Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Budget Commission has received about 100 letters from retirees asking questions about the new pension, healthcare rules.
There are 790 city retirees working out what static pensions and moving to either a uniform city healthcare plan or medicare will mean for their personal budgets, and most are handling that solo. Rosemary Booth Galloogly, RI Director of Revenue, explained the new pension and healthcare terms for retirees during a Feb. 25 meeting at Woonsocket High School. The changes are the retirees' part in the Budget Commission's plan to make up the city's $14.5 million deficit. Those changes are: Gallogly recommended that retirees organize and hire an attorney to arrange a binding agreement with safeguards and checks to make sure the city stays on top of its pension obligations in the future. "The vast majority, as far as I know, have not organized …
42.005089
-71.485196
Woonsocket High School
777 Cass Ave, Woonsocket, RI
/articles/many-city-retirees-on-their-own-to-navigate-new-pension-details
505160
/locations/9000211
42.00287
-71.51371
Woonsocket City Hall
169 Main St, Woonsocket, RI
/articles/many-city-retirees-on-their-own-to-navigate-new-pension-details
505492
/locations/9000212
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Pensioners asked to accept frozen payments, enroll in Medicare as third part of deficit fix.
About 200 pensioners and beneficiaries crowded into Woonsocket High's auditorium Monday to hear a tough choice: accept frozen pension payments and new health care or take their chances with a city bankruptcy. The 700-person capacity room (only 185 signed in as retirees) had few open seats and a handful of people standing in the back as Rosemary Booth Gallogly, RI's director of revenue, laid out the details on their part of the solution to the city's deficit, which also includes sacrifice from taxpayers (the new supplmental tax) and city employees (union concessions on healthcare). The retirees' part in the plan to make up the city's $14.5 million deficit requires: If retirees don't agree to those terms, Galloogly said, that would leave …
42.005089
-71.485196
Woonsocket High School
777 Cass Ave, Woonsocket, RI
/articles/woonsocket-retirees-offered-choice-between-new-pension-healthcare-and-bankruptcy
505160
/locations/8890733
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Suspended COLAs, switch to Medicare for retirees needed as part of city's 5-year plan to solvency.
"The overall financial condition of this city is severe," said Finance Director Thomas Bruce, and the solution involves bad news for Woonsocket's 780 retirees and beneficiaries as well as its taxpayers. On Monday, 3 p.m. at Woonsocket High School, the city and the Woonsocket Budget Commission will host an informational meeting to lay out the city's situation and retiree/beneficiaries' anticipated role in the solution. Among the pieces of bad news people can expect to hear, Bruce said, is the elimination of the 3 percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for retirees. According to a city letter sent to retirees and beneficiaries (see attached .pdf), Woonsocket's pension plan is critically under-funded at 56.7 percent ($58 million of a $98…
michael
12:17 pm on Saturday, March 16, 2013
Memere , you need to do your homework, the state funds our schools budget,the state is the reason why were in this mess for under funding the school budget ,and it is our elected officials fault for not asking how our schools budget was doing !!! The state then sent us this budget commission to act like we can't manage our moneys!!!!! And to cover themselves,so again pay attention and do your … more ›