Double dipping and lulus

Yes, I did see that New York Times story the other day about the "double dipping" by state legislators who manage to collect a simultaneous pension and salary for the same job. One of them is Albany's own Assemblyman Jack McEneny, a Democrat who turned 65 years old and accordingly "retired last year but kept his seat in the Assembly chamber, [and] now earns $94,500 and a pension of about $73,000. ... Mr. McEneny explained how the system worked. 'You have to have a day without being on the payroll,' he said. 'You take the last day of your term, New Year's Eve, and then you resign. On January 1, you come back as the newly elected assemblyman.' ”

An Assembly member earns $79,500 a year, and it is additional leadership stipends, or lulus, that bump up the salaries of most of them, including McEneny. But such stipends are hard to come by for Assembly Democrats because there are so many of them, and the lulus are customarily allocated by seniority. Which raises the question: If a legislator resigns his seat in order to collect a pension, and then resumes it in order to collect a salary, shouldn't that cost him his seniority and lulus? (I called McEneny's office a few hours ago to ask him about this, and will update the post if he gets back to me.)

I have no doubt McEneny does a conscientious and competent job in his leadership roles, and don't suppose state government would be improved by removing him from them. Nor do I doubt his genuine commitment to workers rights. But is it any wonder that the Legislature is always passing pension sweeteners and other bills promoted by public-employee unions which contribute to their campaigns, when they themselves are also beneficiaries of pensions and other benefits beyond the wildest dreams of the vast majority of their constituents?

Comments

[Luke]

It's this bottomless pit of pension eligibility that makes it impossible for New York to ever balance itself fiscally. So long as we stay on this road to insolvency all the year-in year-out budget tinkering doesn't mean a thing. They guys are just taking advantage of a broken system, just like everyone else. Resigning on the last day of your term in order to qualify is pretty unbelievable though. Has this always been going on?!