Watch out: Gov. Kathy Hochul is looking to send your property taxes soaring.
Sure she’s vowed not to raise taxes, as she runs for re-election talking “affordability.”
But she evidently thinks New Yorkers won’t connect the dots if she forces local governments to hike taxes.
Here’s the tell: At a union rally Sunday, the gov promised teachers and other public-sector employees she is “fighting for a fairer pension plan.”
She and they both know exactly what that means, since the unions have launched a full-court press to roll back reforms that have managed to slow taxpayers’ spiraling costs for public pensions.
The pretense is that rules passed more than a decade ago under Govs. David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo are somehow crippling New York governments, as newer hires (Tier 5 and 6 employees) don’t get as obscenely sweet a deal as older ones.
Yet even recent hires get far better deals than most private-sector folks.
As the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin notes, New York’s public employees, unlike 86% of those in the private sector, get fixed benefits when they retire — and benefits guaranteed by taxpayers.
If Hochul were truly fighting for “fairer” plans, she’d push to remove perks that government employees vastly better benefits than everyone else’s.
That would dramatically lower costs for New York taxpayers, a real boon to fairness and “affordability.”
No such luck.
The unions are powerful, you see, a key source of political donations and campaign organizing: That’s why New York Republicans aren’t sounding alarms over this cash-grab.
Again, nothing is fair about ditching these reforms, particular one requiring employees to contribute up to 6% of their pay toward their pension plans.
The unions are also demanding rules to let their members retire with full benefits at 55 instead of 63.
Never mind the pricey rollbacks and sweeteners the unions have already won under Hochul.
Yet it seems she’ll keep on doing their bidding, using taxpayer dollars: Girardin cites a jaw-dropping $100 billion cost spike ($20,000 per New York family) if Hochul goes along, a hit that goes directly on taxpayers, mostly through local property-tax hikes.
Think Mayor Zohran Mandani’s 9.5% property-tax hike will be painful? Just wait until local governments have to come up with extra cash for Hochul’s union bribes.
Worse, the rollbacks would put the state back on the unsustainable path that Paterson and Cuomo rescued it from, when pension costs rose a stunning ten-fold, from $1 billion in 2000 to $10 billion just 10 years later — sending property taxes through the roof.
Oh, and once employees get those better plans, no one — per the state Constitution — can ever reduce them.
New Yorkers will be suffering for decades.
Hochul must have her fingers crossed behind her back every time she says “affordability.”
