No Joy in Refund He Won't Receive;

Retired Too Early
No Joy in Refund He Won't Receive


When Governor Spitzer signed a bill July 26 granting thousands of Transport Workers Union Local 100 members a refund for money they over-contributed to their pension plans, President Roger Toussaint called it a victory. Retired Bus Operator Richard O'Brien didn't.

RICHARD O'BRIEN: Ineligible for refund. Because he retired before Dec. 28, 2005, he and other early retirees are not entitled to the refund, he said.

22,000 Eligible

An arbitration panel issued a contract award for Local 100 on Dec. 15, 2006 ensuring that roughly 22,000 Local 100 members who previously made higher contributions toward their pensions between 1994 and 2000 will get the individual refunds that could amount to as much as $14,000. That will cost the Metropolitan Transportation Authority an estimated $132 million in payments from two pension systems - the New York City Employees' Retirement System and the plan for the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority - to which transit workers belong.

The bill states: "An eligible participant shall be a participant (I) who is or was employed in a title represented for purposes of collective bargaining by an employee organization representing a majority of non-supervisory employees in the New York City Transit Authority's Queens Bus and/or Staten Island Bus Divisions, recognized or certified pursuant to Article 14 of the Civil Service Law, and who, on December 28, 2005, had an accumulated balance of additional member contributions at the retirement system."

Mr. O'Brien, who retired in 2004, estimated that he over-contributed between $10,000 and $12,000 during his 25 years as a MaBSTOA Bus Operator.

'Who Got Mine?'

"Why should we be penalized?" Mr. O'Brien asked. "Who's getting my slice?"

Track Inspector and Toussaint opposition leader John Samuelsen wondered why there was such a cut-off date in the first place.

"I guess that was the caveat to getting it," he said.

Mr. O'Brien, who is 62, will benefit from another provision of the contract that extended health coverage to retirees between 55 - when they become eligible for full pensions - and 65, when they qualify for Medicare.

Several union members had complained that those who got the pension refund would lose some of the money to taxes. Mr. O'Brien, who now lives in Arizona, where he works at a car auction business to supplement his retirement savings, said he would be incredibly angry if he found out that either the MTA or Local 100 was holding his money.

"I gave 25 years of sweat to the company and the union," he said. "And to think they can screw me out of money I put into that account makes me nauseous."