Bishop Tobin ‘Prays for Swift and Positive Resolution’ for St. Joseph’s Retirees, Despite Role
Friday, September 15, 2017
In this week’s edition of the Rhode Island Catholic, the newspaper of the Diocese of Providence, Bishop Thomas Tobin breaks his silence on the bankruptcy of St Joseph Health Services pension fund. To date, Tobin has repeatedly refused comment.
“We certainly hope and are praying that this comes to a very positive solution for them as will be possible,” said Tobin. The “them” Tobin refers to is the nearly 3,000 members of the Catholic Church’s former hospital employees whose pensions are now in peril.
Mum on Missing Pension Payments
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTTobin chaired the Board of St. Joseph when the hospital sold to Roger William Medical Center, and chaired - or served on the board - when the pension payments were slashed or not made at all, unbeknownst to members of the pension fund.
Presently, the pension fund petitioned the court to be placed in “receivership” and asked that the retirees have their payments slashed by 40 percent.
In an interview in the Diocese’s newspaper, Tobin is quoted as saying, “We, for six or seven years now, have been no more involved in the oversight of pension funds than we have been in the renovation of a lobby. So it’s a little bit frustrating, I think, and unfair for people to be asking what has the diocese been doing during this time.”
But, in fact, the pension fund was managed by three members — one of which was a top ranking Diocese official, Reverend Timothy Reilly. Reilly, like Tobin, has repeatedly refused to answer questions from GoLocal.
Reilly says in another article published in the same edition that the Diocese “is not currently, and has not been, responsible for the ownership, management or oversight of the pension funds in question, and St. Joseph Health Services is not a Diocese entity.”
The assertion by Reilly does not disclose that Reilly himself has been the one constant member on the three-member board since the hospital was sold to CharterCare in 2014.
According to tax records of the pension fund secured by GoLocal, Reilly has served on the board since it was transformed from a full board tied to the operation of the hospital to its present structure as an oversight to the pension fund. Reilly voted to place the fund into bankruptcy and to cut retirees’ benefits.
“This is a matter of a tremendous breach of duty on every level to those folks who worked for so long at the hospital and had an expectation as retirees that they would receive their retirement funds,” said former Rhode Island Attorney General Arlene Violet, in an interview with for a previous article published in GoLocalProv.com.
"This fund presently has the resources to last maybe ten years, but it needs to support retirees for 40 to 45 years," said receiver Stephan Del Sesto.
Building the Defense
Each of the articles and the question-and-answer section in the newspaper reads more like a legal document rather than an outreach to former employees.
Eugene Bernardo, II, a partner in the downtown Providence law firm Partridge Snow & Hahn, refused to respond to questions about the articles and the claims put forth by Tobin and Reilly. GoLocal asked Bernardo if he wrote any of the language or reviewed the articles prior to publication.
According to Bernardo’s bio, “He serves as the general counsel to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence and the charitable, educational and religious corporations organized and existing to conduct the temporal affairs of the Roman Catholic Church within the Diocese of Providence.”
Tobin goes on to claim that the shortfall and the “moral” obligations due to the retirees should be placed at the feet of the owners of St. Joseph. “The only entity that can improve the condition of the pension funds now is Prospect Medical Holdings. They’re a billion dollar for-profit corporation. I know when they’ve purchased other hospitals they’ve infused a lot of money into those pension funds to shore them up,” said Tobin in the article.
But, according to a GoLocal review of tax records, in 2008, while the Diocese owned the hospital and Tobin chaired the board, the pension liability was in excess of $50 million and other “retirement obligations were another $3 million. By 2009, the St. Joseph pension liability had jumped to $72 million and the addition "retirement obligations" were $3.1 million.
Related Slideshow: 10 Things to Know About One of Biggest Pension Failures in RI - St. Joseph Receivership
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