{"id":308887,"date":"2026-07-29T17:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308887\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T17:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:32:10","slug":"nyc-employee-pension-payments-rise-to-6-2-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308887\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Employee Pension Payments Rise To $6.2 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The pension plan covering most New York city government agencies, including the City\u2019s subway system, had 62 members with pension payments of at least $200,000 last year, according to\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/seethroughny.net\/pensions\/422591142\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new data posted\u202ftoday at SeeThroughNY.net<\/a>, the Empire Center\u2019s transparency website.<\/p>\n<p>According to the data collected from the New York City Employees\u2019 Retirement System (NYCERS), total payments climbed to $6.18 billion in 2025, a two percent increase from previous year ($6.05 billion).<\/p>\n<p>While the total number of pensioners grew only seven percent in the last five years \u2014 from 150,563 in 2020 to 160,982 in 2025, total pension benefits rose by 24 percent to $6.18 bn (from $4.99 bn). The number of six-figure pensioners doubled during this period to 3,219 (from 1,609 in 2020).<\/p>\n<p>Newly retired members (those retiring in calendar year 2024 and collecting their first full-year pension in 2025) included 4,784 \u201cfull career\u201d individuals\u2014those employees who had 20 or more years of service credit. The average pension received by \u201cfull career\u201d retirees was $62,582, with 490 receiving six-figure payouts, including nine pensioners who received more than $200,000.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785346330_129_full.png\" alt=\"NYCERS Pension Distribution (Scatter Plot)\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Among all retirees, the top pension payments\u00a0(excluding back pay)\u00a0went to:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Peter Stein, retired from the City\u2019s\u00a0Department of Parks &amp; Recreation\u00a0in 2025\u00a0\u2013 $570,419 in\u00a0total pension payments.\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\nNicolas Audi, retired from the Department of Environmental Protection\u00a0in 2018\u00a0\u2013 $341,487\u00a0in\u00a0total pension payments.\u00a0<br \/>\nWarren Murray Jr, retired from the\u00a0District Attorney\u2019s Office\u00a0in 2021\u00a0\u2013 $325,015 in\u00a0total pension payments.\u00a0<br \/>\nEileen\u00a0Barkow,\u00a0retired from the City\u2019s Department of Information, Technology and Telecommunications in 2023 \u2013 $297,130 in\u00a0total pension payments.\u00a0<br \/>\nRoger Smoke, retired from the\u00a0Health and Hospitals Corporation\u00a0in 2014\u00a0\u2013 $293,183 in\u00a0total pension.<\/p>\n<p>The Transit Authority had\u00a035,541 retirees \u2013\u00a0the\u00a0highest\u00a0among\u00a0all\u00a0agencies,\u00a0where retirees averaged a total pension\u00a0payment\u00a0of\u00a0$42,574. Among the larger agencies,\u00a0Department\u00a0of Correction Retirees averaged the highest at $56,366, followed by the Department of Sanitation ($47,923) and\u00a0Department\u00a0of Environmental Protection ($46,331).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785346330_302_full.png\" alt=\"NYCERS Pensions by Agency (Table)\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The pension payments included more than $52.7\u00a0million in \u201cback pay\u201d.\u00a0Sixteen\u00a0retirees collected over $100,000 in\u00a0back pay\u00a0with the largest being paid out\u00a0to Lucradia Riddick\u00a0of the\u00a0Administration\u00a0for Children\u2019s Services\u00a0who was paid $403,543\u00a0in\u00a0backpay\u00a0taking her total pension payment to $627,886.\u00a0In addition, Maxine Horne from\u00a0Department\u00a0of Social Services and Harold Ricks from the\u00a0Health and Hospitals Corporation\u00a0were paid $303,236 and $294,648 respectively in backpay during the calendar year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Although the reason for the backpay is not immediately clear from the data, NYCERS states that \u201cin most cases, the additional sums represent monies due to the retiree for allowances not previously received; the period covered by these retroactive payments can be greater than one year.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The total pension payments also include $118.4 million in\u00a0Variable Supplements Fund\u00a0(VSF)\u00a0payments\u00a0and $338.6 million in Cost-of-Living Adjustments.\u00a0The Variable Supplements Fund (VSF)\u00a0\u2013 more commonly known as\u00a0\u201choliday bonus\u201d is an annual fixed supplemental benefit of $12,000, paid in addition to the regular pensions and cost of living adjustments.\u00a094\u00a0percent\u00a0of all VSF dollars\u00a0went to Department of Correction retirees\u00a0during 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is worth noting that pension payments in New York are not subject to state and local income tax. A retiree with a $60,000 pension payment would save approximately $4,586\u00a0(7.64\u00a0percent) in state and local taxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pension plan covering most New York city government agencies, including the City\u2019s subway system, had 62 members&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,116863,63,51281,116864,134,136,135,38464],"class_list":["post-308887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny-public-payroll-watch","tag-nyc","tag-public-pensions","tag-seethroughny","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}