FDNY widow whose husband died when a tree branch crushed him on a family vacation says she’s disgusted with the fire department for offering her some of what she thinks the family deserves.
“They’re parading his body through town, closing the roads for their hero, saying they’re going to ‘take care of the family’ and ‘This is what we’re doing. We are the FDNY,” Angela Skudin recently told The Post.
“And then that’s really how the FDNY…takes care of families in the background.”
Her husband, Casey Skudin, was 16½ when he was killed while driving with his wife and two sons at a North Carolina resort on June 17.
His widow has since filed a lawsuit against the Biltmore Estate in Asheville where he died.
But she also battles the Fire Pension Board of New York, which administers the funds a widow receives if her husband dies.
To qualify for a full pension, an FDNY firefighter must have 20 years of employment.
The average annual pension payout for such an FDNY firefighter was around $108,000 in 2018, according to a study with some of the most recent data available and published by the Empire Center in 2019.
Angela says that, like other city agencies, the FDNY allows its members to add any previous work time they accrued from other local state governments to enhance their department’s pensions.
Her husband had previously worked for Nassau County on Long Island as a lifeguard, earning enough government time with that job to have reached 20 for his FDNY pension, she said.
But that time would only have counted toward his FDNY pension if it had been earned with a compatible department, such as the NYPD, as required by state law, a city representative told the Post.
The city’s Fire Pension Board referred the questions to City Hall, which issued a statement.
“Our hearts go out to Ms. Skudin and all of Firefighter Skudin’s friends and family,” the statement said. “The City and the New York City Fire Pension Fund are working to assist Ms. Skudin in any way possible to obtain the benefits for which she is eligible under state law.”
By law, spouses of deceased firefighters with less than 20 years of service can only receive what their partners contributed to the pension fund, plus a lump sum benefit equal to three times their average annual salary over the three years before his death, officials said.
The lump sum of Casey’s contributions would be around $111,000, the widow said.
His salary in the three years before his death hovered around $125,000, which would be around $375,000 before taxes.
Angela contacted Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Nassau County) for assistance.
Kaminsky introduced a bill last week to try to ensure the Skudin family receives Casey’s full pension.
“He was a true hero, and the tragic circumstances of his passing should really compel everyone in Albany to come together next year to make sure the law giving his family his pension is passed,” Kaminsky said. about Casey.
Then Kaminsky resigned from the state Senate on Friday to take up a private post, leaving the bill’s future uncertain.
Meanwhile, Skudin said she was coping with the emotional and physical fallout from that tragic day.
She was the only member of her family not knocked out when the tree crashed into the roof of their car. Her 10-year-old son is still struggling with spinal fractures and other medical issues, she said.
Then there are the emotional scars.
“My youngest can’t even talk about his dad,” she said. “They were incredibly close. They were best friends.
“It’s disturbing, but it really shows their true colors,” she said of the FDNY’s behavior. “It shows what their bureaucracy is all about.
“And this time, you know, I’m not going to let them beat the little man. I will fight for everything that belongs to my husband and everything he has earned, in his name, in his honor.
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