New York Pension's DiNapoli Counters Accusations of Abuse

(July 28, 2010) — Thomas DiNapoli, New York State’s comptroller, has been accused by his Republican opponent, Harry Wilson, for pension fund abuse.

“We’re entering into the season of campaigns,” DiNapoli told ai5000. “I think the charge is baseless – New York is emerging as one of the best funded state pension plans,” he said, noting that the pension still faces a deficit yet is slowly rebuilding after a tough market year. “The accusations are political rhetoric. I don’t pay it too much attention.”

The comptroller is the sole trustee of the state’s $132.6 billion pension.

Outside the Erie County Hall on Monday, Wilson, the GOP nominee, accused DiNapoli of hiding “massive underperformance” of the pension fund while relying excessively on overly optimistic projections of its performance. Wilson, who’s campaigning for state comptroller, claimed that DiNapoli didn’t assert enough control over the state’s budget process, calling DiNapoli’s management of the state pension fund “the largest Ponzi scheme in New York State history,” BuffaloNews reported. He also claimed that DiNapoli has a secretive plan to borrow from the state pension fund to make constitutionally required payments to the same fund, with interest.

“If you look at where the pension fund should be as opposed to where it is, there is nearly a $50 million shortfall,” Wilson said to the news publication.

In recent news, the New York State fund revealed a $87.1 million first-quarter loss for the State’s Short-Term Investment Pool, marking only the second time in modern history that such a loss has been run up, DiNapoli said to the Wall Street Journal. Tax collections improved from the same period last year, but available cash was limited as a result of $2.9 billion in delayed payments and refunds from 2009-10 that were made in the quarter.