NY has tried several times in several ways to get their hands on the pension fund. At some point they are going to be successful.
Our pension is guaranteed, Sure. But if there is no money to pay it, then what?
And to those who think we should work for free and that we get these great pensions, I will probably get just enough to cover my health insurance, if that, when I retire at 67. And I won’t have any more dental or vision coverage. And no I don’t make a 6 figure salary.
That’s for working in a maximum security prison helping to keep the trash you all want locked up, locked in.
I spent 25 years in uniform in NY State corrections. I'd previously worked for the county in Rochester, NY and Utica, NY. I was in Tier I when I first got out of high school. I got married and had kids. Because I was out of the pension system for more than 5 years, when I went to work for the county in Utica, I was placed in Tier 3.
I started out at Auburn. When I first got there, I made an appointment with the pension fund in Albany, and made arrangements to buy my Tier I time back. I spent a little over 3 years at Auburn until they opened a medium security A level prison in Marcy, NY, so I got to move back home.
I made Sergeant in 1989 after waiting five years for promotion, while the State promoted minorities with a lower score ahead of me. The year I took the Sergeant's exam was the one and only time that the State gave minorities extra points. I'm a 78 year old white female, and the ironic thing about it all, was, at the time, there were fewer white female officers and Sergeants working in the department.
Sometime in the late 90's or early 2000, Carl McCall, who was the State Comptroller at the time, introduced a Bill to the State Legislature that would allow individuals who had originally been in Tier I, and had a break in service, to reapply for Tier I status, if they met certain criteria. I applied and was accepted back in Tier I, however, all the money I had contributed as a Tier 3 member remained with the State. I took a reduced pension amount, so that if I died within 15 years of retirement, my sons would get what was left. Well, that 15 years came and went. My pension fund is defunct now, because I happened to live longer than the 15 years the State expected me to.