The town’s new comptroller, Mark Levine, stated after his inauguration Thursday that he has not but learn a bombshell audit by his predecessor declaring bancrupt the fund that helps pay insurance coverage premiums and well being advantages for lots of of 1000’s of metropolis staff and retirees.
NY1 political anchor Errol Louis requested Levine twice about his plans to handle the insolvency of the Well being Insurance coverage Stabilization Fund: first throughout the community’s dwell Inauguration Day broadcast and once more on Inside Metropolis Corridor, Louis’ weeknight speak present.
“I haven’t learn the complete report but, I’m going to quickly, and I count on to be briefed on it quickly,” Levine stated Thursday evening. “I’m going to be speaking to companions in municipal labor and within the mayor’s group to determine one of the best ways ahead and, if we have to, chart a brand new path.”
The audit report, printed on Tuesday by then-Comptroller Brad Lander, detailed what price range watchdogs and labor advocates had warned of for years: that over a number of mayoral administrations, each Metropolis Corridor and the municipal unions that management the fund had been improperly utilizing it as a digital piggy financial institution to pay for staff’ raises, lump sum transfers to union coffers, and extra. The town Workplace of Labor Relations below Mayor Eric Adams and the unions stated they used the funds for its supposed objective.
The fund now has excellent liabilities totaling greater than $3.1 billion to the town that it’s unable to pay, and Lander beneficial dissolving it completely.
That leaves a serious budgetary headache each for Levine and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose first deputy mayor Dean Fuleihan — as Invoice de Blasio’s price range director in 2014 — helped dealer an settlement with the academics’ union to extract $1 billion from the stabilization fund to pay for raises.
A proposed change to enroll retired civil servants on a privatized Medicare Benefit plan was a method the unions and Metropolis Corridor deliberate to make up for the funding shortfall. (Adams deserted it after intense backlash and lawsuits from retirees.) The opposite, a brand new self-funded well being plan for energetic metropolis staff collectively managed by UnitedHealthcare and Emblem Well being, went into impact on Jan. 1; it’s anticipated to avoid wasting taxpayers roughly $1 billion yearly.
The audit discovered that neither measure would have saved the Well being Insurance coverage Stabilization Fund from insolvency.
Hours after Lander printed the audit Tuesday, Mamdani stated his administration takes the findings “critically” and sought to reassure civil servants who’re involved about what the fund’s state might imply for his or her well being care protection. The town has an obligation to supply well being protection to its staff, retirees and their dependents.
Ana Champeny, a metropolis price range skilled with the fiscally conservative Residents Price range Fee, stated metropolis staff and retirees needn’t fear about their protection for now. Lately, because the money pot’s steadiness decreased quickly, the town started choosing up the tab utilizing its basic funds. Of the fund’s $3.1 billion in excellent liabilities, $2.19 billion is due on to the town, she stated.
Lander’s suggestion is basically that the town ought to proceed funding well being protection on this manner, and for the unions and Metropolis Corridor to extra meticulously and transparently price range well being prices going ahead.
However each the Mamdani administration and the Municipal Labor Committee, the consortium of the town’s 102 public sector unions that could be a social gathering to the deal, should nonetheless discover a method to safe well being care financial savings, added Champeny.
“This isn’t a couple of cost to an out of doors vendor as a lot as it’s about reimbursing or making the town entire,” stated Champeny. “That is all inner to the town’s fiscal well being.”
The MLC has not had a chairperson since Harry Nespoli, the previous head of the sanitation staff’ union, retired in Might 2025. The group’s de facto chief ever since, Henry Garrido of District Council 37, is the co-chair of Levine’s transition committee.
