Johnston Pension Investigation: Official Demands Answers from AG

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Stephen Beale, GoLocalProv News Editor

A Johnston town councilman is demanding answers from Attorney General Patrick Lynch, after a GoLocalProv investigation found that a state retiree worked as a building official for the town while collecting his pension for three years—before he was caught by the state retirement board.

The official, George Corrente, began working for Johnston in 1998, but did not get his monthly $3,569 pension benefit suspended until 2001. “Was Corrente ever asked to repay that pension money? If not, why not? Is it a common practice not to request payment of funds received in violation of law?” Town Councilman Ernest Pitochelli writes in the December 8 letter to Lynch.

Pitochelli says he posed similar questions to the retirement board in 2005. “I had many conversations back and forth,” Pitochelli told GoLocalProv. “I got no satisfaction.”

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Dave Layman, a spokesman for the retirement board, denied that it had ever stonewalled Pitochelli. “If he is alleging there was some attempt not to deal with this, that is patently false,” Layman said, saying Frank Karpinski, executive director of the Employees Retirement System of Rhode Island, had taken action. “He was certainly not dodging it. He was dealing with it directly and the record shows that.”

Retirement board closed loophole on pensioners

In 2001, the state retirement board adopted a new policy declaring that retirees who worked as consultants were not exempt from a law that bans retirees in the state pension system from being employed in a town or city for more than 75 full days or 150 half days while collecting their benefit. The policy was created after a group of retired teachers went back to work in the Johnston school system as consultants, continuing to receive their retirement benefit, according to Karpinski.

Karpinski told GoLocalProv that when the state found out Corrente had been doing the same thing, it did not ask him to pay back the pension benefits he had received between 1998 and 2001.

“The reason was, up until that point there was some haziness as to what was legal and what was not,” Layman said. “They felt it wouldn’t be fair to go back on that because it had been unclear and from that point on they would be forward thinking.”

Councilman: Corrente was really an employee

But Pitochelli maintains that Corrente was really an employee of the town—not a consultant. “I think if you talk to anybody, he was there every day,” Pitochelli said. “He was the head honcho. He had his little office and everybody had to answer to him.”

In his letter to the Attorney General, Pitochelli included a Johnston town government organizational chart, showing Corrente as the Director of the Department of Building Operations, with four town boards and five town offices under his jurisdiction—the Building and Zoning Office, the Planning Office, the Water Office, the Sewer Office, and the Engineering Office.

GoLocalProv has also obtained documents showing that Corrente received a form of severance pay, was eligible for health care benefits, and signed a form affirming he would agree to a policy on employees and drug use—all suggesting he was in fact an employee from the start, not a consultant.

In an interview yesterday, Corrente insisted he had been a consultant. He said the above documents erroneously implied he was an employee. “I knew I was not an employee—I had a vendor number. Do you know an employee who has a vendor number?” Corrente said. He added that he also did not have his federal taxes withheld from his paychecks but instead paid them on his own.

Corrente: Councilman has a vendetta

In an interview, Corrente said he was being unfairly targeted by Pitochelli. “I’ve been out of this for years. He just keeps bringing it up,” Corrente said. “I don’t know why he does this.” Corrente left his position in Johnston in 2006.

Corrente claimed that Pitochelli has had a vendetta against him ever since the two men had a public disagreement about whether the town needed to go out to bid for a water main project. Pitochelli did not recall the incident. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. It’s not personal. My concern is the town of Johnston,” Pitochelli said. “It wasn’t just him. I thought the pensions were running wild in Johnston.”

Corrente also maintains that there is no question about the legality of his actions before the new policy on consultants took effect in 2001. He said the issue was looked into not only by the retirement board but also by the State Police and Attorney General. “They investigated everything—it all went nowhere because I did nothing wrong,” Corrente said.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General could not be reached for comment yesterday. Pitochelli said he had yet to receive a response to his letter, but he said he is determined to get the answers he wants this time. If Lynch does not respond soon, he said he will resend the letter to Attorney General-elect Peter Kilmartin, who takes office next month.
 

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