About 31,000 retired NYPD cops and FDNY firefighters mistakenly got pension payouts Thursday totaling nearly $300 million, red-faced city officials admitted.
Cops and firefighters of all ranks who retired after 20 years of service each got $12,000 gross direct deposits into their accounts, the sources said.
After taxes were deducted, the net payments to each retiree were roughly $9,000.
Some cops were talking on Facebook about spending their windfall on vacations — while others jokingly credited Mayor Bill de Blasio, sources said.
“All along I was wrong,” one cop said. “De Blasio is the greatest mayor in history!”
City Comptroller Scott Stringer — whose office oversees the pensions — vowed in a statement to get to the bottom of what went wrong.
“The Comptroller’s Office is deeply concerned about the processes that allowed this incident to occur and we will work with the Mayor’s Office to complete an immediate and thorough investigation of its cause,” Stringer said.
He warned retirees not to spend the unexpected windfall and said the money would be recovered by Friday.
“All payees who received these erroneous payments are being apprised of this situation by the New York City Pension Funds and will be advised not to spend the money that has been deposited,” the statement warned.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association sent out a notice to its members telling them about the error.
“The Police Pension Fund has informed us that an error has occurred in the disbursement of Variable Supplement Fund payments. As a result, the annual payments that are normally disbursed each December were sent out via direct deposit early this morning,” said the memo from PBA president Patrick Lynch.
“In the meantime, we advise all retirees not to spend the funds directly deposited into their accounts.”
The payments were made by the city’s Financial Information Services Agency to the various NYPD and FDNY pension funds, Stringer said.