Each week on It's A Free Country we bring you Wonk Wars. This week, we're asking policy experts to react to the statement "Public Employees Get Too Many Benefits". Here is what our research found the two candidates for Governor say about the issue.
Andrew Cuomo (D):
- says public employee pensions are “disproportionate”
- has not said where he stands on moving NY workers away from pensions and towards 401ks (defined contribution).
- has investigated the padding of pensions through increasing overtime by public employees and created a webpage tracking the cases.
- says he'd end overtime spiking for newly hired police and firefighters
- promises to freeze wages for state workers.
- says he will seek creation of a multimember board of trustees to oversee the state retirement system.
Carl Paladino (R):
- wants to cancel pension plans and free healthcare for state legislators.
- says he will fire and re-hire the entire state workforce in order to force them to accept smaller retirement benefits.
- says he will find and eliminate the “‘well-connected brothers-in-law’ who are pretending to work in our bureaucracy”
- would rely on the state's rank and file to target persons "incapable for whatever reason of performing their functions at a cost productive level” in order to eliminate 60,000 jobs.
- would seek to eliminate numerous perks such as state-owned take-home vehicles.