City, Teachers Union Agree To Pension Deal
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Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten reached a tentative pension agreement Monday.
Under the deal, all current UFT benefits and health provisions will continue. New hires will continue to be able to retire with an unreduced pension at age 55 with 27 years of service.
The plan also increases vesting requirements and changes the rates for tax-deferred annuity accounts.
The deal will save the city $100 million a year over the next 20 years.
"This I think is a very good deal for the city. It'll save us a lot of money over the long term. Not as much right away, but we've got to address the long term problems because long term problems show up someday as the right now. And we'll look back and say we should have done it," said Bloomberg.
"This was a win-win situation where we tried to deal with the pension losses by making sure that 10 years from now there's a continuation of the pension retirement, keep the age 55 retirement, and also teachers will go back to school the day after Labor Day," said Weingarten.
Under the current agreement, teachers return to the classroom the Thursday before Labor Day.
The new agreement goes into effect November first.