CSEA President Danny Donohue on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2012 State of the State speech

ALBANY, NY (01/04/2012)(readMedia)-- "Gov. Andrew Cuomo presented a challenging vision of New York's future and CSEA fully expects to be actively engaged in discussion and debate with the administration over the details.

I am frankly surprised that the Governor gave such high priority to a new pension tier with emphasis on immediate impact. A Tier V was only recently enacted and will not provide the state and localities with any significant savings for many years. A Tier VI would be no different and would only mean that working people would have to work longer, pay more and benefit less – hardly in keeping with the Governor's goal of strengthening the middle class.

Finally, it was disappointing that the Governor's appropriate recognition of first responders to the recent series of natural disasters seemed to focus on the uniformed services without real appreciation for the wide range of front line state and local government employees who were essential in New York's addressing the emergency. Many of these workers put duty first to respond while their families faced risk and devastation. So many of these workers are at risk from state and local cutbacks and property tax capping."