Once an Albany insider, always an Albany insider — and Tom DiNapoli is Exhibit No. 1.
As The Post’s Brendan Scott reported yesterday, DiNapoli green-lighted a lucrative inside deal to let a politically wired top aide, Nancy Burton, beef up her pension.
Even as Gov. Paterson’s folks object.
And soaring pension costs threaten to bankrupt the state.
“It’s outrageous,” said Harry Wilson, who’s challenging DiNapoli for comptroller. “This is basically no different from pension fraud.”
Wilson said Burton, an assistant deputy comptroller, was “getting pension benefits she should not be entitled to through a loophole.” He called the deal’s legal end-run “gamesmanship that happens in Albany all the time.”
Burton got an extra three years of employment credits by quitting her job with DiNapoli and pretending to take a civil-service position for a day. The credits will go to fatten her pension by some $9,000 a year — to a stunning $126,841.
Neat trick, huh?
DiNapoli surely knows the score: He himself has voiced concern about growing pension costs. Wilson says New Yorkers are on the hook for as much as $80 billion in unfunded liabilities for future pensioners.
But for DiNapoli, friends and political allies come first. (Wilson noted yesterday that 63 percent of DiNapoli’s campaign funds are from unions and special interests.)
Until last month, the comptroller actually posted a virtual guide to pension-padding on his Web site.
His tips urged employees to “maximize your pension before you retire” — and outlined precisely how to do that.
Can anyone blame scammers like ex-FDNY Lt. “Johnny Lungs” McLaughlin, who gets an $86,000 yearly “disability” pension — while running in triathlons?
Or John Giuffrida, who gets $74,624 in disability cash while competing in top-level martial-arts matches?
Fact is, DiNapoli is an ultimate insider, having spent 20 years in the Legislature. He got his current job as a reward from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in a blatant insider deal.
Next week, he’ll find out if New Yorkers let him get away with it.
Or, this time, turn the insider out.