NY's Tax Payers Already Paying for Money Manager Pension Scandal

Monday, May 10, 2010

NY's Tax Payers Already Paying for Money Manager Pension Scandal

NY's Tax Payers Already Paying for Money Manager Pension Scandal

Today's NYP is the only papers that writes about the $600 million the city is stashing away to pay for rising pension fund costs. Yet the Post did not mention the ongoing money manager pension fund scandal, which most likely is responsible for the rising pension fund cost to the city. In California it has become clear that the political connected money managers has cost the tax payers of that state billions. California public pension funds may face $500 billion shortfall‎.

We also know that Goldman and other banks put together bad mortgages, bet against them and sold them to pension funds. There is clearly a cover-up of the real reasons the city is not forced to kick in billions at a time teachers and fire houses are being cut. The cover-up even extends to this years state comptroller race. The media is not asking the state controller candidates about the causes of the rising pension costs to the tax payers.

City stashes $600M as pension boom looms Bloomberg has already allocated $7.4 billion to fund the city's five pension systems next year, up a worrisome 13 percent from the $6.6 billion being spent this year. When Bloomberg took office in 2002, taxpayers contributed just $1.3 billion toward the pensions of city workers. Although city taxpayers have to pick up the bill, it's the state Legislature that dictates the level of pension benefits.

This is what True News has published about the money manager pension fund scandal so far: Breaking News New York's Pay to Play Pension Scandal


Related Scandal
Freddie Mac (FRE) Requests $10.6B in Additional Bailout Funds * NY Adds $500M To Fannie Mae Mortgages Emii.com

This is what True News has published about the Fannie Mae scandal at Stuy Town
Wall Street Hijacks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for Stuy Town

UFT Charter Schools

Can the Democratic UFT Coalition Be Cracking?
Clinton Join Fight to Lift the Cap
Can a small federal education program proposed by a pro union and UFT president called Race to the Top be dismantling the strong bonds between the democrats and the teachers union. As former President Clinton joins the supporters of charter schools the city and nation could see a sea change in not only education but the relationship of the democratic party to the unions. The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand (Brill, NYT) * Bubba vs. Shelly Clinton supports lifting charter school cap (NYP Ed) * Bill raps the cap Clinton signs up as a 'charter' member (NYP) *Conn. Senate hopeful lied about serving in Vietnam: report (DN) * A Very Bright Idea Two New York City high schools are offering college degrees, addressing both the importance of academic achievement and the spiraling cost of higher education (Herbert, NYT) * School Budgets Go Before Voters (WSJ) * VIDEO: Battle over airwaves pits UFT vs. pro-charter forces (DN) * Union boss forces Education czar to add third stop to visit (DN) * Teacher for the Apple: Education Secretary has good advice for local schools (DN ed) * Hammond: Budget mess tarnishes Silver * New Yorkers To Vote On School Budgets (WCBSTV) * Paterson: Most School Budgets Will Fail *Paterson: Road To Lifting Charter Cap Paved With Money We Don't Have * The AFL-CIO is pressuring three more state senators. (State of Politics) Look for More Change is Dems Go South Tonight Primary Results Expected To Have National Significance

Who on the Bloomberg Team Will Take the Hit?

Who on the Bloomberg Team Will Take the Hit?
Grand Jury to Eye Mayoral Payments A Manhattan grand jury will consider potential criminal charges in connection with the transfer of $750,000 from Mayor Bloomberg to a Republican operative, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday. (WSJ) * Mike's 750G aide probed (NYP) Bloomberg campaign advisor Haggerty's $750,000 came by way of the Independence Party, which got $1.2 million from the mayor a few days before Election Day. News of the Grand Jury came yesterday afternoon on the YNN blog Grand Jury Empanelled In Haggerty Case

Legal Ads Influence the News Today's Daily News has 5 pages of legal ads from the NYS Comptroller. The paper also has a story about an ongoing invest

Legal Ads Influence the News
Today's Daily News has 5 pages of legal ads from the NYS Comptroller. The paper also has a story about an ongoing investigation, Gov. Paterson making nice by endorsing Andrew Cuomo(DN) The story does not contain anything about the NYS Comptroller who is also under investigation by Cuomo. Could the 5 pages of legal ads which the advertising thin Daily News be a factor in there reporting on the comptrollers? It is unclear who controls the placement of the ads the courts, the comptroller or the government. But it could easily be put on the comptrollers web site for free. DiNapoli In Cuomo's Crosshairs Cuomo and his special counsel, Linda Lacewell, confirmed an April 5, 2007 meeting between Global Strategy Group’s Jon Silvan, a partner from Intermedia (a private equity investment firm seeking pension fund investments) and a MirRam Executive and DiNapoli at his Manhattan office is part of the AG’s probe.

Has the Daily News abandoned their constitutionally protected role to inform the public. Could the reason why the DN did not go after the state comptroller was the paper needed his friends who appointed him, in our state legislators’ complicity to protect one of their most steady income streams. With the internet taking away regular business advertising, most local papers today depend on legal notices to survive, which our State legislators require our court system and other areas of government to print in newspapers. In exchange for this lucrative advertising, newspapers are careful not to bite the hand that feeds them. Many state legislatures across the country have begun to eliminate this system of media manipulation by allowing legal notices to be permanently posted (newspapers have less than a week shelf life) on the internet for free, but, of course, New York’s is not one of them. Our state legislators don’t want to give up their hold on our print media. Legal Ads Help Keep the Political Machines in Power (True News)

In NJ GANNETT's NJ newspaper the COURIER-POST sued the Penn newspaper PENN JERSEY ADVANCE, INC., to stop them from getting ads from the New Jersey courts, comptrollers an government. Gannett lawsuit which they won just shows you have important and political the revenue of legal ads are. NJ lawmakers wrote into their rules and law that all Jersey legal ads would go to Jersey newspapers because they knew the money from the ads would mean that they would get more positive coverage from the papers.

The legal ads system continues in New York and other cities because the political leaders have an arrangement with the local media to push them or the candidates they support. Local papers are filled with stories that praise elected officials and attack challengers to them. Many journalist in local papers say privately the ads effect what they are able to report. The Law Journal a very powerful paper in the legal field and courts in New York cannot exist without legal ads. Time seems to be running out on the Journal and other papers who depend on legal ads.

NJ Newspapers Fight to Save Legal Notices(WNYC)

  Legal Ads Influence the News

The legal ads system continues in New York and other cities because the political leaders have an arrangement with the local newspapers to push them or the candidates they support. Local papers are filled with stories that praise elected officials and attack challengers to them. Many journalist in local papers say privately the ads effect what they are able to report. The Law Journal a very powerful paper in the legal field and courts in New York could not exist without legal ads. Time seems to be running out on the Journal and other papers who depend on legal ads, but Albany is know to protect special interests against the public interest. Why would Albany want to save New Yorkers the money they needlessly pay in legal ads, when most of the rest of the nation uses the free and more effective or the objective of the legal ads Internet.

How the NY Pension Fund Scandal Crosses State Lines

California Pension Investigation Gives New Yorkers Some Answers
New Yorkers May Have to Pay Tens of Millions in the Next Few Years into both the City's and State's Pensions Funds to Keep Them from Defaulting

Pay-to-play scams that have roiled the nation’s retirement funds involved a vast and deeply-enmeshed web of super-connected players


We when through an entire election cycle to elected a New York City controller and because of the careful election spin strategies of the candidates to ignore the pension scandal and the absence of media investigation reporting on the which has already seen several convictions and out of court agreements with Cuomo and the pension funds that broke the law. A big result of this dysfunctional election election for comptroller is we have no clue with the pols did to our pension, no clue what the new comptroller will do to get rid of political money managers and will all act shocked if down the road we fund out that these money managers loaded New York's pensions with junk. Will New York's pensions needs tens of billions in tax payer money to prevent defaults? Who knows. In the last

This investigation has uncovered a matrix of corruption – which grows more expansive and interconnected by the day,” said Attorney General Cuomo.

"I believe we are disclosing a national network of actors who often acted in concert and did this all across the country," Mr. Cuomo said. "They collaborated, they often partnered and victimized states and taxpayers across the country. It's also an ongoing scam."

Unraveling the Matrix
Luckily or unluckily the investigation of the California pension fund gives New Yorkers some answers. The reason we can predict the future is these placement agents – middlemen paid to open doors for private equity firms and other money managers for the most part are the same in New York and California. In fact they seem to work together or in concert with each other in so many states that only the chief investigators in the Attorney General office, the SEC and the FBI know what the hell is going on.

What we know From Cal

Two Main Players in Both NY and Cal
We learned last week was that the California pension fund called Calpers is being rocked by 'Pay to Play' investigation. The two main targets of the investigation are Alfred Villalobos who ran the pension investent fund Arvco and Leon Black who ran Apollo Management. California investorgators are looking at how former Calpers board member Vilalobos had reaped more than $50 million in fees for arranging investments that could saddle California taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Ferrer Paid as a Placement Agent for Vilalobos
Freddy Ferrer, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City in 2005, worked as a consultant for Alvco. Seven months after Mr. Ferrer made the introduced Vilalobos to NY State Comptroller DiNapoli, Ferrer earned $100,000 in fees and a $10 million fee for Vilalobos firm Alvco. Starting in 1977 Leon Black learn the trade while he was employed by ex junk bond king Michael Milken investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert. Black left in 1990 and started Apollo because Milken was jailed after a guilty plea to six securities and reporting violations.
(Craton Equity Partners)

Arvco Loses Money for California Pension Fund

WSJ reports that Arvco recommended some of Calpers's poorly performing investments; last year the pension fund lost nearly a quarter of its value and more than $50 billion.

Cal is investigation weather Albert and his daugthter gave money to a pension board member campaign in return for Pension business

Albert Vilalobos contributed $2000 to controller Thompson and his daughter Carissa $4,950.00 10/10/2004 right before he recieved NYC Pension funds

Black's Apollo Paid Vilalobos Alvco
The private equity firm Apollo Management (Black), paid Villalobos Arvco Capital a placement-agent fee in 2007 after the New York pension fund invested $350 million Apollo, even though the state has invested with Mr. Black's firm since 1996. How can Vilalobos help Black get in with DiNapoli if he needed Ferrer to introduce him at the same time to the NYS Comptroller?

Poorly Performed

New York State invested $195 million in the Apollo fund, and is currently entitled to roughly $20 million in overpaid commissions.

Money managers leon Black owner NYc penson $365 million because of souring investments, the returning of money is know as clawback

Apollo Management, has asked for and received a two-year extension, to July 2010, in hopes of righting the money-losing fund.

Wetherly Capital Group
An unlicensed intermediary Julio Ramirez working for Wetherly Capital as a broker-dealer, partnered with the chief political operative at the NYS Comptroller’s Office Hank Morris to split profits from corrupt pension fund deals, Ramirez has already pleaded guilty to paying $250,000 in fees to Morris.

Saul Meyers Aldus Equity Partners
The pension system terminated one of the advisers, Aldus Equity Partners, whose partner Saul Meyer has been criminally charged in connection with the scandal. Meyer pleaded guilty to charges that he paid over $300,000 in bogus finders fees to Henry Morris, chief aide of former state comptroller Alan Hevesi, in exchange for $375m of investments in Aldus private equity funds between 2004 and 2006. Hevesi resigned from his post in 2006

Meyer is also being investigated in New Mexico on charges of helping Hevesi’s son, Dan, to land a $25m investment deal with the New Mexico pension fund. At the time, Aldus was a private equity advisor to the fund and seeking business with the Hevesi-controlled New York pension fund. Dan Hevesi received a $250,000 placement fee for the transaction. On this charge, Meyer writes, “On numerous occasions, however, contrary to my fiduciary duty, I ensured that Aldus recommended certain proposed investments that were pushed on me by politically-connected individuals in New Mexico.

Wissman Aldus
New Mexico, which has paid Aldus millions in investment advisory fees

Hevesi Gives Aldus Payoff After His Son Was Paid Off

Aldus is accused of helping Daniel Hevesi, Mr. Hevesi’s son, profit from a deal in New Mexico at the same time that the New York comptroller’s office, then run by his father, agreed to increase by $200 million the amount of pension money overseen by Aldus.

Arvco also brokered a deal involving the city’s pension fund last year, but the office of City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said Mr. Ferrer had not approached Mr. Thompson as part of any deal or for Arvco.(Year)

Cal is investigation weather Albert and his daugthter gave money to a pension board member campaign in return for Business

Separating the cash from the billionaires, in a process known as a clawback, won't be easy. Already, one of the wealthy asset managers, Leon Black and his Apollo Management, has asked for and received a two-year extension, to July 2010, in hopes of riguhting the money-losing fund.

One Apollo investor who would like his money back, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he is basically being forced to give Apollo "an open-ended interest-free loan on a bad credit risk."

A second investor, who also spoke only if he wasn't identified, seemed irked that Black had not even addressed the issue. He would handle things differently if he were running Apollo -- and at least talk to investors about the roughly $365 million it owes all investors in the fund. New York's state pension represents about 6 percent of the Apollo fund.

Arvco clients have obtained seven commitments from CalPERS totaling more than $3.3 billion since 2006, not bad for a pension fund that accepted fewer than 10 percent of the proposals made by private equity firms represented by placement agents.

In 1993 Villalobos resigned as Los Angeles' deputy mayor for economic development after the Los Angeles Times reported that he had suffered huge gambling losses and filed for personal bankruptcy in the 1980s.



Saul Meyer Aldus
The other thread running through both the New York and New Mexico pension funds was the advisory firm Aldus Equity, whose founder Saul Meyer was charged yesterday with participating in the New York conspiracy and which also until this week advised similar investments in New Mexico.

Aldus acted as an adviser to the New York state fund and a New Mexico government fund, helping them conduct due diligence and select investment managers.

In 2006, Aldus advised the New Mexico government fund to make a $25 million investment in Catterton Partners, a private-equity firm in Greenwich, Conn. Catterton paid a finders' fee on that investment to the firm of Mr. Hevesi's son, Dan Hevesi

“On numerous occasions…I ensured that Aldus recommended certain proposed investments that were pushed on me by politically-connected individuals in New Mexico. I did this knowing that these politically-connected individuals or their associates stood to benefit financially or politically from the investments and that the investments were not necessarily in the best economic interest of New Mexico.”

It seems odd that the individuals aren’t named here; our previous reporting has turned up plenty of public references, in lawsuits and other places, to folks being investigated for possible pay-to-play connections in New Mexico. They include Julio Ramirez and Marc Correra, as well as placement firm Wetherly Capital. Ramirez has already pleaded guilty in the New York case.

awsuit filed in New Mexico state court by the former chief investment officer of the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board

he complaint charges that Henry "Hank" Morris and Searle Co. received, paid or arranged kickbacks from firms to win investment business from New Mexico. Morris, along with David J. Loglisci, New York state's former deputy comptroller and chief investment officer, are two of the key figures in the ongoing New York State Common Retirement Fund pay-to-play scandal. Both were charged in a 123-count indictment in March and have denied wrongdoing.

More From the NYT Editorial The Temptations of $126 Billion
"Earlier this month, a California venture capitalist pleaded guilty to helping his company land a very rich deal with New York’s pension fund. In order to manage a $250 million portion of the $126 billion state pension, Elliott Broidy gave nearly $1 million in gifts to officials in the state comptroller’s office. . . Mr. Hevesi resigned three years ago after admitting to a felony. Since then, two of his top former associates are fighting criminal charges relating to the pension fund investments. Four others have pleaded guilty for security fraud, including one of the last political bosses in the state: Raymond Harding, who was a leader of the Liberal Party. And an investigation of New York’s pension scandal by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the Securities and Exchange Commission is ongoing. New York’s pension fund desperately needs protection. It needs to be guarded by financial experts and watched carefully by the public. It is about more than the fundamental need for good government in Albany, although that’s enough for most people. If the pension loses ground, taxpayers must make up the difference. The Temptations of $126 Billion. "

Bloomberg Hits Thompson Pension Play to Play

True News was First Before the Daily News Again Mayor Michael Bloomberg tears into rival Bill Thompson on pensions In this article the Daily News took credit for Bloomberg atacking Thompson on the pension funds because the paper said the mayor was responding to DN article that was written the day before that showed Thompson taking $158,000 from pension fund middlemen who won more than $2.2 billion in business with the city. On April 21, 2009 True News wrote The Wolf at Thompson's Door which exposed how Thompson was getting campaign contributions from former managers of his pension who after leaving his office became money man and received tens of millions from his office the same pension funds that they reorganized Thompson Pensions funds to make it more available to money manager type deals. Since that April story True News has written over a dozen stories about how Thompson has abused the pension funds offering many important leads that have not been follow up by the other papers or the campaigns. From True News "It was reported yesterday in the Times that it was under former top Thompson aide Josh Wolf-Powers’ advisement that Steven Rattner’s private investment firm Quadrangle Group hired the now-indicted Hank Morris as its placement agent. Rattner badly wanted to gain access to investment from the State’s pension fund and according to the Times, “Wolf-Powers told Mr. Rattner that he could not think of any investment firm that had persuaded the city’s pension fund to invest without using a placement agent.” Josh Wolf-Powers was his aid who left Thompson office and formed his own company and recieved pensions funds from the comprtoller. On August 18 the NYT reported that one quarter of the money Thompson raised came from people who do business with his office. On June 3 the Village Voice Robbins wrote how campaign consultants closed to Thompson not only acted as money managers with the city's pension funds but gave campaign contributions to the City Comptroller. The journalist culture which thinks they are the center of the world until your paper prints the story is elitist and in this new emerging Internet world factually wrong Pension middlemen gave $158K to Bill Thompson's campaigns and got $2.2B in city business

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Hidden Pension Blame

The Hidden Pension Blame
Investors Like Steve Rattner

The mayor and the NYP take after the FDNY First Deputy Commissioner Frank Cruthers for obtaining a 242,000 yearly pension. Both Bloomberg and the NYP blame the workers Mike: Stop these runaway pensions Why we're broke (NYP Ed) The mayor said "The issue that we have is that the whole pension system is something that we cannot afford."

Blaming the workers for the pen ions mess is a little like blaming the home owners for the sub prime mortgage melt down. Blame on that scandal rightly fell on the Wall Street investors who pay off the congress to allow the system to be set up where crooks like AIG made billions. The pension game works the same way. Billions were made by money managers, developers and investors who got their hands on the pension funds. Not a word in the NYP or by the mayor on pension fund investors. Could it be that many of those investors who gain from unlimited pension fund investments were developers and other power plays in the city. Look at the Stuy Town mess. Friends of the mayor. Even the mayor's own investor Michael Bloomberg Defends Steve Rattner: “A Great Public Servant ... *** Steve Ratner Pension Mess

The damage done to the city by the pension funds is the same as sub prime mortgages done to the nations economy. It just that the blame is selective and controlled. Manhattanites are leaving. In 2009, a net 2,545 residents decamped. Manhattan hadn't lost population since 1992. This year, New York will spend nearly $25 billion on pensions, health benefits and Medicaid alone -- plus the debt we need to pay it all and still have some infrastructure. That's more than half of city tax revenues -- and twice what these categories cost us (also after inflation) eight years ago.

The payments to the state's more than 600 school districts were scheduled

March 31, and will be made before they are legally due on June 1, "assuming sufficient cash is available," Paterson said in a statement.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Hidden Pension Blame

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Hidden Pension Blame

The Hevesi Team is on the Pay to Play Varsity Division

The Hevesi Team is on the Pay to Play Varsity Division

Hevesi accepted six luxury vacations to Israel and Italy from a California venture capitalist Elliott Broidyto gain the right to manage $250 million in state pension-fund assets.Broidy pleaded guilty to a felony charge of rewarding official misconduct -- in cases involving at least four high-level officials in the comptroller's office whom he didn't name -- and had agreed to forfeit $18 million in fees he received for managing pension-fund investments Hevesi took swank trips as 'payoffs' (NYP) * Ex-Controller Alan Hevesi and actress Peggy Lipton caught up in huge pension bribery scandal *** The Morning Leverage: The Most Direct Link To Hevesi Yet * L.A. venture capitalist pleads guilty (LA Times) *** Lies, lies - all lies: Alan Hevesi's falsehoods come back to haunt him in bribery case In 2006 the Daily News Editorial Board interrogated Hevesi about some of these very matters in October 2006 - when the issue was not bribes, but campaign donations from Broidy and his wife. . .Hevesi acknowledged that entrusting Broidy with a quarter-billion was his idea but claimed it was vetted and approved by outside experts. The truth, according to Broidy, was far different. His was a tale of public officials bought and paid for. And cheaply, at that. In return for his $1 million investment in bribes, Broidy reaped an $18 million jackpot in management fees - money he must now give back *** Guilty Plea in Fraud Case Tied to New York Pension *** Here's the Release on Broidy's Guilty Plea in Pay-to-Play Probe* Harding Pleads Guilty in New York State Pension Scam (Update7) Oct ...

Robin Rosenzweig, Broidy’s wife, contributed $80,000 to Hevesi’s comptroller campaigns between 2002 and 2004, according to New York state Board of Elections data. On Sept. 20, 2002, she gave “Hevesi 2002” $20,000. She gave another $10,000 on Oct. 4, 2002. On July 30, 2003, she gave “Hevesi for New York” $25,000, and on Dec. 10, 2004, she gave another $25,000. In addition, Broidy and his wife also each contributed $3,400 to the “Hevesi for Assembly” state campaign of Alan’s son, Andrew, on April 13, 2005.

"Broidy is now cooperating" Cuomo
Hevesi and others have be having sleepless nights. As part of his plea bargain, Mr. Broidy has agreed to forfeit $18 million. He was freed on bail after entering his plea on Thursday and will be allowed to travel, with restrictions. He could get up to four years in prison, but his cooperation could lead to a lighter sentence.

Choochgate
Cuomo said Broidy put up $300,000 that eventually was invested in the indie flick "Chooch," produced by the brother of David Loglisci, Hevesi's chief of pension investments.Loglisci is under indictment. The movie was financed with contributions from a number of businessmen trying to land investments from the state pension fund, valued in May at $109.9 billion. It was distributed on DVD by a company owned by the Quadrangle Group, the private equity firm founded by Steven Rattner, now the former head of the Obama administration's auto industry task force.

"So what did the genius Steven Rattner? Rattner agreed to pay $88,841 to Loglisci for the right to distribute Chooch on DVD. (I would like to know the financial model, which Rattner used to value the DVD rights of Chooch at $88,841.)" (Black Star News ) Car Czar Steve Rattner Is All About "Chooch" * Steve "Chooch" Rattner | Another Obama Headache? * Small film ‘Chooch’ at center of big political storm * The Public Pension Shakedown Why would a smart guy invest in a movie named 'Chooch'? (WSJ)

Indicted NY Consultant Earned Fees From LA Police and Fire Pension Plan Morris -- through his firm Searle & Co. -- earned fees from a $10 million deal in 2005 between the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions and Quadrangle Group [4], the hedge fund founded by Obama administration official Steven Rattner. The California Public Employees' Retirement System [5] also made a $100 million investment in Quadrangle in 2005.

True News has reported earlier that Morris had a connection with a California firm called Wetherly Capital Group [2], which split fees with Morris in two deals at the New York fund and three deals in California.

Mod Squad admitted briber Elliott Broidy, whose pension-fund payoffs allegedly included $90,000 to ex-Hevesi aide Jack Chartier and "Mod Squad" actress gal pal Peggy Lipton

The Circle that Controls NY's Pensions Continues

Broidy also rewarded another official in Hevesi's office by providing a "sham" $380,000 consulting contract to a relative, Cuomo said. According to the NYP a source identified the official as former Deputy Comptroller Tom Sanzillo and said the contract went to his brother Frank Sanzillo, a lobbyist at the state Capitol.
Tom Sanzillo is Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli First Deputy Controller
Frank Sanzillo was indicted in 1987 in a payroll abuse investigatio, as part of the Manfred Ohrenstein investigation of corruption in Albany. Frank who was once considered a whiz kid worked his way up though the Brooklyn Democratic Organizaton.

(Great Quote by Ohrestein after he was indicted in light of the Bruno Trial over 20 years later. "Since questions about his payroll first arose last spring, the 62-year-old Ohrenstein has maintained that the practices he is accused of were not crimes but rather the traditional way of doing business in the bare-fisted world of Albany politics." NYT Sept 17, 1987)

Hospital

Hospital Cutbacks Cause Death
A Hospital Crunch in Queens As Manhattan faces fallout from the closure of St. Vincent's Hospital, Queens could provide a glimpse of what's to come. Three recent hospital closures in the borough have created chronic overcrowding.

No Strings Pension Funds 2010 Vs 70s Strings

No Strings Pension Funds 2010 Vs 70s Strings
In the 70's when New York borrowed from the pension funds they were forced by the federal government and others that loaned money to them to cut the budget and put the Emergency Control Board in charge of spending. State Controller DiNapoli has not made one demand on controlling the spending side if Albany uses the state pension funds to plug the budget gap. DiNapoli raised eyebrows by not immediately denouncing the borrowing plan, which was first reported Saturday according to the Daily News.

Signing on to the plan could also further jeopardize DiNapoli's standing with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has made it clear he opposes borrowing to fix Albany's financial woes. Cuomo is still investigating DiNapoli in the pay-to-play pension fund probe and has demanded to no avail that the comptroller give up his sole control of the pension funds and appoint a board like the city to make the final decision who get the pensions to invest.

Wilson, the GOP candidate, said borrowing from the pension fund to cover pension costs would be a "perverse situation where the controller is reversing his historical role of defending the pension fund at all costs." Controversial pension plan could sink state Controller Tom DiNapoli (DN)

True New Gets Results
DiNapoli Gets Religion On Pension Fund ‘Raid’ (YNN) *DiNapoli to NY Legislature: Hands off pension fund (NYP)