Tagged: pensions

Rhode Island’s $7 billion+ pension fund — which is banking on an expected rate of return of 7.5 percent to pay its long-term obligations — earned just 1.4 percent over the fiscal year that ended June 30.

State Treasurer Gina Raimondo, who chairs the state Investment Commission and sparked the move last year to lower the pension fund’s expected rate of return, says she doesn’t think the state’s expected 7.5 percent rate of return is too optimistic. In an interview, she said:

Rhode Island’s $7 billion+ pension fund — which is banking on an expected rate of return of 7.5 percent to pay its long-term obligations — earned just 1.4 percent over the fiscal year that ended June 30.

State Treasurer Gina Raimondo, who chairs the state Investment Commission and sparked the move last year to lower the pension fund’s expected rate of return, says she doesn’t think the state’s expected 7.5 percent rate of return is too optimistic. In an interview, she said:

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has declined a state motion to stay the big pension case pending before Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter. Via news release:

In the matter of Rhode Island Public Employees’ Retiree Coalition et al v. Lincoln Chafee et al, the Supreme Court today declined to intervene in the union and coalition lawsuits against the state regarding the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011.

Governor Lincoln Chafee used a November 13 letter to state Treasurer Gina Raimondo to broach the possibility of seeking a settlement to the pension lawsuit.

The ensuing correspondence offers some insight into the two officials’ viewpoints and their personal styles. 

In a letter on his official stationery, Chafee crossed out “Treasurer Raimondo” salutation, replacing it with a handwritten “[Dear] Gina”:

In sharp contrast to Governor Lincoln Chafee, House Speaker Gordon Fox is siding with state Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s argument that the time for negotiating last year’s pension overhaul is over.

Fox’s stance is pivotal; without his support, changes to the pension overhaul are a non-starter in the General Assembly.

Fox offered this statement to RIPR: