Pensions
In light of recent court judgements which have failed to uphold changes to public employee retirement benefits and the corresponding possibility that last session’s pension reform law will eventually be deemed illegal by a court, NEA-RI’s Robert Walsh has a suggestion, via WPRI, for the state: negotiate. That’s why the four state leaders who pushed…
House Bill #7201 submitted by State Reps Savage, San Bento, Ajello, Blazejewski and DaSilva is an attempt to force the teachers at the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies (RIMA) into the state pension system. Currently, the staff at RIMA are in a defined contribution plan, or more specifically a 401k plan. They pay into the system,…
Back in October, Rhode Island’s pension system also got national notice due to a union official, Paul Valletta accusing General Treasurer Raimondo of manufacturing a crisis: Paul Valletta of the State Association of Firefighters said Raimondo “cooked the books” with actuarial assumptions and conservative market projections that exaggerate the pension system’s problems. He accused her…
The principles underlying debate about Providence’s ability to suspend the cost of living adjustments (COLAs) of its public-sector retirees are fascinating. On one hand, we’re told that they’re contractual, unlike the state-level pensions, which are legislated: Unlike state-level public employee pension benefits, which are set by state law, municipal retirement benefits are incorporated in collective-bargaining…
Remember the hoopla when General Treasurer and the state Retirement Board lowered the expected rate of investment return from 8.25% to 7.5%, thus throwing the system into underfunded panic? (Of course, the system should have already been in underfunded panic, but we needn’t rehash all that, just now.) Well, according to Ted Nesi, the return…
Liz Boardman and Iain Wilson have an excellent article in Thursday’s South County Independent previewing the new General Assembly session from the perspective of some area legislators. In it, Rep Spencer Dickinson (D-South Kingstown) stated that He plans to call for the creation of state and municipal escrow accounts, so the money is there if…
So, I’m watching General Treasurer Raimondo’s speech upon accepting the Manhattan Institute’s Urban Innovator Award (via Ted Nesi). She keeps talking about “solving the problem” and “fixing the pension,” and some of the inevitable questions had to do with “what’s next” — the assumption being that the state pension problem is fixed. Still, I don’t…
The technical considerations of language and history are likely different, but this outcome in Woonsocket doesn’t bode well for pension reforms, I’d say: The city argued that language in one section of the contract mentions dental coverage and refers only to active employees, while other sections extend health-care coverage to retirees, but not dental care.…
Here’s a question: As Rhode Island legislators seek forgiveness for their pension reform votes, just how much will the unions have to improve their overall negotiating stance in order to completely eliminate the adverse effects of the hybrid component of that reform? The answer: Seen in terms of annual raises, a 2.5% increase — that…
In a GoLocalProv story that reiterates much of what I wrote about back in April, Russel J. Moore also explains the mess that Warwick’s pension system is in and also traces it back to then-Mayor Lincoln Chafee: Governor Chafee has been an outspoken advocate for municipal pension reform. But several of the issues in Warwick,…
