Andrew Cuomo's budget plan would reform pensions

As someone who has famously proclaimed, "I am the government," Gov. Andrew Cuomo must find the governor's limited role in the state's schools particularly galling. So, for the last two weeks, Cuomo has made it clear he no longer will stand on the sidelines while others run education here.


In his State of the State speech and in comments on Martin Luther King Day, Cuomo plunged into the school wars and poised himself to take on the state's teachers unions. He is expected to continue this campaign in his budget address today.


If the governor, who has a relatively skimpy record on education, gets more involved in schools, what exactly will he do? Who will benefit? And who will lose?


The governor heralded his entrance into education disputes in his State of the State speech two weeks ago. In that address, he announced he would appoint an education commission and that he would serve as a lobbyist for the state's children who, he declared have no one representing them.


Because of the timing, most attention focused on what Cuomo and his commission might do on teacher evaluations. The day before, State Education Commissioner John King had announced he would suspend federal funding for failing schools for districts that had not reached agreement on a new teacher evaluation system. This could cost New York City, one of the 10 districts affected, $60 million for 33 schools.


The plan would increase the minimum retirement age and the number of years before someone can qualify for a pension. It would also hike worker contributions and make it more difficult to boost pension benefits through the use of excessive overtime.


Cuomo’s concept would save the city and state tens of billions of dollars over the next three decades, the sources said.


Last year, Cuomo introduced a pension reform plan late in the legislative session that did not include city workers, but it was rebuffed by the Legislature.


Despite the governor’s sky-high favorability rating — 73% in a Siena College poll out Monday — sources said adding the plan to the budget would maximize his leverage.


“Remember the politics here,” Cuomo said Monday, without tipping his hand to his plan. “It’s hard to reform a pension system. It affects many public employees, very powerful public employee unions, and politically it’s difficult to get the Legislature to do this.”


The public worker unions have said they will vehemently oppose any pension changes, arguing they have already given ground. The move comes two years after the state created a less generous pension tier, and a year after the unions accepted concession-laden contracts.


Meanwhile, the governor’s proposal for a $132 billion budget would cut total spending by $200 million, a source said. The state operations portion of the budget, which does not include federal funds, would grow by just under Cuomo’s self-imposed 2% cap.


His blueprint closes a $2 billion deficit and hikes education and health care spending by 4% without raising broad-based taxes and fees.


He’ll seek to merge various state agencies while cutting the funding of others up to 2.5%, sources said.


And sources said he will use his budget to call for the creation of a state health care exchange to comply with federal health law.