By Doug Miller
Meanwhile, Laffey said he has asked the City Council not to apply for the waiver on his behalf, calling the kerfuffle surrounding his pension "too distracting."
Laffey, a retired New York Police Department deputy chief, must forfeit 75 percent of his pension if he earns more than $27,500 from jobs that are part of the state pension system, such as city manager. State law says the pensioner is eligible for a waiver from this restriction, called a section 211 waiver, if he is hired after a thorough search and found to be the only qualified applicant.
Laffey was appointed city manager almost three full weeks before an ad ran in The New York Times announcing the search. Hennessy and Sofield charge that the ad was an attempt to fool the state into believing a search had been conducted. In a letter to Wall, dated Feb. 21 and written on City Council letterhead, Hennessy and Sofield charged that the Times ad was in fact evidence of an attempt to engineer "an improper, and perhaps illegal, double-dip at the taxpayers' expense. ... The apparent efforts by Mr. Laffey to circumvent the retirement and Social Security law raise serious concerns regarding whether he and others are conspiring to defraud the retirement system and the taxpayers of New York."
Laffey acknowledged in an interview with the Herald on Feb. 1 that the ad was a "routine" effort to "show them that we did a search." When asked why the ad was placed after he was hired, he said a similar tactic had been used when he applied successfully for the waiver when he was named Long Beach's assistant police commissioner and then its police commissioner.
Laffey said Tuesday that he would no longer pursue the waiver, a decision that could cost him more than $50,000 per year. He also promised not to collect any salary for a class he is teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, another state pension job.
Since Laffey will no longer seek the waiver, it is unclear what jurisdiction the civil service commission now has. But Hennessy said Wednesday if the Wall won't investigate, he'll turn the matter over to the district attorney.
Because he has only been city manager for about two months, his earnings have not hit the $27,500 mark, so he is still collecting his full pension. When he hits that mark, which will be after about 11 weeks on the job, or around March 15 - his salary of $137,000 comes to about $2,634 per week - his pension will be cut back.
"When I was hired as the assistant commissioner, the city supported me in attaining the waiver," Laffey said Tuesday. "Later on, when I became the police commissioner, the city supported me in the waiver. I thought as city manager the city would support me again, but it is clear the council is divided on the issue, and I do not want this issue to detract from the work of the new council majority."
Laffey was hired as police commissioner in December 2001, and the city applied for a waiver on his behalf in January 2002. In response, the state ruled that the city had to do a new search before the waiver could be granted.
Laffey is not the only recent hire Hennessy and Sofield want investigated. The city's new public relations director, Steve Kohut, is a retired teacher in the Oceanside schools who is also receiving a state pension and who was hired by Long Beach in January at a salary of more than $40,000. According to Hennessy and Sofield, Kohut was also hired without a search.
While Kohut told Newsday last week that he had not yet decided whether to pursue the waiver, several sources in the city government acknowledged that Kohut was considering scaling back his position to part-time to keep himself under the $27,500 mark.
These are only the latest dust-ups between Hennessy and Sofield, on one side, and Laffey and Kohut on the other. Sofield's father, the city's police commissioner, replaced Laffey in that position two years ago. The elder Sofield sued Laffey and the city in 2002 after Sofield was transferred out of the department's detective division at Laffey's behest, a move Sofield alleged was retaliatory and connected to his son's political ambitions.
Similarly, Hennessy was a lieutenant in the city's lifeguard corps when Kohut was the city's chief of lifeguards, and Hennessy sued Kohut after he was fired, he said, following an unsuccessful run for office in 2001.
Both suits have been settled.
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