Public Employee Press

Retirees get pension COLA and $1,122 Part B payments

Most of the union’s 50,000 retirees will see their pensions go up by $30 a month in September as the annual cost-of-living increase goes into effect.

The new maximum COLA payment — a 2 percent increase on the first $18,000 of a retiree’s pension — will add up to as much as $360 over the next year. Typical retired members who have been getting the COLA payments since they began in 2001 have seen their pensions rise by $2,124 annually over the seven years since the law went into effect.

The pension hike comes a month after most DC 37 retirees received a lump-sum payment of $1,122 to cover 2007’s monthly Medicare Part B deductions from their Social Security checks. The city repayments of the federal deductions have totaled $5,874.72 for each retiree since the 100 percent reimbursements began in 2002.

“The pension COLA and the Medicare Part B reimbursements both resulted from union campaigns and point to the value of belonging to the association,” saidDC 37 Retirees Association President Stuart Leibowitz. “These benefits are a significant help to retirees living on fixed incomes.”

DC 37 and the Retirees Association worked with the New York State AFL-CIO to win the COLA legislation in Albany in 2001.

The battle to get the city to fully reimburse retirees’ Medicare Part B contributions was a long one that culminated in 2002 when the city dropped a lawsuit filed against the plan by the Giuliani administration. The Retirees Association is still fighting to win the benefit for former employees of the Metropolitan TransportationAuthority, which only reimburses its retirees $384 — about a third of what former city employees get.

“Addressing the needs of our MTA retirees by correcting this outrageous inequity is one of our top legislative priorities,” Leibowitz said.” The association has also been working to improve the pension COLA so that the increase covers retirees’ entire pensions rather than just the first $18,000.”