I want to address the issue of the Rhode Island State Police Retirees Cola situation and give you a little background on what we all went through to earn our Cola.

When I joined the State Police in 1960, we worked 16 hours a day, 5 days a week, and had to sleep in a barracks, not allowed to be with our families.

We had two days off a week, if we were lucky, because if a situation occurred, we were not granted our days off.

We were not granted holiday pay or overtime pay, we just had to work the additional days and hours with no additional compensation.

My testimony concerns only those individuals who had retired prior to the pension overhaul of 2011. I am one of those individuals. I retired in 2006 following a thirty-two year career at the Department of Labor and Training. I spoke to my accountant prior to submitting my retirement notification. He advised me that I would be financially secure with my pension from the state of Rhode Island, my Social Security benefits and my cost-of-living adjustments. After I had been retired for five years the situation changed. My cost-of-living was taken away.

In 2011, the state of R.I. passed a piece of legislation commonly referred to as RIRSA. The passage of this law had profound effects upon the lives of numerous public service employees. As a law, it is my belief that RIRSA was neither “fair” nor “just”.

The pension change of 2011 was financially devastating to my family. Many of my immediate and extended family were teachers at the time of the change. My father a retired principal, my sister a guidance councilor, my brother an attendance officer my cousin a school teacher and myself a teacher for 29 years all saw our pension lowered as well as having to extend our years of service. I feel as the issue was grossly overstated to the public and that many small changes could have saved the pension system and kept the years of service and benefits as they were.

SUGGESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION BY THE PENSION ADVISORY WORKING GROUP:

I am one of many who retired before 2011 after contributing to the pension fund out of every paycheck as required by law, in my case for 39 years as a state employee. With inflation increased by 35% since 2011, living without an annual cost-of-living adjustment has adversely affected my standard of living.

I have been a teacher for 34 years. Most of my career was spent in Cumberland R.I. We were one of the lowest paying communities in R.I. Many years we froze our salaries or received a 1% raise which did not even cover the increase in the medical benefits. We were told that all would be made up with the state COLA. I retired in 2008 and waited the three years for my first COLA payment which I received in 2011. After that COLA ended. I have been a widow for 11 years and was told I could not collect my Spousal benefit from Social Security because of the GPO ( Government Pension Offset).

This week, The Pension Advisory Group was presented with the costs associated with the restoration of some of the retirement benefits that were cut during the 2011 Pension Overhaul.

Some of the proposals that offer a “PROSPECTIVE” increased accrual or cola restoration amount to just another layer of cruel and unusual punishment.

I implore you to find some way to restore our COLA.  I retired in 2002 and was legally promised a COLA by contract.  I taught in Smithfield which did not contribute to Social Security.  Due to other employment, I do get a reduce SS each month.  I became a widow in Dec of 2022.  I am not able to collect my husband's SS, about $2500 per month.  He was not in education nor worked for a municipality.  Here is the formula: 

I am writing to convey the adverse effects that the Retirement Security Act has imposed on my professional trajectory. As a committed public school teacher with 19 years of service, my initial retirement plan entailed concluding my career in 11 years with a total of 30 years of dedicated service. However, the recent reform mandates an additional 4 years of service, without accompanying financial benefits upon retirement.

What will be done for the current employees who did not make the cutoff in 2011 and are only contributing 1% instead of 2.28% before the enactment of the changes? Let's use the money in the TIAA account and purchase back the 1.28 percent. Many of us are going to have to work well beyond 35 years to have a secure retirement. The fees we pay in the TIAA account are excessive and detrimental to our retirement.

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