NY fireman steals $86k per year taxfree disability pension while competing in marathons

I think this is morally reprehensible. This guy may be disabled as far as working as a firefighter goes, but historically in America, there was a stigma attached to being "on the dole." This guy's "on the dole" and is apparently a coucilman, etc. To me, he should be encouraged to get another job...he's clearly capable of working, and his pension should be eliminated until he's incapable of work.

I have a friend who lives in NYC. He's seriously disabled and qualifies for lots of things. He won't take an ambulette to places if he's able to walk. he doesn't want to burden "society" if he doesn't need to. We need to get back to this way of thinking.

yeah that is the difference. If a private pension invests poorly, it can't pay out the money. If a public one invests poorly, the state is required to give it more money. Change public pensions to be the same as private and less people would complain about them. And if they go bankrupt, tough luck. I have long thought that the pensions should be run by the unions not the state. The state gives them a chunk of money every year and the union decides how to spent it. I am guessing the union members would do a good job of self policing when they realize it is their money being stolen

Maybe I'm thinking of something else, but haven't states been raiding their pension funds in the past, and that's the reason they're all empty? Much like social security having problems because we've been taking money out of it as if it were a piggy bank and not an entitlement.

The Civil service system on Long Island, NY is the biggest organized crime system in USA. A complete ripoff.

I know guys proud to tell me they are on the clock for a municipality in LI while working anotyher job in the city. Its totally an accepted part of thier culture. Day one on the job and the talk is constantly how they can retire early or make money on the side. 9-11 is a boon for many of those guys.

That's not just in NY.

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/96770434.html?page=3

The cop is collecting disability as well, but has completed a number of Iron mans. Pretty awesome.

Suburban Long Island seems to be a completely amoral place. There is always some kind of white collar fraud going on there.

The adult soft ball leagues and golf courses out here are full of fireman and cops that are on permanent disability. I see a guy I know at the gym, who used to be a sheriff who is out now on permanant disability. He hurt his shoulder (for real); but...he is fine now and lifting more free weights at the gym than I could ever dream of doing. Why isn't he back at work?

Calif dreaming while I pay wrote:

The adult soft ball leagues and golf courses out here are full of fireman and cops that are on permanent disability. I see a guy I know at the gym, who used to be a sheriff who is out now on permanant disability. He hurt his shoulder (for real); but...he is fine now and lifting more free weights at the gym than I could ever dream of doing. Why isn't he back at work?

Guess what there are dirt bags in every profession whether it is a teacher,fireman,lawyer,CEO,doctor,dentist,store manager, etc. etc. etc. Most firefighters and police are honest decent selfless servants who put their lives at risk to keep the public safe. Yes there are "mutts" as we call them who take advantage of the compensation/benefits that they recieve from the job and those folks NEED TO BE RUN OUT AND FIRED! Believe it or not I have seen those kind of folks get fired with so called teflon Union protection. Guess what? Most Police and Fire Unions must acknowledge and obey their departments' policies to a strict tee. If a member breaks a serious policy, chances are that a good executive board of that union will not grieve it and let that person be disciplined to the full extent because it makes no sense to waste other members union dues to fight to fight a blatant and obvious policy violation. I just find it a little pathetic that you folks are bashing fire,police and teachers as a whole during this rough period. If it's such an easy/cushy job then GO TEST FOR ONE OF THOSE JOBS. A vast majority of these folks love their profession because they want to serve and help people. They have to deal with a tremendous amount of stress whether it be getting shot at,running into a burning building,encountering deadly contagious diseases,and dealing with sick folks with life threatening illnesses and injuries on the worst day of their lives. Show some respect and quit blaming those that serve and protect you for all of the country's problems!

Calif dreaming while I pay wrote:

The adult soft ball leagues and golf courses out here are full of fireman and cops that are on permanent disability. I see a guy I know at the gym, who used to be a sheriff who is out now on permanant disability. He hurt his shoulder (for real); but...he is fine now and lifting more free weights at the gym than I could ever dream of doing. Why isn't he back at work?

He's not back at work because he doesn't HAVE TO BE. You can blame him for not going out and finding work but I blame the system that is in place that allows this activity to happen. He should have to take an annual physical to stay qualified for his disability. If he is capable of finding other work his disability should run out after a specified length of time. Enough time that he can go back to school and/or learn a new trade.

I can't fault people for using the system as it functions as long as they are honest and not 'faking' an injury.

Not as far as I know. Some states have stopped making contributions (because they are broke) but that is a lot different than taking money out.The one I am most familiar with is CA and it is a total scam. When the returns are good, the union bargins for big pension raises (retire at 55 with 90% salary with COL) and argues that given the current performance it will not cost any more money. Then return fall to historical levels and they demand more money from the state. Full retirement should not be 35 years of service ( 57 is way too young these days) but more like 45. Employees like to talk about their contribution. Their contribution is less than SS for normal employees.

JCash wrote:

Maybe I'm thinking of something else, but haven't states been raiding their pension funds in the past, and that's the reason they're all empty? Much like social security having problems because we've been taking money out of it as if it were a piggy bank and not an entitlement.

Your showing truly how uneducated and ignorant you are to this topic. For starters the average fire fighter lives 10 years less then the average American so maybe thats why the retirement age is cut 10 years short. Could it be the carcinogens,and deadly contagious diseases that they encounter on a daily basis? You folks who think that most fire fighters can do the physical rigorous bread and butter part of the job which is FIRE FIGHTING until the age of 70 years old are truly ignorant. I suggest you choose to volunteer for a local department around you, and get sponsored to attend your state fire academy if you don't believe me. I was a competitive high school and college distance runner who had a lot of muscular strength and the physical and mental demands of being a fire fighter are are much greater. There is no comparison. As for attaining paid fire fighting position I worked 56 hours a week on a regular shift for 2 years for FREE in a strict para-military environment that left very little room for error and had a strict learning curve. Those who couldn't cut it in academy and shift were booted due to poor performance,laziness, or a bad attitude. This system exists in order to weed out the "mutts" who have the job for the wrong reasons, try to cheat the system through fake disability and other things. No system is perfect though and a few always squeek through. But most Fire Fighters are good decent honest people who want to help others and love the job they do, work hard at it, and always try to be a better Fire Fighter throughout the entirety of their careers.

fire workers don't kill people thus they aren't military. so shut up you pussy !

What irony that the very first word in your educational rip is a complete grammatical disaster. Also, comparing the average age a fireman lives to to the average age the general population lives to is very misleading because the general population is >50% women, who live longer than men, but the firefighter population is mostly male. I have little doubt that firemen live less years than most people, given the dangers they face, but there are better ways to express it.

And after putting up with kids for 30 years, I am sure the 55 year old school teacher wants out also. And the DMV worker. And the meter maid, and so on. I am betting most private industry workers want to retire at 55 also. As far as life expectancy, last I check if you didn't die on the job, it was higher than average for police and firefighters. That is to be expected since they should be healthier than the average male. A quick google gives http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1601953/If we paid fire fighters 20%less, I am guessing there would still be a line of people out the door when jobs opened up.

those traitorous leeching firemen and cops (and teachers, politicians, soldiers, civilservants) stealing money from taxpayers and ripping off taxpayers by making us pay for the retirements after on 20 years on the job. they should work until 70 like the rest of us and pay 100% of their own retirement, medical, and dental like we taxpayers have to do now.

if they don't want to work in gov't, then they can quit. who made them join ? did someone kidnap their wife and kids and blackmail them into joining the fire dept ? hell no.

why do they keep acting holier than thou, clogging up the streets each time one of them gets killed and has a funeral. they knew the job was risky. so don't make the public suffer for making a stupid ass job choice ! and ask us to pay for the kids college. we have to pay for our own kids. go on welfare if you want free tuition.

I think a lot of you have very wrong misperceptions of some public jobs.

I work as a teacher in NC.

1. I don't have a UNION. A lot of states don't have teachers Unions.

2. My pension is only 54 percent of my salary. I contribute 5.5 percent of my salary and the state contributes 5 percent. I would probably do better with a 401k than with my states pension plan. I contribute another 5 percent to a Roth IRA to cover what my pension want cover in retirement.

3. I still pay fully into Social Security. I didn't even know that some states teachers didn't have to pay into Social Security.

4. I have a state insurance plan, however, it only covers emergency room visits and I have to pay the first 500 dollars of any visit. IT does cover a few basic check up type visits but nothing major. It does not cover dental, eye, cancer, or any other extra benefits that some of you think is in every public employees insurance plan. In order for me to be fully funded by the state insurance I would have to fork over about 450 dollars a month. I’m willing to bet that most private company’s employees insurance plan is way better than mine.

5. I have a masters and I make about 25,000 less than the average person in the private sector would make with my education level.

6. I'm also told what to do by politicians who have never set foot in a classroom and have no clue what goes into running a classroom or a school.

7. It’s a myth in most states that teachers have guaranteed jobs even if they are bad. My state fired over 6000 teachers last year. They are probably going to have to fire another 1000 this year. Having tenure means nothing in my state. All it means is that in order to fire a tenured teacher you have to do more paper work, you can still fire them for almost no reason at all.

8. 50 percent of all teachers quite after the first six years of teaching. That’s huge turn over. There are always a lot of willing young teachers who want to try out teaching thinking they can change the world but very few make it to retirement because they find teaching isn’t what they thought it would be.

9. Low pay means crappy teachers. People will still take the jobs the education level will drop though. You get what you pay for after all. You can fix virtually all of America’s education problems by paying teachers more and then holding them accountable for the success of their students. If you pay teachers more then the brighter and more creative college students will want to become teachers. Right now the pay is such across the country that most teachers were your B-C students in college not you’re A-B students. But increasing teacher pay across the country will not happen. Tax payers want teachers to do more with less money.

I AM NOT COMPLAINING. I love my job, I love what I do. I just can't stand when people try to paint public employees as this entitled group of people who just suck off the tax payers while doing nothing. I'd like to think I work just as hard as my private sector counterparts except that I am not compensated for working harder. I never get a 10% bonus for performing well above the state average. Matter of fact in my state even though we improved our scores as a school by 10% we got a pay cut across the board.

People point to the top paying states as examples of public employees cheating the tax payers. However, the majority of the states around the country pay their public employees well below the average salary of private sector employees with the same level of education.

If public employees have it so good then quit your job and get one of the cushiony jobs that you complain so much about. But I have a feeling you want because you realize that you will make way more money in the private sector and if you invest right you can retire just as soon as us public employees can.

jesus. teachers have june, july, and august.

I got off June 17 and Have to go back to work on August 16. So its not three months its two.

and for the record we do not get paid for those months off. We can extend our pay checks to cover those months but we do not get paid for those months.

It is nice and that's one of the things I love about teaching

[quote]yepper wrote:

How did the banksters steal trillions?

Do you really not know? They were given trillions in taxpayer monies to "save the financial system", then turned around and paid out hundreds of billions in dividends and executive bonuses.

How do you not know this?