Padded Pensions Add to New York Fiscal Woes

But he may well find that most recipients have done nothing illegal. The benefits have been enacted by legislators, signed into law by governors, hailed by comptrollers and adopted by local officials — all of whom were told by actuaries and other financial advisers that the pensions would cost just a fraction of what they are now turning out to cost.

“In very few cases do they know what they’re agreeing to,” said Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, which tracks pension costs. “They almost always obscure the costs, from themselves and from the public.”

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Mr. Cuomo did not name Mr. Tassone but spoke of a Yonkers officer who had retired at 44 on $101,033 a year. Mr. Tassone said all his neighbors knew it was him, and he bristles at the implication that he got more than he was supposed to. He said he could correctly document all the overtime he worked, and that the practice was approved by the mayor and city council.

The special audit in Yonkers named Mr. Tassone in its sample of retirees with unusual overtime records, but did not accuse him of doing anything wrong. Disciplinary proceedings were brought against only one officer, who is now retired.

Mr. Tassone said the only reason he joined the police force was the promise of a full pension after just 20 years, and it would have been wrong for the state or city to go back on the promise after using it to recruit him.

He said he put up with hardships for 20 years as a police officer, “and now I’m at the end of it and I’ve become a target,” he said. “I broke my hand three times. I broke my left ankle. I blew out my knee. In my last two years alone, I made between 350 and 400 arrests, and a lot of those people weren’t volunteering.”

Because he could retire young, he added, it was important to start out with the largest pension possible. In the coming years, inflation will eat away at his benefit. Public pensions in New York City and State have had a cost-of-living adjustment feature since 2000, but it applies only to the first $18,000.

“I concede, I have a very good pension, but what’s that pension going to be worth when I’m 70 years old?” Mr. Tassone said.

Although limited to the first $18,000, the cost-of-living adjustment was the most expensive pension enhancement enacted in recent memory in New York, according to the Independent Budget Office. The cost has, once again, proved higher than expected.

Yonkers still offers full pensions to police after 20 years, but just in theory. For the moment, the city is too broke to send any new cadets to the police academy, and retirees are not being replaced.