Mayor Bloomberg showed a firm grasp of the obvious yesterday, responding to a Post exclusive detailing the $242,000-a-year pension just awarded to a retiring FDNY deputy commissioner.
“The issue that we have is that the whole pension system is something that we cannot afford,” Mike said.
Unaffordable?
Try obscene.
True, it doesn’t appear that former First Deputy Commissioner Frank Cruthers did anything untoward to qualify for the windfall.
“This is a pension he’s entitled to,” the mayor noted. “But I don’t think . . . we can afford to continue to offer those to people that we hire down the road.”
No kidding.
Anyway, the particulars of Cruthers’ payout — the first ever to top $200,000 — are instructional, if nothing else.
Indeed they’re indicative of lavishness throughout the ranks.
For one, the majority of Cruthers’ pension — $150,000 a year — comes com pletely tax free, thanks to a medical-board ruling that a knee injury he suffered was “in the line of duty.”
Cruthers seems to be an avid and accomplished golfer despite the “line of duty” disability — a curiosity, to put it mildly.
Or maybe not.
According to a Post investigation, that’s a status enjoyed by fully 70 percent of firefighters who’ve retired since 2004 — thanks to generous interpretations of what the “line of duty” consists of.
And while Cruthers spent fully 43 years on the force — boosting his pension by another $52,000 a year — firefighters are allowed to tap out on a full pension after just 20 years.
What’s more, all public-employee pensions are guaranteed by the state Constitution.
So Cruthers can sleep easy — as, perhaps, after such long service, he’s entitled to.
But, meanwhile, the city’s pension obligations have grown by some 800 percent over the past decade — to nearly one-tenth of the entire budget.
With no meaningful long-term reform in sight, Cruthers’ pension won’t be the last of its kind — whether such payments bankrupt the city or not.
As surely they must.