As governor, Andrew Cuomo was the mastermind behind an unpopular reform approved in 2012 that slashed pension benefits for future public employees and raised their retirement age at 63 — while previously hired employees could retire at 62 and teachers at 55.
Back then, Cuomo said the creation of the Tier 6 track put the state on course to save $80 billion over the next 30 years and was necessary to rein in rising pension costs.
So his declaration at a Saturday forum for mayoral candidates seeking the endorsement of the United Federation of Teachers that he now supports efforts to reverse certain elements of Tier 6 — including a proposal to reduce the retirement age to 55 — raised eyebrows.
Aligning with rival candidates Zohran Mamdani, Zellnor Myrie, Jessica Ramos, Brad Lander and Scott Stringer in stating support for more generous benefits, Cuomo said change is necessary to help recruit public workers.
“The state has the funding, the pension fund threat is over — roll back Tier 6,” he said at the United Federation of Teachers mayoral candidates forum. “We have to attract the best teachers to our New York City schools.”
It was a remarkable about-face from the former governor, whose new position moved him onto common ground with his most progressive foes in the Democratic mayoral primary.
Interest in boosting pension benefits from candidates seeking teachers union and other public worker endorsements comes as New York faces steep federal funding cuts to Medicaid and other benefit programs that could put serious strains on city and state budgets.
Former Governor Andrew holds speaks at a Teamsters hall in Manhattan after receiving an endorsement from the local representing NYCHA workers, March 6, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The next mayor would be powerless to address the pensions, which are a statewide issue. But that hasn’t stopped labor leaders from putting the mayoral hopefuls on the spot, hoping they can use their clout to influence legislators and Gov. Kathy Hochul to approve changes to the state’s pension system.
UFT president Michael Mulgrew, who co-moderated the forum and asked Cuomo about rolling back Tier 6, repeatedly made the point during the event that mayoral support makes a big difference in Albany. In 2012, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg was an avid booster of Tier 6 who helped Cuomo garner support to shrink benefits.
‘Bold and Transformational’
Rank-and-file members who spoke with THE CITY said they’re not buying Cuomo’s change of heart. And other labor leaders said that simply reducing the retirement age for workers doesn’t go far enough, and that workers also need relief on pension contribution payments and to be able to use overtime earnings to help set pension rates.
“No, I do not trust Cuomo at all on Tier 6 or regarding anything for that matter,” said Ryan Bruckenthal, a special education teacher in Manhattan. “He is the reason we have Tier 6, he ran the state like a dictator, and I don’t have any reason to believe that would change if he were elected mayor.”
At the UFT mayoral candidates forum, Mamdani and Myrie, who are both state lawmakers, pointed out that they themselves are in Tier 6. “It was exciting to see the man who created it, in-person,” Mamdani said of Cuomo.
The changes, enacted with bipartisan support in the state legislature, were more moderate that what Cuomo, then in his first term as governor, said was necessary at a time of fiscal uncertainty and rising pension costs.
Cuomo had sought to end early retirement packages, raise the retirement age to 65 for all new hires, restrict pensions for the highest-paid employees, and to scale back retirement benefits even for newly hired law enforcement and firefighters.
In the end he compromised, raising the retirement age to 63 for new hires, banning the use of overtime pay to pad pensions, and increasing the employee contribution rates into the state pension system by three percentage points to 6% for the highest earners. The changes meant that New York City was poised to save $21 billion over the next 30 years, state and local officials said at the time, as part of the $80 billion in projected savings.
“This bold and transformational pension reform plan is a historic win for New York taxpayers and municipalities,” Cuomo said. “Without this critical reform, New Yorkers would have seen significant tax increases, as well as layoffs to teachers, firefighters and police.”
To unions and critics of Tier 6, the changes amounted to new hires working longer and contributing more to earn a reduced pension. Today, more than half of state and local government employees are in Tier 6, according to the state comptroller’s office.
In the 13 years it’s been in place, Tier 6 has saved taxpayers in state and local governments outside of New York City $1 billion annually, according to a 2021 estimate from the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative Albany-based think tank. Supporters of the 2012 reform say New York’s pension system is still far more generous than those other states, even for workers in Tier 6.
“It’s a little disorienting to hear Cuomo change on Tier 6 because it was his bill, he pushed hard for it to go through, he compromised and didn’t get everything he wanted, and then he bragged about it as an accomplishment,” said Bill Hammond, a senior fellow at the Empire Center.
“From my point of view, it was a good thing he did for the taxpayers of the state and I don’t think that the public employees have anything to complain about,” he added.
But its critics say the increased contribution requirements and reduced retirement benefits make it more difficult to recruit and retain new hires, especially in competitive fields like IT, cybersecurity and nursing. And the restrictions on overtime have been devastating for transit workers, said Transportation Workers Union international president John Samuelson.
“We’re forced to work thousands of overtime hours a year, in many cases, and then they tell us that we can’t pension off the money,” he said in an interview Monday. “We don’t have a choice to say, ‘No, we’re not going to do that work’ — we’re stuck with it.”
In recent years, unions have been able to reverse some elements of Tier 6. Last year, lawmakers included several changes green-lit by unions into the state budget, including an extension until 2026 of a pandemic-era policy that excludes employees’ overtime earnings from being counted in setting their pension contribution rates.
But winning the most salient demands — reducing the retirement age, employees’ pension contributions, and changing overtime requirements — is still an uphill battle, said Henry Garrido, executive director of District Council 37, which represents many New York City municipal staff.
“If Tier 6 was such a bright spot, it wouldn’t be such a problem to try to recruit and retain so many workers,” he said.
While the next mayor has no direct control over the state pension system, he or she will have “a bully pulpit like no other” to influence local and state lawmakers and the governor on their policy goals — if they cultivate positive relationships with them, said Samuelsen.
“It’s the easiest lift in the world for any mayoral candidate in New York City to say they’re going to dramatically reverse the damage that Tier 6 did to workers, because they have every opportunity to hide behind the governor,” he said.
Asked about Cuomo’s potential motives, Samuelsen said, “He’s probably being sincere. If I was him I’d be looking to roll it back too. It’s a complete ball and chain on him.”
Others are similarly pleased with the former governor’s newfound flexibility on the issue.
“I think it’s a recognition that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place — though, I mean, this is a problem of his creation,” said Garrido. “So I’m glad to see that he saw his error of his ways, but it’s still an issue for whoever becomes the mayor, or whoever becomes and continues to become the governor of the state of New York.”
UFT members who spoke with THE CITY were more skeptical of the former governor. He was the only candidate who was booed at any point during the mayoral forum. None of the dozen or so members surveyed after his remarks believed he would actually work to change Tier 6.
The bottom line, said special education teacher Travis Malekpour: “He had eight years to fix this and made no effort to do so.”
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