Michael Calabro

In 1996, after having worked in the banking world for 7 years, I made a career change to become a teacher. I did this for several reasons, but one of them was the pension system. As a retirement specialist in the bank, the RI state pension system was an attractive part of teaching. I was told at the time, that if I worked for 28 years, I would receive 60% of my top 3 earning years. If I wanted to work longer, up to 35 years, I could earn up to 80%. I was NEVER told this could possibly change. I made adjustments to my retirement portfolio knowing that I would get at least 60% of my salary upon retirement. After 14 years in education, the "rug was pulled out from under me"! Pension reform came out of nowhere, and I was told that now I was only getting 40% of my salary and I had to work 7 years longer to achieve this! Ouch! What a slap in the face! Not only did I lose those 14 years of planning for my retirement differently (which is huge!), but I also had to work longer to make less! What a way to destroy morale! Now we have a situation where young college students do not want to enter the profession and our educators are all getting old! This is not what students need. They need a mix of experienced teachers and new blood. But why would any young kid in college sign up for this? Perhaps a model somewhere in between the old system and the new system would benefit everybody involved, especially the students! Thanks for your time!

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