Metro

Mike tells pols: It’s reform – or layoffs

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If Albany politicians sympathetic to municipal unions block his pension reforms, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday, he’s going to point the finger squarely at the lawmakers for triggering thousands of layoffs.

“They’re going to have to face the fact that if they don’t make these changes, an awful lot of people are going to lose their jobs and the public is not going to get the services that they’ve come to rely on,” the mayor said in his an all-out offensive to reduce the city’s multibillion-dollar pension bill.

“And it’s going to be on their watch and they’re going to be responsible,” he added.

Bloomberg heads to Albany Monday to testify on his plans for an extreme pension makeover, which would sharply reduce benefits for new employees and strip cops and firefighters of a $12,000-a-year extra pension payment negotiated years ago in a profit-sharing stock market deal with the city.

All indications are that the mayor has his work cut out for him.

State Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn), head of the Civil Service and Pensions Committee and the mayor’s closest ally in Albany, was as equivocal in his position as his Assembly Democrat counterpart.

“The mayor has a plan to bring down costs in the city, and you’ve got to be careful how you balance that on the working men and women of the city and the state of New York,” said Golden, an ex-cop.

“It’s going to be a hard call, but something’s got to change. There’s an overreach, I think, in what he’s trying to do . . . I think we need a target number. What is the actual number he is trying to save?”

In the Assembly, where municipal unions have traditionally exerted enormous power, Governmental Employees Committee chairman Peter Abbate Jr. (D-Brooklyn) noted that the state had already enacted a lower pension tier in 2009.

“I’m willing to look at it,” he said of Bloomberg’s plan. “These are tough times. Certain things seem reasonable. Certain things, like having a firefighter work until 65, seems unreasonable. But I think he just says that so that he can get something else.”

Mayoral aides said Bloomberg’s proposal wouldn’t change the current retirement age for career cops and firefighters. Those that leave after at least 22 years would be eligible to receive their full pension checks without waiting until they’re 65.

Gov. Cuomo said he intends to tackle the pension issue, but not until he completes the state budget, which is due April 1.

“The cost of pensions are exploding not just in New York City, but across the state,” he said.

City Comptroller John Liu endorsed Bloomberg’s idea that the city be allowed to negotiate pensions at the bargaining table with the unions instead of having the state Legislature dictate the terms.

Additional reporting by Carl Campanile

brendan.scott@nypost.com