Andrew Cuomo (Paul Martinka)
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As Mayor Bloomberg yesterday jumped into the ad wars over Gov. Cuomo’s pension-reform proposal, a senior Cuomo-administration official expressed confidence that the bulk of the plan will be passed as part of this year’s state budget.
“I think we get there,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But an agreement between Cuomo and state lawmakers won’t include an option for future public employees to substitute a 401(k)-style plan for a traditional “defined benefit” pension, Capitol insiders said.
Bloomberg and fellow local-government leaders are planning a statewide advertising campaign in support of the Cuomo plan, with one source putting the ad buy at seven figures that the mayor will bankroll.
“Too often in Albany, it is only the special interests that are heard,” Bloomberg told the Long Island Association, a group of business leaders.
“We want to make sure that the people are heard.”
Cuomo has “flexibility on the margins” to negotiate his Tier VI pension proposal in budget talks with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI), said the administration official. But any negotiated changes must produce similar savings.
Cuomo says his plan to require future public employees to contribute more toward their pensions, work longer before vesting and retiring, and be barred from padding their retirement payouts through overtime would save the state, city and other localities $113 billion over 30 years.
Just $8 billion of the projected savings would come from the 401(k) option — which Cuomo himself has indicated he could forgo for a deal on the major elements of the plan.
Silver, Skelos and their members — who all face re-election this year — receive major campaign contributions and organizational help from labor unions, which staunchly oppose Tier VI.
Bloomberg’s decision to buy ads comes on the heels of a $2.5 million ad campaign launched by the business group, the Committee to Save New York.
The unions have taken to the airwaves with ads slamming the proposal — and this week brought an inflatable, cigar-chomping “pig” to the Capitol to underscore their argument that Wall Street is to blame for skyrocketing pension costs.
The state AFL-CIO called for allowing pension funds to recoup losses caused by securities fraud. But Cuomo — a former state attorney general — warned about such an expansion of New York’s Martin Act, already a powerful prosecutorial tool.
Also yesterday, about two dozen Transport Workers Union members chanted outside Cuomo’s Capitol office urging him to reject his own reform plan.
It’s not clear what legislators would get for supporting the governor’s agenda other than a second straight on-time budget and additional achievements to claim — election-year pluses the Cuomo-administration official said should not be underestimated.