Chief Leader – November 25, 2014
by SARAH DORSEY
Cops aren’t the only ones mad as hell about the paltry disability benefits those hired over the past five years have been saddled with—firefighters say they’re not going to take it anymore either.
Uniformed Firefighters Association President Stephen J. Cassidy, standing in front of City Hall Nov. 19 on a frigid morning with about 300 of his members, decried the 2009 veto by then-Gov. David Paterson that stripped cops and firefighters disabled by line-of-duty injuries of a tax-free pension equal to 75 percent of their final average salary.
Major Cut in Benefits
Back then, Mr. Paterson vetoed a bill extending Tier 2 disability benefits to new hires, one that had been routinely renewed since 1976, when Tier 3 took effect for other city workers. With that veto, cops and firefighters hired in 2010 or later fell under Tier 3, which doesn’t provide any extra benefits for line-of-duty injuries. Disabled cops and firefighters now receive only a taxable 50-percent pension, offset by half of any Social Security benefits accepted.
That works out to between 33 and 44 percent of a three-year final average salary. A new hire on a probationary firefighter’s salary who was forced to retire because of a job-related disability would get only about $27 a day from the city.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has been pushing for a return to the old disability benefits, especially after two cops this year were seriously injured on the job and may have to retire on the meager funds: one who was mauled with a hatchet last month and another who suffered heavy smoke poisoning at a housing-project fire in April.
Mr. Cassidy said the fire unions are working with their police counterparts to pressure the City Council to submit a home-rule message allowing state legislators to make the change. Mayor de Blasio opposes reinstating the 75-percent benefit, saying the city can’t afford it, and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced her opposition Nov. 18. But Mr. Cassidy said it was crucial.
Affects Job Performance
“The public does not want firefighters and police officers worried about what will happen to them if they get hurt,” he said. “You can’t do your job if you’re worried about who’s going to take care of your family. This is a public-safety issue.”
He added, “Let us have equal benefits whether you have one day on the job or 35 years.”
He was surrounded by members of his executive board and that of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
“We protect the elderly. We protect the children. We protect those who cannot protect themselves,” said UFOA President James Lemonda. “There was a moral contract—a commitment from our city—that in the performance of our duty, if we were seriously injured, they would take care of our families.”
City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, who chairs the Fire and Criminal Justice Services Committee, announced that she’d introduce a home-rule resolution Nov. 26. It would allow lawmakers to move ahead on a state bill to reinstate the 75-percent disability benefit. Such proposals were introduced earlier this year by Assemblyman Peter J. Abbate Jr. and State Sen. Martin J. Golden, but couldn’t be considered in Albany because the Council didn’t submit a home-rule message.
“The city simply wants to save money,” Ms. Crowley said. “But we cannot cut corners when it comes to the public safety of New Yorkers.”
‘Significant Support’
Asked if she thought she had the votes, Ms. Crowley replied, “You know, it’s hard to say, but I’ve spoken to a few of my colleagues and there’s a significant amount of support. I think many of my colleagues do not even know that this disparity exists and that our new emergency workers are not protected.”
Robert North, the recently-departed Chief City Actuary, estimated that restoring the benefits to police officers could cost the city $35 million a year, a figure cited by both the Mayor and the business-funded Citizens Budget Commission in opposing the move. Mr. Cassidy said the figure for firefighters, who have hired far fewer members since 2010, was only $1.9 million.
But he and the police unions challenge those numbers, saying the cost would be that high only if far more members were disabled than in the past.
“They calculate that number based on every single new hire getting a disability pension,” Mr. Cassidy said. “That’s not the case, that’s not gonna happen, those numbers are inflated.”
‘Just Pennies in Budget’
“This is just pennies in comparison with the overall budget and especially even if you just look at the cost of running the Fire Department or the Police Department, it’s a fraction of a fraction of a percent,” Ms. Crowley said.
The UFA ran a full-page advertisement in the New York Post Nov. 19 slamming the Council for holding a hearing on raising taxes on plastic bags but not addressing the disability issue.
The PBA accused the Council of blocking e-mails by supporters of the home-rule measure, but Ms. Mark-Viverito’s spokeswoman said they were merely delayed by a server glitch, Capital New York reported last week.
At the rally, two firefighters hired in the same 2012 class said they knew about the low disability pay before they joined the force. They declined to give their names, but indicated that one now works in Manhattan and the other in Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn firefighter said he had a wife and daughter and worried about what would happen if he were injured.
‘Shame I Have to Worry’
“It’s the greatest job in the world and I’m happy to be here and I’m happy to do it,” he said, adding that he believed when he came on that there were changes “in the works” to boost the disability pay, and he’s hopeful that the UFA’s efforts will be successful.
“It’s very unfortunate that it’s something I have to worry about every single time I go to work or every time I go to a fire. I have to worry about if I’m going to get hurt,” the Manhattan firefighter said. He later added, “I think about it, it’s kind of a blind ignorance. You think, ‘It’ll never happen to me, I’ll never need it.’ Maybe that’s part of why I still came” on the job despite the diminished benefit. “But that’s what everyone thinks until it happens to them.”
Giselle King, who entered the department in June, said she was moved by the support she was getting.
“It’s amazing; they’re fighting for us to get it back,” she said of the older firefighters at the rally. “A lot of the people who are here are already in the other tier system, so they’re already taken care of, but they care about the future of this job and about the generations coming up in the job. So I felt a responsibility…to be here, because if they’re fighting for me, I gotta be out here fighting for myself.”
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