SPECIAL REPORT: POLICE PENSIONS
Police chiefs share in big retirement benefits
Editor’s Note: This two-day series is part of an occasional series on the state’s public pension system.
Joseph Coggins — who was paid almost $300,000 during his final 12 months as Hamburg police chief — has the biggest pension of any retired police chief in Western New York.
With 37 years on the police force, the last eight as chief, Coggins retired in 2007 with an annual pension of $104,512 — thanks partly to the overtime the 63-year-old chief received in his final year on the force.
“It was in the contract,” Coggins said of his overtime, adding: “After 20 years, you can retire at half pay. I worked 37 years. I should get a bigger pension.”
It’s not just rank-and-file officers pumping up their pensions. Some police chiefs do it, too.
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In the Town of Tonawanda, for example, all officers, including the chief, are guaranteed 17 extra days of work in their final year on the job, officials said. The extra- shifts policy meant almost $10,000 in added pay for each of the last two Tonawanda town police chiefs, records show.
In the Town of Hamburg, Coggins collected overtime when putting in extra hours working out of title — performing duties usually handled by his subordinates. He also racked up comp time and cashed it in as overtime pay in the final year on the job.
The result was an extra $16,000 to his paycheck during his final year, helping to push his pension to more than $100,000 and placing him among the 900 state or local government retirees with a six-figure pension.
“Every department has their own contractual agreements with their personnel,” Coggins said. “I was [getting overtime for] acting outside of the job title of chief of police, acting as supervisor in charge of detail, or it could have been in charge of a road crew.”
‘Preferred overtime’
But Coggins’ overtime provision exemplifies bad management, according to Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a branch of the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank.
“The chief — the chief executive officer — should never receive overtime,” McMahon said. “That’s one of those ‘only in the public sector’ things.”
Steven Walters, Hamburg town supervisor for the past three years, agrees.
After Coggins retired, his replacement — as well as the assistant chief — were removed from the command officers union and no longer receive overtime, Walters said.
“I certainly think [Coggins] did benefit from the system that was in place,” Walters said. “We’ve eliminated [a chief’s] ability to inflate his pension with overtime, and that was the goal.”
In the Town of Tonawanda Police Department, the policy of offering extra shifts to chiefs along with rank-and-file officers continues.
The police chief there, just like rank-and-file officers, goes on a “preferred overtime” list once announcing plans to retire, officials said.
Officers on the list qualify for 17 days of overtime in their final year. For most officers, “preferred overtime” days are incorporated into the staffing schedule. Chiefs have typically taken their preferred overtime by coming to work on Saturdays, according to the current chief, Anthony J. Palombo.
Retired Chief Samuel M. Palmiere said the policy was somewhat different in 2005, his final year on the force. He worked an extra 26 days under the policy, but on straight time — not overtime, he said.
“It was during the transition between myself and the new chief,” Palmiere said.
For most rank-and-file officers, the extra 17 days of overtime translates into at least $5,000 in extra pay. Since all Town of Tonawanda officers are eligible for pensions based on their final year earnings, “preferred overtime” effectively serves to boost police pensions. But Palombo said he doesn’t think that was the intent of the provision.
Instead, he suggested, it was likely designed to bridge the gap between the time the officer retires and when his pension payments begin to arrive.
Palmiere said that he doesn’t know when the policy was enacted, but that as chief, he likely would have put in the extra time to smooth the transition prior to his retirement even if not being paid extra to do so.
“Absolutely, and I did it for as many years as I was there,” he said. “There wasn’t a time I didn’t put in 55 to 60 hours a week, every week, besides those hours in the transition.”
Sick-time buybacks
In terms of base pay, Coggins wasn’t the highest-paid police chief during his tenure.
He was getting $104,458 in base pay the final year with the department.
Amherst Police Chief John J. Moslow Jr. had a base pay of $106,285 when he retired in 2007 at age 56. His pension is $76,602.
Palmiere retired in 2005 at age 56, when he was making a base pay of $97,176. His pension is $82,347.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Rocco Diina earned $105,824 base when he left at the end of 2005 at age 57. His police pension is $69,409.
Coggins’ $104,512 pension is $22,000 to $35,000 greater than those other three retired police brass partly because he had about five more years in with his 57-member town police department than the other retired chiefs. Also, he retired in his early 60s, rather than his mid-50s as the others did.
But Coggins’ overtime pay was also part of the reason.
Coggins got a golden parachute when he retired, allowing him to receive $293,860 in his final year on the job — including more than $100,000 in sick-time buybacks and thousands of dollars more in vacation time buybacks, town records show.
The buybacks weren’t included in his pension calculation. What was included, though, was $11,018 in overtime and $5,041 in comp time payments. Also included was a $13,000 longevity payment. That’s two to three times higher than the longevity payments the other retiring chiefs received.
When all those pension-eligible payments — plus a few other perks — were added together, Coggins got a pension calculated as if he had a $140,000 annual salary during his final year with the town, state records show.
And as a Tier 1 employee, hired before 1973, his pension was calculated based on his final year in office.
Walters doesn’t object to the department policy allowing officers to accumulate sick time during their careers, then cashing in unused sick time upon retirement, as Coggins did. While sick time is accumulated over a career, it is cashed in at the salary an employee is earning at retirement. Coggins said he was fortunate that he did not need to take many sick days during his career.
The policy of rolling over sick time exists, Walters noted, because municipal employees don’t qualify for disability coverage. The amount of sick time that can be sold upon retirement is capped — 300 days for rank-and-file officers and 250 days for command officers — to keep costs down, he said. Most municipalities have similar policies, he said.
In fact, Buffalo does not allow its police to cash out significant amounts of accumulated sick time upon retirement. Neither does the Town of Tonawanda. The Town of Amherst does.
Amherst’s Chief Moslow got more than $211,000 in his final year, much of it also from sick time, vacation and holiday buybacks not included in pension calculations. He did not, however, receive overtime.
The Town of Tonawanda, on the other hand, does not offer police the kinds of buybacks that lead to golden parachutes, but its “preferred overtime” program does give its officers — including its chiefs — a parting gift.
Tonawanda’s Chief Palmiere, for example, ended up with $112,907 during his final year in office, according to state records. Included in that figure is $9,714 in “preferred overtime.”
Palmiere’s successor, Lawrence Hoffman III, who retired in 2007, made $138,924 in his final year, including $9,881 in preferred overtime, resulting in Hoffman receiving an $87,385 pension.
Working another job
For some police chiefs, including Palmiere, a public pension is only part of their post-retirement public payments.
After leaving the Town of Tonawanda, Palmiere went to work as law enforcement coordinator with the U. S. attorney’s office in Buffalo, earning $64,268 — in addition to collecting his full pension.
Moslow also went back to work. He took a job as chief of security for the state courts in Western New York, earning $78,038 while also collecting his pension.
The two are able to continue collecting their full public pension as well as a full paycheck under New York State law. Such double dipping is permitted among retirees in the state pension system if, like Palmiere, they work for the federal government; are at least 65 years old; or if, as in Moslow’s case, they receive a waiver at the request of a state or local government agency that detailed their unique qualifications for their new job.
Retirees can also retain their full pension while working in the private sector in post-retirement, as Diina did. He went into a private consulting business after leaving his Buffalo police post.
Coggins, on the other hand, said he has worked sporadically since retiring but generally is spending his retirement playing golf and enjoying his family.
“I enjoyed my job,” the former Hamburg police chief said. “But it was time for me to leave, and I left.”
