Top pension list includes local ex-schools chiefs
By Noreen O'Donnell and Cathey O'Donnell • nodonnel@lohud.com • May 13, 2010 www.lohud.com ________________________
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Less than a week before most New York state school budgets go up for a vote, a conservative think tank released a list of the 100 largest pensions collected by state educators.
Topping the list from the area is Dodge R. Watkins, the former superintendent of the North Rockland school district, at $205,286 a year. He is No. 10 on the list statewide.
The 2009 pensions were compiled by the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. It made the numbers public on Wednesday.
Another administrator earning more than $200,000 is Robert V. Lichtenfeld, who led the Katonah-Lewisboro school district. His pension is $204,573, which came in at 12 on the list.
Stephen J. Cole-Hatchard, a member of the North Rockland Board of Education, said he was disheartened but not surprised by Watkins' pension.
"I'm furious about it," he said.
The board president, Deborah Gatti, declined to comment on the Empire Center's rankings. She was a board member only for Watkins' last year as superintendent, she said.
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"Anything controversial coming out before a budget vote — and I would consider this to be controversial because of who he was — makes a budget vote more difficult," she said. "It drags up old feelings and old problems."
The district was plagued by financial problems after the energy company Mirant successfully sued over taxes on two of its power plants.
When Watkins retired four years ago, the school budget was voted down as taxes rose to make payments to Mirant.
The Empire Center's senior policy analyst, Lise Bang-Jensen, said it was not the organization's intention to defeat any school budget.
Pensions, salaries and other payments should be on school districts' websites, she said.
"Our intention is to inform the public," she said. "The public should not be in the dark about how school districts spend money."
The think tank favors switching public employees from a classic, defined benefit pension plan to a retirement plan more like those in the private sector, a 401(k)retirement savings plan, for example, to which employees make contributions.
"There's a point at which you have to wonder whether school districts and local governments, taxpayers, can continue to support spending at its current level," she said.
Its new database found that more than 1,000 retired administrators and teachers are entitled to pensions of more than $100,000.
Many had worked on Long Island or in New York City's northern suburbs.
The highest pension goes to James H. Hunderfund, who retired in 2006 as superintendent of the Commack school district on Long Island and now works at the Malverne school district, according to the Empire Center.
His contract there stipulates that he earn no less than $225,000 a year through June 30, 2011.
Also on the list: Frank A. Tassone Jr., the former superintendent of the Roslyn school district who served a prison term after admitting to taking part in the theft of $11.2 million from the district, the Empire Center noted. He ranked 33rd at $174,035.
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Greece here we come. Brace for impact.
