into Tier 6-3 Sanitation benefits.

On 11/15/2016 Harry Nespoli filed a complaint in court against the NYCERS Board of Trustees attempting to reverse this blatant attack on his union members' pension rights.

NYCERS Board of Trustees

There are three votes out of seven on the NYCERS Board of Trustees controlled by the three largest city unions. Nespoli was and continues to be head of the MLC, the organization representing all city unions. It is not clear whether Nespoli spoke to the three union reps on the Board of Trustees about this issue. There should have been a full debate about this issue at a board meeting. This would have been the best way of handling this issue and preventing unnecessary litigation.

The Six Other NYS Pension Systems

In addition, there are implications of this issue for the other six NYS pension systems.

For instance, I have a strong suspicion that
a 2008 Tier 4 NYCERS member who joined NYPD in 2013 is covered by Tier 2 police pension benefits and
a 2011 Tier 4 NYCERS member who joined NYPD in 2013 is covered by Tier 3 pre-Tier 6 pension benefits.

This is counter to the NYCERS position.

Trial Court

Four and a half years later, on 6/10/2021, the trial court reached a court decision on this issue. The trail court incorrectly decided that NYCERS was an expert on pension law and confirmed its unfounded actions.

Nespoli appealed the trial decision.

First Department

On 5/5/2022 the First Department Appellate Court upheld (case # 02096-2021) the incorrect trial court decision. It discarded the constitutional pension protection clause with only the following statement which is, on its face, factually incorrect.

Petitioners’ reclassification did not violate the New York State Constitution (NY Const art V, § 7[a]), since “petitioners were never entitled to [SA]-20 benefits to begin with and, thus, did not have a contractual right to those benefits” (Matter of Ly, 189 AD3d at 1413).

In fact, on March 30, 2012, every Tier 4 NYCERS member was eligible to be covered by the SA-20 plan if he or she became part of the Uniform Sanitation Force. The court is saying they did not, in complete denial of reality. What we have here is a blind umpire.

On April 1, 2012, Tier 6 can not take away a pension right that existed on March 30, 2012, the day before. The scary thing about this decision is that there is no rational argument supporting it.

Court of Appeals

There is no record on the court website that Nespoli filed an appeal to the NY Court of Appeals. This is a constitutional issue and there are impacts for the other six NYS pension systems. It is clear that this issue should have been taken to the Court of Appeals.

Of course, this was the same time that the City and the MLC were busy trying to deprive city retirees of their Medicare supplemental health insurance benefits in order funnel the money saved into union welfare funds.

NYS Constitution

The following is the text from the N.Y. Constitution Article V, § 7:

"The rights of public employees are thus fixed as of the time the employee becomes a member of the system. We have consistently held that the constitutional prohibition against diminishing or impairing retirement benefits prohibits official action during a public employment membership in a retirement system which adversely affects the amount of the retirement benefits payable to the members on retirement under laws and conditions existing at the time of entrance into retirement system membership. "

I

Harry Nespoli and Bob Linn, Both Knew All Along - The Medicare Advantage Scam

1965

In 1965, the City agreed to pay for both employees and retirees health insurance coverage. Dependents were also included.  As part of this coverage the City also agreed to offer employees and retirees a choice of three plans,

• HIP/Blue Cross,
• GHI/Blue Cross, and
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

The cost, however, was capped

• at 75% of the cost of HIP/Blue Cross(21 day plan) on category basis as of 1/1/1966 for employees and 4/1//1966 for retirees and
• at 100% effective on 1/1/1967 for employees and 4/1/1967 for retirees.

1966

As of 7/1/1966 Medicare became effective and radically reduced the cost for the City in providing health insurance coverage to eligible retirees, roughly by three quarters.

The three health plans were significantly changed to reflect the fact that Medicare was now the primary health insurance coverage for retirees over the age of 65.

As opposed to the three City plans Medicare is an individual coverage plan. It does not administer family plans.

In order to control the costs of the three new modified contracts, the City adopted the new GHI plan premium as the new 100% cost cap for the three reduced coverage plans for this group of retirees.

As support for this claim, I am going to quote a statement from a 1997 letter from the OLR Director Jim Hanley to Deputy Mayor Randy Levine:

“The rate paid by the City for Medicare eligible retirees is based on the GHI/Blue Cross Senior Care rate, traditionally the rate is paid retroactively when the Senior Care rate is approved by the City. The rate approved for senior care is $88.65 per month and the HIP rate is $91,31, resulting in a payroll deduction of $2.96 per person.”

1967

In December 1967, the City Council passed Local Law 120 (Section 12-126, NYC Admin Code) which codified the 100% guarantee for all employees, retirees and dependents. The law only referenced the HIP/ Blue Cross cost cap that was being used for employees and retirees under age 65.

It also authorized the refund of the then current Medicare Part B premiums to Medicare enrolled retirees. The City had required retirees to enroll in Medicare if eligible in order to recive City health insurance coverage. This was actually the primary purpose of the statute.

2014 Collective Bargainning

In 2014, as part of collective bargaining negotiations the City put forward a list of fourteen proposals to create health insurance savings. Two of the those items are listed below:

• 10. Eliminate GHI Senior Care premiums for Medicare plans. Replace with a set rate which can be indexed each year based on Medical CPI or a Medicare Advantage plan.
• 11. Eliminate HIP HMO as the benchmark. Replace with a set rate which can be indexed each year on Medical CIPI

Note: as of 2014, the City was offering Medicare Advantage plans to retirees but with deceasing participation from retirees.

On May 14, 2014, Harry Nespoli and Bob Linn signed a letter of agreement that included  the following clause:

“6. The following initiatives are among those that the MLC and the City could consider in their joint efforts to meet the aforementioned annual and four-year cumulative savings figures: minimum premium, self-insurance, dependent eligibility verification audits, the capping of the HIP HMO rate, the capping of the Senior Care rate, the equalization formula, marketing plans, Medicare Advantage, and the more effective delivery of health care.”

It is clear from these documents that Nespoli and LInn knew that the City was obligated to cover the cost of GHI Senior Crae for Medicare retirees. It is also clear that the Law Department knew about the GHI in spite of its court filings to the opposite.

2021 and the Fight over the Scam

So instead of directly attempting to modify Section 12-126 to provide the City with some financial relief from rising health insurance costs, Nespoli and Linn came up with the "MAP" scam.

Mediacare (CMS) allows an employer to auto-enroll its retirees into a Medicare Advantage plan but requires the empoyer to allow the retirees to stay in their existing plan if they choose to do so. So Nesploi and Linn decide to force GHI Senior Care retirees into a Medicare Advantage plan. But then in clear violation of Section 12-126 they demanded that the retirees pay the full cost of GHI Senior Care if they opted out of the the Meidicare Advantage plan.

In more direct language, Nespoli and Linn cut retirees health coverage and then tried to extorted the full cost of the old coverage from the retirees opting out. They would have gotten away with this, if the retirees had not fought back and a judge saw the theft for what it was. His words are below:

Of course, none of this is to say that the respondent must give retirees an option of plans, nor that if the plan goes above the threshold discussed in NYC Admin. Code § 12-126 (b)(1) that the respondent could not pass along the cost above the threshold to the retiree; only that if there is to be an option of more than one plan, that the respondent may not pass any cost of the prior plan to the retirees, as it is the Court’s understanding that the threshold is not crossed by the cost of the retirees’ current health insurance plan. This is buoyed by the fact that the current plan has been paid for by the respondent in full to this point.

Of course the City has the nerve to appeal this decision in spite of the fact that the City knew all along that it was using GHI Senior Care as the cost threshold.

Yes, it is as bad as it sounds.

Anthem - US Department of Justice - Medicare Advantage Scam

I just stumbled on the following notice from DOJ. Within the press release you can find 112 page complaint. You can read the opening paragraph below:

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of New York
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, March 27, 2020

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Files Civil Fraud Suit Against Anthem, Inc., For Falsely Certifying The Accuracy Of Its Diagnosis Data

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that the United States filed a civil fraud lawsuit today against ANTHEM, INC. (“ANTHEM”), alleging that ANTHEM falsely certified the accuracy of the diagnosis data it submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) for risk-adjustment purposes under Medicare Part C and knowingly failed to delete inaccurate diagnosis codes. As a result of these acts, ANTHEM caused CMS to calculate the risk-adjustment payments to ANTHEM based on inaccurate, and inflated, diagnosis information, which enabled ANTHEM to obtain millions of dollars in Medicare funds to which it was not entitled.

Why is the notice significant? Well, Anthem is the company NYC has contracted with to ramrod NYC retirees into a Medicarae Part C plan (aka Medicare Advantage). You can read the opening of the proposed NYC/Anthem contract below. This raises serious questions about the integrity of this whole process.

Medicare Advantage Group Agreement

This NYC Medicare Advantage Plus Plan Group Agreement (hereinafter "MA Agreement") is entered into as of January 1, 2022 (hereinafter “Effective Date”) by and between

the City of New York (“City”) acting through Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations – Employee Benefits Program on behalf of the Labor Management Health Insurance Policy Committee for the New York City Health Benefits Program with an office at 22 Cortlandt Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10007 (hereinafter "Group") and

Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. doing business as Empire BlueCross BlueShield Retiree Solutions, on behalf of itself and the Alliance, defined below (hereinafter “Empire” or the “Alliance”) sponsor of the NYC Medicare Advantage Plus Plan (hereinafter "MA Plan"). Empire and The Group each are sometimes referred to herein as a “Party” and collectively as the “Parties.”

WHEREAS,

the City and Municipal Labor Committee (“MLC”), an umbrella organization for municipal unions, negotiate on a variety of matters, including collective bargaining regarding health benefits pursuant to their obligations under the New York Collective Bargaining Law;

WHEREAS,

to aid in the administration of the negotiated health benefits agreements, the City and the MLC established the Labor Management Health Insurance Policy Committee (“Committee”) for the MLC and City representatives to meet on a regular basis to discuss City health insurance benefits; and

WHEREAS,

the Employee Benefits Program (“EBP”) is a division of the Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations (“OLR”), and OLR is acting under the authority of the New York City Administrative Code Section 12.126(d) as the administrator of the New York City Health Benefits Program (“HBP”); and

WHEREAS,

on October 30, 2020 OLR’s request for authorization to enter into a Negotiated Acquisition to solicit a Medicare Advantage plan under Medicare Part C for the Medicare eligible retirees and dependents of the City of New York who are eligible for the City’s Health Benefits Program was approved by the City Chief Procurement Officer; and

WHEREAS,

OLR issued a public notice for a negotiated acquisition (EPIN:0021N002) in conformance with the New York City Procurement Policy Board Rules (“PPB”) and had otherwise advertised in order to solicit vendors through the Notice of Intent to provide health benefits services in the form of a Medicare Advantage plan under Medicare Part C for the Medicare eligible retirees and dependents of the City of New York who are eligible for the City’s Health Benefits Program; and

WHEREAS,

the Retiree Health Alliance (“the Alliance”), a strategic alliance between Empire and EmblemHealth Plan, Inc. (“EmblemHealth”) and their affiliates, submitted a response for such services, as provided for in the public notice for a negotiated acquisition, in the form of an expression of interest to OLR; responses were evaluated by an evaluation committee pursuant to PPB Section 3-04; and

WHEREAS,

OLR determined the Alliance’s proposal to be most advantageous to the City, taking into consideration technical expertise, price, contract terms, M/WBE Utilization Plan and other factors set forth in the negotiated acquisition solicitation; and

WHEREAS,

the City desires to appoint the Alliance to provide a Medicare Advantage Plan Under Medicare Part C for City of New York Retirees, and their Dependents, and

NOW, THEREFORE,

in consideration of the terms and conditions contained herein, the parties hereby agree as follows:

  ARTICLE 1 - PURPOSE
The Alliance will provide health insurance coverage to the Group’s eligible retirees and other eligible individuals as described in this MA Agreement. Empire is accountable for the operations, compliance, and performance of the MA Plan. EmblemHealth is an entity contracting with Empire to administer portions of this co-branded product to help ensure the City’s retirees receive continuity of care and membership support.

Specifically, EmblemHealth will co-manage the account, provide a professional network in the downstate New York area, deliver care through Neighborhood Health Centers, and support Empire in multiple areas of plan performance. ...

Update: Appeal - June 10 - Nespoli Case - Trial Court Decision (May 11, 2021) - Tier 6 - Sanitation - Corrections - DA Investigators

Update

The decision was appealed on 6/10/2021 -- Check index number = 159601-2016

Decision

Finally on May 11, 2021 the trial court issued a decision on the Nespoli Tier 6 case.

After four and half years the judge got it wrong and decidied in favor of NYCERS.

The five page decision was particularly flimsy considering that he took four and half years to write his decision. He basically said that NYCERS is the expert and he sees no reason to overturn the agency's decision.

He ignores the fact that the agency made one decision in 2012 and then changed its position in 2016. That does not sound like the agency is an expert.

He also ignores the NYS Constitution prohibiting the impairment of pension rights.

For argument's sake, let's assume that NYCERS got it wrong the first time. NYCERS should then have presented a well-reasoned explanation of why it changed its mind. The judge did not state any rationale presented by NYCERS supporting its change in position. He only quoted a definition from the Tier 6 law and said that the NYCERS interpretation of the definition was rational. He just deferred to NYCERS without any analysis.

Simple Analysis of the Tier 6 Law

I was the NYCERS expert for 14 years from 1990 to 2005.

Here is my analysis of the Tier 6 Sanitation/Correction/DA-Investigator Issue.

As background, the 2012 Tier 6 legislation was a 100 plus page law that tried to retrofit restrictions on many existing NYS pension laws instead of starting from scratch and creating a standalone tier with reduced benefits for new members. It would have been much easier to write the law and much easier to administer it.

Currently as part of the Tier 6 law,

Section 600 of the RSSL reads as follows:

§ 600. Application. a. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the provisions of this article shall apply to all members who join or rejoin a public retirement system of the state on or after July first, nineteen hundred seventy-six and to all employees who would have been eligible to join or rejoin such a retirement system on or after such date but in lieu thereof elected an optional retirement program to which their employers are thereby required to contribute,

except the following:

1. Members of the New York state and local police and fire retirement system;

2. (a) Members in the uniformed personnel in institutions under the jurisdiction of the department of corrections and community supervision of New York state, other than certain persons as defined in this section or the New York city department of correction. ... 3. Members of the New York city police pension fund or the New York city fire department pension fund; 4. Members qualified for participation in the uniformed transit police force plan or housing police force plan in the New York city employees' retirement system;

5. Investigator members of the New York city employees' retirement system; and

6. Members of the uniformed force of the New York city department of sanitation who join or rejoin a public retirement system of the state on or after April first, two thousand twelve.

In the event that there is a conflict between the provisions of this article and the provisions of any other law or code, the provisions of this article shall govern.

Section 440.e of the RSSL reads as follows:

e. Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, the provisions and limitations of this article shall apply, as may be appropriate, to all investigator members of the New York city employees' retirement system

who last joined such retirement system on or after July first, nineteen hundred seventy-six, and

prior to the effective date of the chapter of the laws of two thousand twelve which amended this subdivision.

and Section 501a.6 reads as follows

25. "New York city uniformed correction/sanitation revised plan member" shall mean a member who becomes subject to the provisions of this article on or after April first, two thousand twelve, and who is a member of either the uniformed force of the New York city department of correction or the uniformed force of the New York city department of sanitation.

Quite simply Tier 6 clearly allows NYCERS members who join a pension plan prior to 4/1/2012 to stay in Tier 4 (or Tier 2) even if they become Sanitation workers (or DA-Investigators) after 4/1/2012.

Since 1983, the start of Tier 4, a NYC Correction Force worker have been exluded from Tier 4 and forced into Tier 3. So that a NYCERS member who joined a NY public pension plan before 4/1/2012 and then became a Correction Officer would have been forced into Tier 3 with his/her original membership date. This would mean that the member became subject to Article 14 before 4/1/2012 and therefore not fall under the definition of a revised plan member.

It is therefore clear that Tier 6 respected the NYS Constitution's pension protection. All the petitioners specifically joined a NY public pension plan before 4/1/2102. By the wording of the Tier 6 law, they are not included in the new Tier 6 pension benefit structure. There is no issue here. NYCERS needs a class in reading comprehension.

The Key Point

Of course, the key issue in this case is not the wording of the Tier 6 law but the protection of pension rights by the NYS Constitution. As of the date a person becomes a member of NYCERS, the NYS Constitution prevents all subsequent legislation from diminishing or impairng the member's pension benefits. That means that Tier 6 legislation can have no negative impact on pre-April 1, 2012 NYCERS members nor members of any of the other six NY public pension plans. This is black letter law in New York State. The judge never addresses the key issue in this dispute.

This decision must be appealed but time drags on for the members being pounded by NYCERS

Update on Nespoli Tier 6 Litigation - Outrageous Delay

The Nespoli Tier 6 case is dragging on forever. The members' lawyer just wrote a letter to the judge asking what the hell he/she is doing about this case. Of course, she was more diplomatic than my phrasing.

Update on Nespoli Case - Attack on Sanitation Workers Pension Rights - 2019

December 16, 2019: still no action from the trial court, three years later.

Update: On July 1, 2019 after a year and half delay the court scheduled a settlement conference for August 7, 2019. On August 2, 2019, Corp Counsel submitted a written request for a delay until after September 3, 2019 due to his vacation schedule. This case is almost three years old having started in November 2016. The court has yet to schedule a new date.

Perviously I have written about the Nespoli case dealing with NYCERS's attempt to force Tier 4 NYCERS members into the Tier 6 Sanitation Plan when they were appointed as Sanitiation workers. This legal action started on November 15, 2016.

Finally on Jan 22, 2018, NYCERS provided a written argument attempting to justify its position. On February 23, 2018 Nespoli was able to rebut NYCERS's flawed logic. I consider NYCERS's arguments particularly dishonest and lame.

You can read both arguments on the NYS Court Scroll web site referring to the folllowing Index# 159601-2016 for NY County.

Update on the Nespoli Case

Perviously I have written about the Nespoli case dealing with NYCERS's attempt to force Tier 4 NYCERS members into the Tier 6 Sanitation Plan when they were appointed as Sanitiation workers. This legal action started on November 15, 2016.

Finally on Jan 22, 2018, NYCERS provided a written argument attempting to justify its position. On February 23, 2018 Nespoli was able to rebut NYCERS's flawed logic. I consider NYCERS's arguments particularly dishonest and lame.

You can read both arguments on the NYS Court Scroll web site referring to the folllowing index number = 159601-2016 for NY County.

Nespoli v. NYCERS: Unlawful Denial of Tier 4 Rights for Correction Officers, Sanitation Workers, and DA Investigators

Last January 2, 2017 I wrote a posting about how NYCERS was forcing current Tier 4 members into Tier 6 at the point when they started working as a Sanitation Workers after leaving another city job covered by NYCERS. NYCERS has not given any legal justification for this action. Tier 6 went into effect for NEW NYCERS members as of April 1, 2012. It has no impact on members who joined before that date.

This action by NYCERS is clearly an illegal. In New York State the pension rights of state and local government employees are protected from being reduced by the N.Y.S. Constitution, Article V, Section 7. (Klienfeldt v NYCERS, 36 NY.2d 95 (1975) and CSEA v Regan, 71 NY2d 653 (1988))

Klienfeldt:

The Supreme Court declared the statute unconstitutional as applied to plaintiff and all others similarly situated who became members of a public retirement system prior to April 1, 1972, the "effective date" of the statute. The court held that plaintiff is entitled to receive a retirement allowance based upon his full final salary for the 12-month period immediately preceding his retirement, without consideration of the statutory limitation. The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed.

There should be a modification. Subdivision 4 of section 431 of the Retirement and Social Security Law, as applied to any civil service employee who became a member of a public retirement system prior to its effective, independent of its operative, date, prescribes a diminution and impairment of the benefits of membership in the retirement system, in violation of the Constitution. However, the effective date of subdivision 4 of section 431 is June 17, 1971, the date of its enactment, and not April 1, 1972, the operative date from which excess compensation, as defined in the statute, would no longer be included in final average salary. Thus, the statutory limitation may not be applied to those who became members before June 17, 1971.

Regan:

New York Constitution, article V, § 7 was adopted in 1938 in response to Roddy v Valentine ( 268 N.Y. 228). This court there held that retirement benefits were not contractual and could be legislatively altered until the member actually retired (see, Public Employees Fedn. v Cuomo, 62 N.Y.2d 450, 459; Birnbaum v New York State Teachers Retirement Sys., 5 N.Y.2d 1, 8). In response to Roddy, article V, § 7 provides in pertinent part that "membership in any pension or retirement system of the state or of a civil division thereof shall be a contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired" (NY Const, art V, § 7 [emphasis supplied]).

The rights of public employees are thus fixed as of the time the employee becomes a member of the system.

On November 15, 2016 Harry Nespoli and the Sanitation Workers' local, U.S.A. Local 831, I.B.T. filed an action against NYCERS over this issue ( index number = 159601-2016 , NY County). Usually you can track the progress of this litigation using the NYS Court on-line system, the SCROLL web site.

The action has been dragging on since then over procedural issues. Based on a November 13, 2017 procedural court decision, Nespoli has until December 8, 2017 to file his Article 78 action. These filings are now on the SCROLL web site, happy reading. NYCERS and the city has until January 5th to respond and Nespoli has until January 19 to reply.

I suspect that some idiot at NYCERS initiated this misguided action in the same way some idiot attacked the Correction Officers military service rights in McGarrigle v City of New York back in 2004. Once the Law Department gets the bit in their teeth, however, they won't ever let go. Even if they know they are wrong. I found this out the hard way when I was NYCERS executive director. When I told the Law Department that the NYCERS legal division had made a serious mistake with the Correction Officers military service rights, I was told that once they start an action, they can't back off. Our tax dollars at work!

In addition, this unsupported action by NYCERS denying Tier 4 rights raises serious questions about how to process Tier 4 members transferring in from other NYS retirement systems like the new NYCERS executive director. She was a Tier 4 member with NYSLERS before moving to NYCERS. It also raises issues with how NYC Police Pension Fund and FDNY Pension Fund are processing new members who have pre-2009 and pre-2012 Tier 4 memberships in other NYS pension systems.

Tier 4 Sanitation Workers Being Forced into Tier 6 - also Correction Officers and DA Investigators

Two months ago in the beginning of November, NYCERS started sending letters to a group of Tier 4 Sanitation Workers. The letters stated that NYCERS had incorrectly put them in the Tier 4 Sanitation 20 Year Plan.

This group of Sanitation Workers had NYCERS membership dates prior to April 1, 2012 but had stared working as Sanitation Workers after April 1, 2012, the date that Tier 6 became effective. Originally, NYCERS had correctly placed these members in the Tier 4 Sanitation Plan.

Now NYCERS, ignoring their pre April 1, 2012 membership dates, was stating that since they started working as Sanitation Workers after April 1, 2012, NYCERS was stripping them of their Tier 4 rights and putting them in Tier 6. This was a serious reduction in their benefits. This problem will continue to occur whenever a Tier 4 member becomes a Sanitation Worker, Correction Officer, or DA Investigator.

In New York State the pension rights of state and local government employees are protected from being reduced by the N.Y.S. Constitution, Article V, Section 7. (Klienfeldt v NYCERS, 36 NY.2d 95 (1975) and CSEA v Regan, 71 NY2d 653 (1988))

In addition to violating members' contractual rights guaranteed under the N.Y.S. Constitution, NYCERS provided

1. no legal analysis supporting this change in procedure,
2. no pre-deprivation hearing to the members to allow them to challenge this negative decision,
3. no notice to these members that they have 120 days to file an Article 78 in N.Y.S. Courts to fight this arbitrary and capricious decision.

And finally in classic NYCERS fashion, these letters were not signed.

To rub salt in the wound, NYCERS told these members that all of their Tier 4 Sanitation contributions plus interest would be refunded to them along with the resulting tax liability that would adhere to that refund. Of course, they will have to repay this money with interest in the Tier 6 plan.

I now know that there are comparable groups of Correction Officers and DA Investigators who have been illegally forced in Tier 6. I'm not sure whether they were all given notice.

The NYCERS operating budget is fully funded by the assets of the members and retirees of NYCERS. Why is NYCERS so hostile to the membership? This atrocious legal decision by both D'Alessandro and Mazza is another sign of the total chaos occurring at NYCERS.

Listed below is the new wording added in 2012 which created the Tier 6 Sanitation/Correction membership. A member becomes subject to an article of the Retirement and Social Security Law as of their membership date not their employment date.

25. "New York city uniformed correction/sanitation revised plan member" shall mean a member who becomes subject to the provisions of this article on or after April first, two thousand twelve, and who is a member of either the uniformed force of the New York city department of correction or the uniformed force of the New York city department of sanitation. (Section 501.25 of the NYS-RSSL)