The number of retirees eligible for a pension of $200,000 or more from the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) reached 78 in fiscal year 2024, according to new data published on SeeThroughNY.netthe Empire Center for Government Transparency website.
These 78 retirees include doctors from public hospitals, police officers, psychiatrists, government officials and others. Seventeen of the retirees were retired from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and another fifteen were retired from the Suffolk County Police Department.
The highest pension last year went to Kara Bennorth, a former communications manager at Westchester Health Care Corporation, who was entitled to $503,128 – more than half of which came from a surplus pension. Bennorth is the first person to qualify for a pension of more than $500,000 since Empire Center began collecting data in 2008.
The next highest pensions went to:
- Dr. Shashikant B. Lele, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, $437,778
- Richard J. Batista, Nassau Health Care Corp., $339,874
- Paul E. Scott, Nassau Health Care Corp., $329,369
- Brian M. Murray, Erie County Medical Center Corp., $327,322
Among the 13,234 newly retirees, those retiring after 20 years of service, 1,359 were police officers and firefighters enrolled in New York’s Police and Fire Retirement System (PFRS), who were entitled to an average pension of $94,558. In contrast, the rest of the newly retirees in the state’s Employees Retirement System (ERS) earned, on average, less than half the PFRS amount, at $44,101.
Six of the ten new retirees with six-figure pensions came from the PFRS, even though they represent only ten percent of the NYSLRS’s most recent retiree class.
The new data includes names and allowable pension amounts for 472,922 retirees from state, public and local government agencies, as well as non-teaching positions in school districts. The amounts, which are exempt from state income taxes, show what retirees could receive in the plan’s fiscal year 2024, which ended March 31.
Based in Albany, the Empire Center is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank committed to advancing policies that can make New York a better place to live, work, and raise a family.
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