December 13, 2003

Pataki Vetoes Bill to Improve Pensions of Sept. 11 Workers

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

LBANY, Dec. 12 — Gov. George E. Pataki vetoed a bill late Friday that would have given thousands of city workers who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks better retirement benefits by allowing them to claim many medical problems that stemmed from the hazardous conditions at the site.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had urged the governor to veto the bill, saying it was written too broadly and would have cost the city and state up to $260 million a year. Supporters of the measure said it would have cost $5 million a year in added retirement costs for the firefighters, police officers, medics and other city workers who would have been eligible.

In his veto message, Governor Pataki said he thought something should be done to improve the retirement packages for the workers who responded to the terrorist attack, but he said the bill was riddled with ambiguities and technical flaws that made it impossible for him to sign.

"I agree completely with the sponsors and supporters of this legislation that we also have an obligation to come to the aid of our public employees who have suffered a disability caused by participating in the rescue and recovery operations following September 11, 2001," he said in his veto message. "While this bill represents a well-intentioned effort to accomplish this laudable objective, I am constrained to disapprove the bill based on the serious technical flaws and ambiguities."

Patrick Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said the governor and mayor had turned their backs on the heroic men and women who worked for months on the site where the twin towers collapsed.

"The governor and mayor, after 9/11, said they would never forget the sacrifice that the emergency workers made," he said in a prepared statement. "Apparently they already have. This veto is a disgrace."

Al O'Leary, a spokesman for the association, said the police union and unions representing firefighters and other emergency workers would seek to get another bill through the Legislature in the next session.

For Mayor Bloomberg, the veto was a bittersweet victory, since it put him in the unenviable political position of saying no to the police and firefighters whom many New Yorkers feel are owed a great debt. "In the midst of a fiscal crisis, the city cannot afford to pay for spiraling pension costs approved by but not paid for by the legislature," a spokesman for the mayor, Edward Skyler, said.

The legislation would have created a presumption that a number of injuries and illnesses suffered by people who worked at the site were job-related. Among them would be asthma, acid reflux disease, lower back pain, dermatitis, cancer and lung disease. Mr. Pataki agreed in his veto message with the city's contention that many of these illnesses occurred with age in any case.

"This presumption is applicable regardless of how many years or even decades after September 11th the ailment is contracted," he wrote.

There was no immediate response to the veto from the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, or the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.