Donna Perry: The Vote the Taxpayers Will Watch for 2012
Thursday, November 17, 2011
A year from today, Rhode Island voters will have already been to the polls to decide 2012 elections. The outcome of that vote in individual representative and senator races obviously is not known today. But there is one thing that seems a safe projection. The vote that General Assembly legislators cast today on the pension reform package will loom as the largest and most visible item in legislators’ records as far as the taxpayers are concerned.
Tax reform groups, led by the non-partisan Rhode Island Statewide Coalition (RISC) have made it abundantly clearthat among the reasons they are behind this legislation is because of what would happen to the overall taxpayers’ tab for pensions community by community, in the immediate term, if the bill is not passed.
Governor Chafee’s continued frustration that the “keep the municipal piece out of it” argument seems to have prevailed in the end is a different debate from the amendment circus that will likely be staged today by certain insincere lawmakers with a separate agenda.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIn other words, though the snake turn of events that led to the bill’s final draft, which was stripped of mechanisms to help deeply unfunded local plansis worth noting, it does nothold up as an argument, or more precisely, an excuse to reject this bill today.
Last Inning Fretting
That’s why the last inning fretting over the bill by certain legislators is ringing hollow unfortunately.
Here’s an example. Doesn’t it appear a bit disingenuous for Representatives like Charlene Lima of Cranston, a pension entrenched lawmaker herself,to speak out against the bill just 48 hours before the vote, worrying that COLA’s will not return fast enough and prepare a flurry of stall tactic amendments?
She may want to get the “real pulse” of Cranston taxpayers who may want to know why she would consider it is perfectly ok to let her city be on the hook for an additional $11 million in pension obligationsin the coming year if she votes against the bill. If the legislation passes, Cranston’s tab for the MERS plan, though not cheap, will stand at $15 million and avert the additional $11 million. If legislators like Charlene Lima vote to block the bill, it rises to $27 million in 2012. It’s just that simple. None of it represents a rosy scenario for Cranston, and Mayor Fung is right to want a wider reform effort to trim pension costs overall, but it defies logic to see how a Cranston lawmaker can vote to have her own city on the hook for $27 million from the taxpayers.
Cities and Towns Will be Watching
Likewise, Woonsocket’s Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, though normally a more thoughtful lawmaker, seems to be raising a new and far too last minute argument over the bill’s lack of addressing the disparity between communities which contribute into social security for employees and those who don’t. Goes into the category of future reform discussions. Baldelli-Hunt, whose politically connected family boasts numerous public pensions, should be aware that her own city’s Mayor this week cited the possibility of state oversight or receivership for Woonsocket if the pension bill fails.
Woonsocket simply does not have the additional $ 6 million in pension costs ($7.3 million currently to $13.5 million) it would face in 2012 if the bill does not pass, says Mayor Leo Fontaine. Woonsocket taxpayers should see a vote by Baldelli-Hunt to block this bill as a vote to hand Woonsocket that tab.
East Providence taxpayers should likewise closely watch the votes by their city’s legislators today now that their own city has been brought into state fiscal oversight. Among the city’s lawmakers, are the chairmen of the House and Senate Finance Committees, Helio Melo and Dan Daponte, whose support for the bill and leadership in steering it through the hearing process and toward today’s vote should be commended. But all East Providence lawmakers should be voting to protect their city from the higher pension tab that will come if the bill fails.
It should go without saying that any Providence legislator who votes to hand the state’s financially troubled capital an automatic spike in its pension obligation to $31 million, (from roughly $17 million now) is surely voting to send Providence into possible receivership. Mayor Taveras, like Fung, has major objections that the legislation kept the locally run plans out and Providence especially may require its own separate pension reform overhaul bill in coming months. However, no Providence lawmaker can state with a straight face that a vote against the bill does anything to advance the costs confronting the city’s besieged taxpayers and residents.
Community by community, and these are just examples of a handful of the larger ones, the pension tab will grow dramatically as soon as tomorrow, if the bill fails.Likewise, the state’s actuary has underscored the passage of the bill will restore the funding levels of MERS plans to far healthier and acceptable levels immediately and the communities taken as a whole will realize savings in the approaching year of over $100 million.
Truth in numbers is still the toughest argument to beat.
Donna Perry is a Communications Consultant to RISC, the RI Statewide Coalition (www.statewidecoalition.com)
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