Ann Tobin

I retired in June after 37 yrs in public education. When I started teaching, I worked in Massachusetts. In 1987 I accepted a job in RI. We were told we had free insurance and a great retirement. Much better than Mass. If I worked 28-35 years, I could retire and get a pension of up to 80%. The deal was , 10% of our salary would be taken for the State defined benefit retirement program instead of Social Security and we would have a comfortable retirement at a young age with lifetime insurance. No one ever came to us peddling annuities because they were not needed. The State was investing for us ! Life happened and our retirement was automatically deducted. We didn’t need to worry . We had kids, bought houses, took loans to send our kids to college and some purchased retirement houses. Then poof. That retirement income we planned our life around for 25 years was gone! First, the towns took the free insurance away. Then we were told we had to work 8 extra years. That was okay for most, as long as we got my 80%. Coworkers with older retired spouses and had already made retirement plans found it a challenge . Then at 25+ years they told us they were taking the money we had put in the defined benefit retirement and investing in annuities that would work for us and give us about the same pension. I knew this was not for someone who was too old for that money to grow. Now, we are getting half of what we were promised. We made our serious life decisions based on that guarantee. We mortgaged houses knowing we would have income to pay for them in the future . We took parent loans and refinanced those houses for our kid’s tuition , we helped with elderly parents’ expenses and purchased new cars. Those decisions would have been very different if we had known we would end up poor in the future. We might not have chosen this job or this state. We might have changed careers. We may have decided to put money in an additional investment accounts knowing we would need them. We might have purchased smaller houses with shorter mortgages. We probably wouldn’t have refinanced houses for college or gone $50,000 in parent loan debt per child knowing we would not be able to pay them. So people like me are up the creek. I had to sell my mortgaged house to pay off tuition and still have loans. My youngest is still in high school and I don’t make enough in retirement to pay my rent and expenses and have to work elsewhere. Never mind paying for his school. And I will never see the comfortable retirement. I should have stayed in Mass. RI town budgets are also being hurt. Towns are saying top step teachers for 10 -20 years longer. Older teachers are in need of sick leave and FMLA. We were bullied into voting for this change because we were told that we probably end up with nothing if if went to court because the system was going to be bankrupt. Larry Puttill told us to vote for Gina’s plan even though illegal. Because the appointment of a special master was supposed to give non biased legal advice. Sad truth is California State employees were offered a similar deal. It went to court just days later and It was deemed illegal to change a contract. I was a union delegate. During that year. I knew we shouldn’t accept this deal. But I’m one person. And everyone took Larry’s bad advice. So no money, no colas. 40 yrs for no reward. A future of poverty. What will happen when I can’t work my retirement job?

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