| I wrote earlier about reports of creative legislative actuarial work that really suggests that legislators really aren't watching state finances too closely.
Today, the Times goes further, starting to add up the actual cost of bills passed with Schwartz's broken cost estimates:
An actuary paid by public employee unions and yet relied upon by the State Legislature to determine the cost of proposals affecting New York City's pension system underestimated their ultimate cost by at least $500 million, city documents and other records show.
In the hundreds of bills for which he has provided estimates to lawmakers since 2000, the actuary, Jonathan Schwartz, said legislation adjusting the pensions of public employees would have no cost, or limited cost, to the city.
But just 11 of the more than 50 bills vetted by Mr. Schwartz that have become law since 2000 will result in the $500 million in eventual costs, or more than $60 million annually, according to projections provided by Robert C. North Jr., the independent actuary of the city pension system, and by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's office.
Mr. North and other city employees made the calculations on the 11 bills when they were before the Legislature, but for the other bills, no alternative to Mr. Schwartz's projections could be found. The New York Times reported last month that in an arrangement that had not been publicly disclosed, Mr. Schwartz was being paid by labor unions. He acknowledged in an interview that he skewed his work to favor the public employees, calling his job "a step above voodoo."
20% of the bills this guy wrote about, and the tally for that is $500 million? It's not exactly encouraging. (Okay, most of it's in one bill, but what does it all add up to?)
It's both parties, both houses:
Despite legislative leaders' assertions that they undertake independent financial analyses of the pension bills, neither the Senate nor the Assembly could provide any records to bolster that claim.
And sometimes the City Council seems to have fallen for it too.
There's a lot more detail in the article, little of it encouraging, though though both houses say they'll try to make sure it never happens again. (The Senate is proposing changes to rules; the Assembly seems just to have halted consideration of bills prepared by Schwartz.)
Is it any wonder that people don't trust this legislature? |
