Back Pay, Pension Increases and Finalization

We have received many inquiries from retired members who retired after January 1, 2003. There are two separate and distinct categories of back pay owed to retired members who are not yet finalized. The first is the back pay owed to you while you were still on the active payroll. The second category is back pay owed to you after your retirement date and before the date of your finalization. Let me take each category separately:

As most of you know by now, we settled our contract last month. The contract covers the period from January 1, 2003 to March 19, 2007.

Wage increases are as follows:

January 1, 2003 - 5%
January 1, 2004 - 5%
March 20, 2005 - 3%
March 20, 2006 - 3.15%

Any member who retired after January 1, 2003 is owed back pay as per his/her date of retirement. The back pay that is owed to you while you were still on active payroll will be paid in a separate check on or about May 19, 2006. When calculating your back pay, please remember all raises are compounded and overtime, holiday pay, CFR-D money and night shift differential are also rate sensitive. The only money that will not be paid in the check of May 19 th is the adjustments to holiday pay. That will be sent to you in a separate check.

For any member who has retired since January 1 st , 2003, your pension could not be finalized until the UFOA's contract was settled. In the interim, pensions were calculated at about 90% of their final amount. With the resolution of the contract, members of the Fire Department's Pension Unit have begun the process of finalizing pensions. Members will be finalized in the order in which they retired.

For those members who are still waiting to be finalized, you pension adjustments will be paid to you at the time of finalization. This amount will include the 10% still owed to you along with any adjustments from the 2003-2007 contract. Members should keep in mind that while they are waiting for their pensions to be finalized they are still covered by the “Death Gamble”.

If you have any questions please call Mike Donovan in Family Protection (212) 376-8400