Here’s a lesson in living large: More than 1,000 suburban school administrators and teachers have retired with pensions above $100,000 a year.
And Long Island is the home of super-sized school pensions. Eight of the top 10 New York state school retirees with annual payouts of more than $205,000 are ex-superintendents from well-heeled school districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties, according to an analysis by the Empire Center for New York State Policy.
Long Island school superintendents and teachers earn top dollar, which translates into higher pensions.
The pension king is former Commack Union School Superintendent James Hunderfund, who retired in 2006. He receives a whopping annual payout of $316,245.
And he’s a double dipper. After retiring from Commack, he was hired as the superintendent of the Malverne School District and is now pulling down at least another $225,000 in salary.
One infamous fat cat is former Roslyn School District Superintendent Frank Tassone. He collects a $174,035 pension despite a felony conviction and four-year prison stretch for taking part in looting $11.2 million from district coffers.
Watchdogs and suburbanites shouldering some of the nation’s highest property-tax burdens said enough is enough.
“This gives insight as to why property taxes are so high on Long Island. The school superintendents strike a good deal with their school boards,” said Empire Center policy analyst Lise Bang-Jensen.
“People in the private sector are not getting these types of pensions. These are guaranteed pensions for life,” she said.
Disclosure of the six-figure annual pensions come with suburbanites set to vote Tuesday on school budgets.
“These pensions are absolutely obscene. It’s a system that works against the taxpayer. It’s beyond criminal,” fumed Fred Gorman, a founder of Long Islanders for Education Reform.
“All the school districts have done is to give to the unions. They don’t care about us,” he added.
But educators said high payouts to a few administrators represent only a fraction of the 134,796 educators collecting pensions through the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System.
The data show that the average annual pension of all retired educators is $38,489. Of those who retired last year, the average pension is $48,238.