NYPD pension costs are shooting through the roof with more retirees taking home six-figure payments than ever before — including some ex-cops pocketing more than $300,000 a year. 

A Post examination of city records obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request by the taxpayer watchdog group Empire Center for Public Policy shows steady increases in police pension payouts — totaling nearly $3 billion the past year alone. 

The newly obtained data shows that 4,810 retirees last fiscal year, or 9.3%, collected annual payouts topping $100,000, including 144 who got more than $200,000.

Seven took home more than $300,000 a year — led by one retiree who left the force in October 2020 after 41 years with a $369,035 annual payout.

That’s up from fiscal 2021, when 4,151 out of 51,259 retirees, or 8%, collected pensions exceeding $100,000 — including 85 who received more than $200,000 and three who got more than $300,000.

In fiscal 2018, 48,656 retirees collected a total $2.49 billion in pension earnings – with far fewer, 2,807, pocketing six-figure payments. Among them, 42 received more than $200,000 and four got at least than $300,000.

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 51,654 retired cops collected a combined $2.98 billion in pension payments – a 4.2% increase over the previous year and a 19.7% spike since fiscal 2018, records show.

The average pension for NYPD retirees over the past five years has climbed 12.7%, from $51,182 to $57,715, as the NYPD continues to struggle with low-morale and an exodus of officers. More than 4,000 cops are expected to resign or retire this year.

“The increase in pension payouts is just one of many reasons it’s important for New Yorkers to have access to this data,” said Tim Hoefer, the Empire Center’s president and CEO, whose group is fighting the city’s Police Pension Fund refusal to release the names of recipients.  

“As payouts to pensioners continue to rise, it becomes increasingly important that taxpayers can see and analyze these significant expenditures.”

The Police Pension Fund — which the city plans to bankroll with $2.3 billion in 2023 — is the only pension fund in the state that withholds recipients’ names. 

The New York State Police and Fire Retirement System releases the names of its recipients.

The city fund’s managers and NYPD officials insist the information, if made public, would target retirees for attacks and gun thefts.

 “Some NYC retired police are receiving very generous, very substantial pension benefits. These numbers certainly scream out for additional scrutiny,” said Edward Siedle, a former US Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer and pension forensics expert.

Independent Budget Office spokeswoman Elizabeth Brown said the NYPD releases the names of all officers – except undercover cops – on city payroll data available to the public: “You would think the pension fund would follow the same rule.”

In a statement submitted in court, John Miller, the NYPD’s former deputy commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, cited numerous threats and attacks on active NYPD cops, saying safety concerns “do not simply evaporate upon an officer’s retirement.”

Publication of their names on the Internet “makes them and their families potential targets,“ Miller wrote. “These retired officers will forever be looking over their shoulders, on constant high alert.”

The FBI and other federal agencies also withhold the names of retired law-enforcement officers, he added. 

The Empire Center contends secrecy helps cover up possible fraudulent disability pensions and illegal double-dipping –  when retirees take a second government job while collecting their pension.

In  2019, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Melissa Crane ordered the Police Pension Fund to release the names of pension recipients – except for undercover cops. But Crane’s decision was overturned by an appellate panel.

NYPD pensions are calculated based on 50% of a cop’s average annual income over the three consecutive years when they earned the most. For those injured on duty, tax-free disability pensions pay 75%.

Veteran cops who started before 1976 could also beef up their pensions with overtime, a practice the NYPD has since ended.

Mayor Adams and city Comptroller Brad Lander, both members of the Police Pension Fund’s board of trustees, did not vote to withhold the retiree names, their reps said.

A Landers spokeswoman said, “While the comptroller is supportive of transparency, the current board has not been asked to weigh in on the fund’s long standing policy.”