Ethics and Accountability Codes in Organizations Research Paper

Ethical Fiscal Matters in Public Organizations

Pension padding depicts a practice whereby organizations engage in the manipulation of salary and overtime payments to acquire inflated pensions (Walsh & Schoenfeld, 2010). The practice contravenes ethical standards enshrined in our constitution and ethics in the workplace. Pension padding also referred to as pension spiking occurs at the expense of taxpayers who have to pay for the inflated pensions. In this paper, we analyze pension padding in the Yonkers Police Department within the state of New York.

In 2010, for example, more than 100 retired firefighters and police officers collected pension payouts, amounts that exceeded their pay when they were still in service. Before retiring, some of the police officers and firefighters engaged in the pension padding practice enabling them to earn a better pension scheme than their salary. In one case, an employee who retired aged 44 and previously earning $74,000 yearly eventually ended up receiving $101,333 a year in the pension payout (Walsh & Schoenfeld, 2010). Such cases explained the fiscal woes facing the state of New York as the Yonkers Police Department depicted cases of pension padding.

Pension padding violates the code of ethics geared towards advancing the public interest, upholding the law and constitution, strengthening social equity, and striving towards professional excellence (American Society for Public Administration, 2013). The case by Yonkers Police Department is a clear violation of the ethical guidelines enshrined in the nation's Constitution that governs laws of the land.

An investigation into the case by the New York Attorney General sought to conduct an audit on the pension payouts of the police officers in Yonkers Police Department. The audit identified that some police officers engaged in the malpractice, breaking overtime rules, moves geared towards increasing pension payouts (New York State Office of the Attorney General, 2010). Currently, the reforms instituted to address this issue have focused on limiting employee benefits. To date, the Office of the Attorney General has conducted arrests leading to criminal charges on some managers who plead guilty to charges associated with fraud charges in the pension schemes. The Public Pension Fund Reform Code of Conduct in place endeavors to address the challenge of pension paddling, a factor that strains the budget of the state of New York (New York State Office of the Attorney General, 2010). Despite the challenges in realizing the change, bringing up this issue to the public domain…