Score a victory for transparency, a precious commodity in Albany these days. More important, score a big win for New York taxpayers.
That’s our take on a unanimous decision Tuesday by the Court of Appeals, our state’s highest judicial body, ruling that the public has the right to know the names of retirees receiving public pensions.
Thank E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy for this refreshing decision. As part of his center’s ongoing efforts to bring home to New Yorkers the costs and abuses of the public pensions their dollars pay for, it sought the names and pension-payment amounts for all city and state workers. It publishes this information at SeeThroughNY.
Until 2010, the information was public, as it is in nearly every other state. But then the police pension fund abruptly refused to turn it over. When its move was upheld in court, the teachers fund also started refusing to make its information public.
That’s not surprising: As the long-term cost of public pensions — far more generous than what workers in the private sector receive — continues to skyrocket, the public-employee unions are desperate to keep New Yorkers in the dark about how much they’re on the hook for.
Fortunately, the Court of Appeals saw through all the pretense that the law allows the funds to withhold names. It ruled as follows: “The answer to the question before us — are retirees’ names exempt from disclosure — is plain from the face of the statute.”
In sum, there are no ambiguities in the law, and the names and amounts must be made public. The only thing the law shields are the addresses of retirees.
We suspected the court might rule this way after oral arguments in which Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman repeatedly asked those trying to restrict the info the pertinent question: “What about the taxpayers’ right to know?”
Right question. Right answer.