Actually the New York State legislature is responsible for this mess. For the past 25 years, state lawmakers have attempted to 'steal' money from the pension fund for pet projects. The state Comptrollers had consistenly fought these efforts and were sucessful. That pension system was the most stable sysytem in the country and the reserves were staggering. Since they could not steal that money, several years ago the lawmakers devised a plan where they stopped sending local communities their share of the state taxes. To make this fly with the communities, they changed the pension formula and for several years, the communities paid NOTHING into the pension system. When the courts ruled that it was illegal, the communities were ordered to make up the missed payments.
Now this, along with 9/11 and pension money siphoned off for NYC has finally caught up and of course the politicians love to blame the state and local employees rather than themselves. Oh, also those same state lawmakers and politicians collect huge pensions from the fund while no one pays in for them.
Is there any wonder that after being an upstate NY police officer for 25 years, I took my NYS pension and moved to Tennessee...... and NO I feel no guilt at all.