GilfordGrok

In the latest article of what is a very well done series, the New York Times (yes, the NYT - it’s amazing what happens when you don’t inject opinion into news stories) examines the detrimental effect the cost of government pensions and health care on a New York town of Rockport.

Cities across New York State are only now starting to grapple with the so-called legacy costs of pensions and retiree health care benefits, and the situation in Lockport — with its rising property taxes and strained budget — is emblematic of what other cities may face in the future.

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Lockport’s pension costs for public workers have increased more than tenfold since 2000, to $1.6 million projected for this year, from $111,083. During the same period, the cost of providing medical coverage to city workers and retirees has risen 71 percent. Together, pension and health care costs have grown to 14.5 percent of the city’s budget last year, up from 7.6 percent in 2000.

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The Lockport city government has regularly made concessions in past contract talks with its five unions, agreeing at various points to reduce the number of years that police officers and firefighters must work before they can retire, to 20 years instead of 25, and then granting them additional benefits for extra years of work. Such enhancements, which typically do not show up on city balance sheets for years, are often used to wrest shorter-term savings from unions.

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And as they are in the private sector, health care costs are soaring. City workers in Lockport do not pay monthly health insurance premiums, except for some new hires in their first two years of service, something that is increasingly rare in the private sector.

Like politicians (of both parties) in other states and in Congress, past officials in Rockport (corrected by GG "Lockwood") were too cowardly to face the simple fact that providing “free” health care and retirement for their workers was financially unsustainable.  If this was a private company (which employed many Rockport residents and is another example of what happens when you make unrealistic promises) it would have been sued by its shareholders and out of business by now. But so long as the politicians can put future generations of taxpayers on the hook for the cost, when they are long out of office, they will keep doing so.

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And who is stuck paying the price. The taxpayers of course.  And the current mayor, who deserves credit for at least trying to take steps to stop the bleeding...