Providence Retirees Brace for Meeting with Mayor Taveras
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Mayor Angel Taveras will meet today with retirees for a town hall-style meeting to explain just how severe the city's fiscal conditions are, a measure viewed as the next step in his efforts to help the city avert bankruptcy.
The meeting, which will be streamed live on the Internet, will take place from 10-11:30AM at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet in Cranston. The administration has invited every one of the city's retirees to attend - approximately 4,300 retired police, firefighters, teachers and municipal employees.
The city currently faces a $22.5 million budget deficit with four months remaining in the fiscal year, and Taveras has blamed retirees' Cost-of-living-adjustments (COLAs) as part of the reason the city could be forced into bankruptcy. Taveras has made it clear that he plans to freeze COLAs and cut benefits this year.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“This year, one way or another, we will address the broken pension and health care systems that are draining our city," Taveras said during his state of the city address last month.
Taveras Will Ask for Sacrifice
Taveras inherited a massive $110 million structural deficit upon taking office last year, but because several assumptions in his budget did not come to fruition, he said he has said that he is left with few options for closing the rest of the deficit this year. He has called on both the retirees and the tax-exempt institutions to make sacrifice.
"We stare into that black hole because some have failed to sacrifice," Taveras said. "Our tax-exempt institutions and city retirees have yet to join the rest of our community in helping to save our city."
During the last legislative session, the General Assembly granted Providence the right to move retirees over the age of 65 to Medicare, but a Judge issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the city from shifting their coverage after police and fire retirees challenged the decision. The State Supreme Court said last week that it will not expedite the city's appeal or lift the injunction.
"The unsustainable promise of free health care for life continues the burden on the taxpayer increases and the window of opportunity to pull our city out of the black hole grows increasingly smaller," Taveras said.
Not the Mayor’s Fault
But Joseph Penza, who represents the police and fire retirees and also was the union lawyer who negotiated the five percent compounded COLAs over 20 years ago, told GoLocalProv recently that believes the city will have a difficult time freezing COLAs without legislative approval.
“I know what the Mayor said, but I think when they think that through it, they might change that,” Penza said.
Penza said he recalls when the contracts were originally being negotiated that some of the union membership was unhappy because they had to give up pay increases for two years. He said no one talked about the pension obligations down the road. He said the city shouldn’t take mistakes made by past administrations out on retirees.
“I’ve always made it clear that the issues the current Mayor is facing is not his fault,” Penza said. “Similarly it's not the retirees’ fault. So constantly pounding on the retirees and saying they’re the cause is not fair to them.”
