WARWICK — Dozens of retired public servants gathered Thursday at Community College of Rhode Island’s Warwick campus to advocate for rolling back, or at least rolling back, changes made to pensions in 2011 during the Raimondo era.
Their goal is to persuade today’s policymakers to reinstate the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to pensions that was lost as part of an effort to save taxpayers $4 billion over 20 years. These COLAs were added up to 3% to state and local employee and teacher pensions at a time when a worker was allowed to retire at any age with a full pension after his 28 years of service. I was there.
“I can’t afford to retire.”
In the days leading up to this latest meeting of the Pension Advisory Group’s series of meetings, numerous past and present state and local officials and teachers submitted written testimony.
They vent their anger in a letter, offering theories as to why then-state Treasurer and current U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo spearheaded “draconian” pension cuts that would force people to make do without pensions. They explained how this affected their lives. Although common in the public sector, it is rarely seen in private sector pensions.
The long game for retirees is to convince the advisory group to recommend to the state Legislature that the suspended annual COLA payments be reinstated. And what are the current employee goals? Convince the decision maker to let her retire early with a pension of at least 1% of her salary for each year of service.
One “unintended consequence,” North Kingstown Fire Chief Scott Kettel said as a member of the E-911 advisory committee, is that calls to E-911 don’t have enough people to answer them. He said cases are often put on hold. This is partly due to barriers to hiring talent without attractive retirement incentives, he said.
He said, “We have the money. We can’t take away the bodies.”
Below are excerpts from other people’s testimonies.
- “There should be at least 30,000 retirees.”[e]If you proposed a $1000/year COLA, I would vote for you,” Daniel Pisaturro wrote.
- “I’m 48 years old and have worked for the state of Rhode Island for 23 years. According to the pension calculator, if I retired at age 67 after 42 years in public service, my pension would be $42,000 a year,” Christie said. N Nardi wrote. “Click the shutter [sic] Imagine how much help that would be. ”
- Candice Berlinger, who started teaching 23 years ago, wrote, “I’m almost 71 years old and I can’t afford to retire, so I’m still teaching.” “If I retire this year, I’ll receive about $1,900 a month. I’ll be on my own and that’s my only support. If I retire, I won’t be able to afford Medicare or keep a house. You won’t be able to.”
- “I am a former RI teacher who taught for 30 years,” Arlene Lancaster wrote. “As a teacher, I spent those 30 years teaching kids to do the right thing and follow the rules. Now I think I did it wrong. Even the nation no longer knows what’s right. “I haven’t done that. I can’t think of any. The state will intentionally break the contract. ” “Would we be able to live on the salary we were getting in 2012? … And how would you feel if that salary didn’t go up any further until at least 2032? That’s the position you’ve put us in. .”
- “When I turn 53, I will have been an educator for 30 years and should be ready to retire,” Tara Seeger wrote. “Instead, I’m supposed to work for 10 more years to receive only 40% of the average of my top five years of income…I don’t plan on working until I’m 63, which is my father’s age.” My goal is to retire at the age of 53, but for this to happen my husband must continue to work to support me,” she said. We won’t be able to enjoy our retirement together or sell our house and buy a condo in Florida. ”
more:Should RI repeal Raimondo pension reform? Union leaders make their case.
Other retirees claim Raimondo and the state took advantage of the economic downturn.
In submitted testimony, Robert Johnson said Raimondo, a politically ambitious man, had changed Rhode Island’s pension system from an exclusive “defined benefit” system to one that included the equivalent of the government’s 401 pension plan. He detailed his theory on how and why he launched a winning campaign to move Wall Street to a much-lauded hybrid system. (k).
“How was a bill passed that effectively undermined that contract? It was done by taking advantage of the economic downturn at the time and selectively misrepresenting data,” he wrote.
He claimed that the expected rate of return was lowered from 8.25% to 7% to increase the sense of crisis and the size of unfunded liabilities, while “so-called experts” claim that the era of growth in the stock market is over.
He said lower expected returns on investments had ballooned pension schemes’ unfunded liabilities, “creating an exaggerated sense of doom.”
“These ‘experts’ were wrong, as the actual returns of many stock indexes have shown since then,” he wrote.
Santa Privitera, who retired from the Rhode Island Department of Education in 2008 after 39 years, echoed similar sentiments, calling “Rhode Island’s unwarranted, politically motivated, Wall Street-influenced ‘pension reform’ overreach. “This has resulted in devastating ‘unintended’ consequences.” ” must be addressed.
“In my opinion, we need safer investments and more transparency around fees. Pension fund investment fees have increased exponentially since 2012. Money that would have been used for retirees’ COLAs is being is flowing to Wall Street.”
He said that as things stand, COLAs may not be reinstated until 2031. For retirees who are still alive, he said, their pensions will be reduced by inflation.
“How will we make ends meet with such a drastically reduced pension when we are already having difficulty paying for groceries, medicine, home maintenance, and other living expenses?” he wrote.
One suggestion for COLA
Former Rep. Robert Jacquard, a member of the state’s new Cannabis Control Commission on behalf of a council of 94 AFSCME retirees, said the state would once again give retirees a 3% annual pension increase. , proposed to provide an initial stipend of $30,000. , or $900 per year.
“This would be a modest increase and would cost the state less than $20 million a year,” he estimated, suggesting the state increase contributions to the pension system to cover the cost. . (Related information: The most recent actuarial report shows that under current rules, state employees will receive $245 million, and teachers will receive $322.8 million, a cost to taxpayers.) (It is stipulated.)
Acknowledging that some retirees “think we should be asking for more,” he said, “We want our members to get relief as soon as possible.”
“I sat through all the public hearings on all these changes,” said Jacquard, a former lawmaker, recalling then-Finance Minister Raimondo telling MPs that “there is an injustice in the pension changes.” Ta. [but] You can go back and fix it later. ”
“That’s why we’re here now. It’s time to come back and fix it,” he said.
A public hearing was held on Capitol TV.
