General State Charges

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Mission

The General State Charges budget funds State employee and retiree fringe benefits such as health insurance, pensions, employer social security contributions, and workers’ compensation, and pays the State’s fixed costs, including litigation expenses, taxes on State owned lands, and payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs).

Budget Highlights

The FY 2018 Executive Budget recommends appropriations totaling $4.0 billion (All Funds) for General State Charges (GSC), including General Fund appropriations of $3.7 billion and Fiduciary Fund appropriations of $0.3 billion. The General Fund appropriation reflects an increase of $0.2 billion, primarily due to increased costs for health insurance, workers' compensation, pensions, and litigation. The Executive Budget includes the following four proposals to help restrain the growth in State costs:

• Implement Differential Health Care Premium Contributions for Certain New Retirees Based on Years of Service. Currently, the taxpayer cost for a retiree with 10 years or more of service is the same as that for a retiree with 30 years of service. Under this proposal, similar to the calculation for pension benefits, taxpayer support for new civilian retirees would vary based on years of service. Those retiring with less than 30 years of service would receive a taxpayer subsidy which is less than that for retirees with 30+ years of service. Costs would be proportionally greater for an individual with ten years of service, and gradually decrease until they are no different than current levels once an individual reaches 30 years of service. This change would take effect with new civilian retirees as of October 1, 2017.
• Eliminate Taxpayer Subsidy for the Medicare Part B Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amounts (IRMAA) for High Income State Retirees. The Federal government imposed this supplemental IRMAA premium in 2007 to require high income retirees to pay a fairer share of Medicare costs. New York taxpayers currently subsidize the entire IRMAA premium of New York State’s high income retirees. This subsidy is worth $642 annually for retirees with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) between $85,000 and $107,000, growing to a subsidy of $3,535 annually for retirees with AGI above $214,000. The Budget eliminates this reimbursement effective January 1, 2017. Connecticut and Hawaii (partial reimbursement) are the only other states that provide reimbursement for IRMAA.
• Maintain Reimbursement of the Medicare Part B Standard Premium for New York State Retirees at Current Levels. Currently, New York taxpayers reimburse the standard premium for new and existing retirees at $104.90 per month for those who enrolled in Medicare on or before December 31, 2015 and $121.80 per month for those who enrolled in Medicare on or after January 1, 2016. This proposal would freeze reimbursement at the current levels rather than providing automatic inflationary increases, and make escalators subject to the annual budget process. This change would take effect May 1, 2017, based on rates in effect December 31, 2016. Only five other states reimburse the Standard Part B premium (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Nevada and New Jersey) and Ohio recently phased out reimbursement.
• Provide a Market Interest Rate on Court Judgments and Accrued Claims. This proposal would provide that the interest rate on court judgments and accrued claims paid by the State, municipal corporations and certain public corporations and housing authorities would be based on an independent market-based rate of interest (the weekly average one year constant maturity treasury yield). Currently, the interest rate is 9 percent on all judgments and accrued claims, except for those against municipal corporations arising from condemnation proceedings or actions to recover damages for wrongful death (the interest rate for which is 6 percent). This has resulted in excessive taxpayer costs and encourages delayed proceedings. The use of this market based rate is the exact same approach utilized in federal courts (under 28 U.S.C. §1961).

For more information on this agency's budget recommendations located in the Executive Budget Briefing Book, click on the following link:

Briefing Book – State Workforce (PDF)

Note: Most recent estimates as of 1/17/2017