A defined benefit system should be kept in place.
Public Trust in Government may be restored when more government employees put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
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Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Reform More Important Than Ever
A Legislative Column from Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick (R,C,I-Smithtown)
January 30, 2015
Sheldon Silver’s arrest on federal bribery and corruption
charges highlights the on-going need to reform our state’s expensive
pension system for elected officials. If Silver is convicted, he will
remain eligible to collect a taxpayer-funded pension – which is a gross
misuse of public funds and should be changed.
A recent article published online by the Albany Times Union exposed the
amount of money Sheldon Silver stands to make should he retire from
office in the coming weeks. Making use of a pension calculator created
by the independent Empire Center policy group, the report shows that,
should Silver decide to take his pension, he will make $87,120 annually,
$7,620 more than the current $79,500 base legislator pay for ”doing his
job” – when he is present.
Under the laws of the U.S. Constitution, Sheldon Silver deserves due
process, as does any American, and is presumed innocent until proven
guilty. What he does not deserve, nor does any legislator who violates
the public trust, is the opportunity to collect a pension paid for by
the taxpayers of New York State if he is convicted of the felony charges
against him. New Yorkers, statewide, struggle to make ends meet before
they can even begin to dream about retirement savings, and they should
not be burdened further by funding the pensions of convicted felons.
Since I was first elected, I have advocated for pension reform as a
means to reforming the way the state spends taxpayer dollars. I have
introduced reform bills to transition the political class from the
current defined-benefit system to a defined-contribution, 401 (k) style,
retirement plan in an effort to reduce the tax burden on our residents.
Yet now, further reforming public pensions is imperative to help
restore public trust in government.
If convicted of a felony, elected officials should be stripped of their
taxpayer-funded pensions, and state law should require it. We should
accept nothing less. I will continue to fight for pension reform. This
session, I will continue to sponsor legislation to require elected
officials convicted of a felony while in the course of their public
duties to forfeit their pension and retirement benefits.
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