DiNapoli goes after pension abusers

In the shadow of the big blockbuster issues, a reform bill aimed at cracking down on pension abuse received relatively quiet legislative approval last week in Albany. How much money it could save the state, and how many violators it would catch, remain a matter of guesswork due to the thousands of separate government units statewide that may be involved.

The legislation, awaiting Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's signature, was championed by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who first took the office stemming from a huge but unrelated pension-fund scandal involving his predecessor. It authorizes the comptroller, as chief of the state's retirement system, to check the Department of Taxation and Finance's wage reporting system for retirees working for local governments and how much they earn.

Under state law, most retirees under 65 may earn no more than $30,000 per calendar year without pension penalty. But in scattered cases, the local salaries involved were discovered to exceed the set totals, perhaps following years of abuse. The comptroller currently checks the rolls of state and school-district staffs -- but without the legislation "no similar mechanism existed to check payroll information of the thousands of local public employers statewide," DiNapoli says.

The tax law includes privacy restrictions meant to protect individuals.

Democrat DiNapoli has all the incentive in the world to show reform in this area. DiNapoli won election last year by about 200,000 votes out of 4.5 million cast. Republican candidate Harry Wilson tried tying him to the questionable status quo. Before that, tension was reported between the comptroller and then-attorney general Cuomo over probes into the earlier scandals. And, at some point, the old issue of whether the comptroller should remain sole trustee of the pension system is bound to come up again.

MYSTERY MEMO: Assembly Deputy Speaker Earlene Hooper (D-Hempstead) said she and Nassau Executive Edward Mangano signed a memo of understanding to distribute $1 million a year more to Hempstead and Freeport villages, thus clearing the way for revenue bills deemed key to county finances to win legislative approval last week. Yet neither party to the agreement was making copies of the document public -- even if it was signed by elected officials acting in their government capacity. So all seems very opaque. One potentially thorny question: Might this change in spending practice require Nassau Interim Finance Authority approval?