NEW: Pawtucket Mayor Calls for Municipal Pension Reform
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien is the latest Chief Executive to weigh in on the need for municipal pension reform. Grebien issued the following statement:
As mayor of one of several municipalities in the state with a great deal at stake in the current pension reform process, I would like to thank Governor Chafee, General Treasurer Raimondo and the General Assembly for tackling a difficult and complex issue and seeing it through to the point where remedial legislation is expected to be taken up on the floor of the House and Senate later this week.
The offices of the Governor and Treasurer have kept the City of Pawtucket apprised of the process throughout, and Senator DaPonte and Representative Melo opened their Joint Committee on Finance hearings earlier this month to hear directly from mayors whose underfunded non-MERS pension plans urgently need solutions as well.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe legislation that emerged from the committee process contains much that promises to improve the solvency and assure the stable future of pensions overseen at the state level. It does not, however, contain the tools which I and several of my fellow mayors said we most crucially needed. Those tools include allowing municipalities the authority to suspend annual cost of living allowances, limiting pension benefits to what is available under state plans and working toward moving all municipal employees to state-run plans.
In a state where, as Governor Chafee has pointed out, 24 of 36 independent municipal pension plans are failing, the need for such reforms only grows more urgent every day.
It should be more than apparent by now that a threat to the fiscal stability of any city or town in Rhode Island carries the great risk of becoming, like a spreading virus, a threat to all. That is why I am encouraged by the Governor’s recent pledge to introduce legislation on the first day of the upcoming General Assembly session in January to find ways to restore a solid foundation for the troubled pension plans in our cities and towns for which the current legislation now being considered for passage does not provide.
Until pension plans now threatened with failure at the city and town level are addressed, the task of reforming and stabilizing the pension systems throughout Rhode Island, for the financial security and well-being of retirees, current employees and taxpayers alike, cannot be called complete.
It is a problem the City of Pawtucket shares with many other municipalities similarly affected, and as mayor I will work diligently with them and with state and local leaders until we have achieved the long-term solutions that it so clearly demands.
