Philip Gingerella

Good afternoon. I am a Charlestown Police Officer and have been employed by the Town of Charlestown since July 1st, 1999. The new pension laws added 7 years to my minimum retirement obligations because of my age when I was hired. I was hired at 23 years of age and because of that I will not be 50 years old when I reach 25 years of service. The current pension laws require me to do an additional 2 years of service over the minimum of a Police Officer hired the same day, because I was 23 years old when hired and that other Police Officer was 28 years old. My only complaint with the current law is it "penalizes" younger employees. I do not argue that the minimum age of service needed to be increased in the pension reform law, but an additional 7 years for just a small group of younger employees does not seem fair. My recommendation is the law should be based on a standard "years of service" obligation of "25 years total" for all Police Officers, regardless of age at hire. I believe RI is the only state in the region that has this cavoite for age instead of just straight years of service. CT is just "25 years of service" for all Police Officers. Thank you for your time. Philip Gingerella

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