The “Boss of the Seaside” is only a drop within the ocean.
A gobsmacking 62 authorities retirees — together with double-dipping former Massive Apple chief lifeguard Peter Stein — pulled pension funds of at the very least $200,000 final 12 months from town’s retirement system, information exhibits.
Stein’s tsunami-sized $570,000 pension fee led all others within the New York Metropolis Staff’ Retirement System throughout 2025, excluding again pay, the Empire Middle’s SeeThroughNY.web web site studies.
All informed, the handfuls of high-flying high-earners resembling Stein and scores extra modest metropolis retirees took in almost $6.2 billion in taxpayer-funded payouts final 12 months, based on the information.
“These eye-popping payouts replicate a essentially damaged system, not simply particular person wrongdoing,” stated Abdullah Ar Rafee, an information supervisor on the Empire Middle for Public Coverage.
“Between time beyond regulation spiking and legacy profit guidelines, New York’s pension design rewards profit padding on the express expense of the general public.”
The highest pensions apart from Stein’s went to a seize bag of former civil servants, together with a veteran prosecutor and a long-retired physician. They’re, based on the information:
- Nicolas Audi, retired from the Division of Environmental Safety in 2018 — with $341,487 in whole pension funds.
- Warren Murray Jr., retired from the District Lawyer’s Workplace in 2021 — $325,015 in whole pension funds.
- Eileen Barkow, retired from the Metropolis’s Division of Data, Know-how and Telecommunications in 2023 — $297,130 in whole pension funds.
- Roger Smoke, retired from the Well being and Hospitals Company in 2014 — $293,183 in whole pension.
Stein stood out from the opposite prime retirement earners in a number of methods.
For one, Stein retired final 12 months and nonetheless topped the checklist. Solely 9 retirees who collected their first full-year pension throughout 2025 acquired greater than $200,000, based on the Empire Middle. Some 490 acquired six-figure payouts, the information confirmed.
He additionally lengthy confronted public scrutiny for his twin profession, wherein he served as a full-time gymnasium instructor and chief lifeguard, drawing the “Boss of the seaside” nickname.
Different public servants with large golden parachutes — resembling Smoke, a physician with town’s hospital system who retired in 2014 — generated far much less smoke throughout their careers.
Likewise, Murray was a embellished prosecutor with the Manhattan District Lawyer’s Workplace and mentored scores of attorneys even into retirement, based on a glowing obituary after he died in June.
The common pension by “full profession” metropolis retirees stood at $62,582 final 12 months.
However the variety of six-figure pensioners has doubled from roughly 1,600 throughout 2020 to three,200 final 12 months, based on information.
Stein’s pension fee was outpaced solely by Lucradia Riddick, an Administration for Youngsters’s Providers retiree who acquired a $627,886 fee, information exhibits.
Riddick’s fee, nonetheless, included roughly $404,000 in backpay.
The roughly $6 billion in pension payouts for metropolis employees final 12 months is peanuts in comparison with the almost $17 billion paid out by the state’s largest retirement system.
