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De Blasio Surprises Police and Fire Unions With New Disability Package

 Mayor announced sudden reversal on position and proposed improving  disability pensions for new cops, firemen, sanitation workers and correction officers to close inequity with injured veteran colleagues.
Mayor announced sudden reversal on position and proposed improving disability pensions for new cops, firemen, sanitation workers and correction officers to close inequity with injured veteran colleagues.
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DNAinfo/Jeff Mays

MANHATTAN — Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed Wednesday to raise disability pensions for police officers and firefighters who were hired after 2009, injured in the line of duty and unable to return to work.

Those officers and firefighters were put into a second pension tier entitling them to fewer benefits than those hired prior.

To address the inequity, highlighted in stories by DNAinfo New York, the mayor announced that “brave public servants put their lives on the line each day to protect this city-and today we are letting them know: we are there for you too.”

But the largest police and fire unions immediately brushed aside the surprise announcement in a joint statement.

They called de Blasio's proposal “unacceptable” and that it “continues to create a second-class citizen status for FDNY firefighters and NYPD police officers, leaving in place a two tiered disability structure with some police officers and firefighters having adequate disability protections and others with inferior benefits."

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch and Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steven Cassidy also bristled at getting a “brief and last minute” call from the Mayor’s office before the late afternoon announcement.

A two-tiered disability system was created six years ago under Gov. David Paterson where police officers and firefighters hired after July 2009 who were disabled in the line of duty were no longer entitled to a traditional tax-free pension calculated at three-quarters of their final year’s salary.

Instead, the newer members of New York’s Finest and Bravest would receive pensions equal to 50 percent of their final year’s salary — and the city’s contribution would be further reduced by half of any Social Security disability payments they would receive.

In April 2014, DNAinfo New York first reported that Officer Rosa Rodriguez, who was critically injured in a Brooklyn fire that killed her partner, would be the first officer in city history to receive the reduced disability pension — which would be $25,000-a-year less than if she were hired before July 2009.

After rookie Officer Kenneth Healey was slammed in the head by a hatchet-wielding man, DNAinfo New York disclosed that Healey was eligible for just $27 a day from the city in disability pay.

Before Wednesday, de Blasio opposed changing the disability pay discrepancy, insisting it would cost the city tens of millions. And the unions were planning a demonstration at City Hall last week, but it was postponed after the murder of NYPD Officer Brian Moore.

But City Hall suddenly announced his improved package late Wednesday afternoon, catching the unions by surprise.

Under the mayor’s proposal, the city is restoring two key pieces of the old system.

It would no longer reduce the city’s contribution for any Social Security disability funds a disabled officer might receive. And there would now also be cost of living increases similar to veteran colleagues. 

And the newer employees would be 50 percent of either their final average salary or the top pay they would have received if they were on the job for five years. That is an improvement, but still 25 percent less than their veteran colleagues.

De Blasio’s shift on pensions is the latest in a series of pro-police moves by him since New York’s Finest turned their backs on him following the execution of two NYPD officers in Brooklyn last December.

Roy Richter, president of the NYPD captain’s union, took a glass half full approach to the Mayor’s plan.

"This proposal is a welcome step in the right direction," he said, "but I will continue to lobby for an equal benefit for all offices regardless of tier."