Glen Hebert

My name is Glen Hebert I am a retired Woonsocket police Detective Sgt. Retiring in April 2005 after 21 years of service At the time of my retirement I was told by the Rhode Island Employee representative that I would get a 3% no compounded COLA. as outlined in my paperwork. The paperwork states, under COLAs If you are a Municipal Employee you will receive COLA if your City or town has accepted the statutory provision allowing one. Which Woonsocket did. I also contributed a percentage of my weekly pay towards my pension and a percentage of that was for a COLA Now since the State stopped paying regular COLA’s and because the City of Woonsocket is not 80% funded I have missed out on several of the COLA’s that have been granted I ask is it my fault The City is only funded at 78.1% Shouldn’t the State Pension Board be forcing the City to Fund the plan at least to 80% Why is the City allowed to have a large operating surplus and not forced to pay it’s obligations. According to Deputy Director Heidi Halbur in an email to me dated July 5 2023 it would cost the City approximately1.35 million to bring the plan to 80% Why is the Woonsocket Fire department funded to 94% but police only 78% Is it because the disgraced mayor did not care for the Police so I get penalized, Who decided the magic number is 80% why can’t it be 70%Why does there have to be a number at all I paid my dues and should reap the same benefits as everyone else I have been embroiled in a lawsuit for over 10 years with the City over my healthcare I have beat the City 3 times on this case and they still refuse to implement the courts decision But the Judge, Judge Lanphear wrote in his decision, And I quote, Of course people are not always pleased about keeping their promises, particularly when contracts are costly and long lasting, parties may attempt to avoid the obligations that they have made. Avoiding the obligations of a contract after receiving the benefits of the contract is obviously unfair. The founders of our Government recognized that State governments (powerful creations in our federal system) should be prohibited from voiding the obligations of contracts. I submit that the State Pension board entered a contract and agreed to pay me 3% for which I made payments thus fulfilling my obligations, yet the state committed what I characterize as Larceny as they took my money but did not provide the services I paid for. Personally, my non compounded COLA was fixed for life I believe at 76 dollars a month roughly. So it’s been roughly 142 months since the Cola suspension so at 76 dollars a month thats approximately $10,792.00 in lost COLA payments The city of Woonsocket did not contribute to Social security and there is a federal windfall law so whatever my Social security payment will be when I reach the age of collection 66 and 8 months will be reduced by the windfall rule and the lack of credited quarters Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and I hope the board can get the COLA payments back on track sooner than later

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