At the same time that Mayor Bloomberg is pressing the state for urgent pension reforms, four of the city’s five pension systems are hiding basic data about their members from the public.
The bizarre situation began when a government watchdog, the Empire Center, began posting on its Web site the names and earnings of retirees from state municipalities.
Every pension fund complied with requests for the data except one.
The NYPD pension fund was willing to provide the earnings of individual retired cops, but not their names.
Fund Executive Director Kevin Holloran argued in court papers that such disclosure posed a risk to “the officers’ privacy and safety.”
“Animus towards police officers does not dissipate because of the change in the officer’s status,” he said.
State Supreme Court Justice Carol Huff sided with the police fund, even though the names of all city retirees — including cops — are printed on a random basis in the City Record.
Following her decision late last year, the New York City Employees Retirement System, the Teachers’ Retirement System and the Board of Education Retirement System shut the door on their data as well.
Bloomberg is standing with the retired cops.
But mayoral spokesman Marc LaVorgna said the other funds should cough up.
“There’s no reason to withhold those public records, and we’ve asked the pension funds to release the information,” he said.