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Out of the Firehouse, Into a Richer Retirement

By CONSTANCE L. HAYS

NY Times, February 19, 2003

Frederick Scholl, a captain who retired after 23 years on the job, took this photograph during the time he worked at the World Trade Center site after the terrorist attack.

Until a few months ago you could see Al Schwartz, 52, at the wheel of Ladder Company 4, a rig based on Eighth Avenue in the theater district, where the firehouse motto is "Never Missed a Performance."

But now Firefighter Schwartz is headed backstage, to learn the fine points of the pyrotechnics that light up Broadway shows.

Then there is John Dougherty, 60, once the senior lieutenant in Engine Company 44, who could not go on a trip to the grocery store without using the time with his firefighters to point out this or that about how to survive in various kinds of flaming buildings.

He's gone now, too. He wanted to put in 40 years as a firefighter; he made it through 39.

For both of them, opportunity knocked in the form of a better-than-expected pension, based on the long hours of overtime they worked after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. And, as much they dragged their feet at first, they wound up taking it.

They are among the 1,293 New York City firefighters who "put in their papers," as the deed is known, and retired in 2002. It was a record number of retirements, according to city and union officials.

With at least 20 years of civil service to their credit, the firefighters were eligible to leave with a full pension of half their salary. And since that pension is based on a person's last 12 months of pay, anyone who put in a lot of extra hours raking through debris at ground zero, or filling in at firehouses that were shorthanded, or responding to other crises, would get a fatter pension by retiring within a period that includes that overtime. For some it was an extra $9,000 a year; for others, $15,000 or more.

It was about money, in the end. But many of the retired say that if they could have stayed, they would have. "Because of what happened at the trade center, there wasn't much of a decision," said Frederick Scholl, a captain who retired after 23 years on the job. "You basically had to retire. If you didn't retire, you would lose."

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Captain Scholl worked so much overtime responding to terror alerts, he said, that "you basically had to retire; if you didn't retire, you would lose."

He was assigned to the Fire Department's special-operations command and had no plans to retire in September 2001. Later that year, after he had responded to dozens of anthrax alerts, he began accumulating so much overtime that his pension increased by 25 percent. He had to go, he said. In addition, he hurt his back and his wife said that he had had enough. So he signed himself out of the job he loved, effective last month.

Dag Dorph, a captain who retired before the terrorist attacks and now counsels firefighters, said that he "hates to see anyone leave because of money; it's not a good reason to retire."

Firefighters say that it can be hard to walk away from the job. "When you retire, you're not a part of it anymore," Captain Scholl said. "It's very unforgiving, the Fire Department."

A bill introduced before the State Assembly last year would have let senior firefighters lock in what was called "the best 12 months." That way, they could have benefited from the unusual overtime, whenever they did retire, but continue to work. It also would have cost less in pension payouts, fire union officials say, although the city's budget experts calculated that had it passed, it would have required an additional $18 million in contributions to the pension fund. The proposal did not get far, though; it died without ever reaching a vote.

To many firefighters, the steady parade of senior men out the door, after hundreds of others died at the World Trade Center, seems a morale-buster, a public safety concern and a problem that could be easily solved with a plan like that.

"We kept thinking there was a chance of the city realizing what a mistake it would be to lose these senior guys," said Kevin Rice, a soft-spoken lieutenant with Engine Company 44 in Manhattan, who is president of the Company Officers Association.

City dwellers should care about having experienced firefighters instead of rookies or recent arrivals filling the firehouses, he said. About half the members of the Fire Department have seven years of experience or less, by union estimates, and experience teaches more than any book ever could, Lieutenant Rice contends. "It really is a matter of life and death," he said, "because there really is no substitute for having been through it."

He is puzzled by the city's reluctance to head those retirements off at the pass. "A New York crowd is the toughest crowd in the world to please," he said. "You could have somebody walk across the East River and only get a 60 percent approval rating. And yet the Fire Department is always held in the highest esteem."

The Uniformed Fire Officers Association hopes that the "best 12 months" proposal is reintroduced this year, said John Dunne, a captain who is an official with the union.

"There is still time," Captain Dunne said, "to save 30, 40, maybe 70 people. We have not given up."

He keeps a scorecard of the departed: 117 captains, 237 lieutenants, 16 battalion chiefs, all gone last year. A total of 406 officers retired in 2002, plus 887 firefighters.

In some ways, retiring after 20 years is logical for a physically demanding job like firefighting, said Douglas Offerman, a senior research associate for the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit group that monitors the city budget.

"Obviously, experience is good in any public-safety operation," Mr. Offerman said. But, he said, the city's pension system recognizes "the idea that younger people can perform strenuous public-safety jobs better than older people." At the same time, the younger people replacing retirees "are typically lower on the pay scale," he said, which saves the city money.

Yet the younger people need guidance. In a fire, for example, there is a moment known as "making the turn," in which a firefighter jumps into the part of the room or the building where the flames are burning brightest. Most firefighters learn how to do it by watching one of the senior men, who were taught by others. "Brave men don't become firemen — the Fire Department makes men brave," said Al Hagan, 53, a captain with Ladder 43 in East Harlem, who is adamant about not retiring until he is good and ready.

"With this culture that we have, we create the mentality to go into the room where the fire is," Captain Hagan added. "If they lose that culture, if they get to that tipping point, how will they get it back?"

For one lieutenant, the financial incentive to retire was strong. But the adjustment has been harder than he thought it would be.

"It's sad not being in the Fire Department," said the lieutenant, who asked not to be named. After 343 firefighters were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, he was assigned to help coordinate their funerals. He walked the grieving families through the ceremonies ahead of time, and he made sure that the pipers played at each one. After that, retiring seemed like the right thing to do. "I thought the change might make a difference, but it really didn't," he says now.

Before he put in his papers, he took the captain's test. He had always wanted to be a captain in the Fire Department. And in December, the letter came. He had made the cut.

"I felt," he said, "like I got struck by lightning." He has submitted a request to go back to the Fire Department.