(WJAR) — Whether the state should restore pension benefit cuts has become a central issue in the race for Rhode Island General Treasurer.
Republican challenger Micholas Credle has picked up the support of public-sector retirees hoping to reverse cuts made as part of the state’s pension reform 15 years ago.
Credle has told NBC 10 he’s not promising to restore benefits, but will look into what more the state can do.
The General Assembly would have to take action.
Meanwhile, incumbent Democrat James Diossa argues he’s keeping a steady hand on the wheel.
“I think I’ve done a good job,” Diossa told NBC 10 in an interview.
After four years on the job, Diossa touts programs he’s put in place.
File photo of a home on sale. (WJAR)
A lower interest first-time home-buyers plan.
Working with employers to set up retirement funds for workers who didn’t otherwise have them.
Buying up $16 million in medical debt for 9,000 residents, at a $300,000 cost to the state.
“That’s important ’cause we all know someone who’s struggling with medical debt and because of that they put off medical visits, which make their illness or something that could be so simply addressed worse, and the anxieties of getting collection calls, and the stress of that make them even more sick,” Diossa says.
But overseeing the state’s pension, and the 2011 reform of it, is the issue Diossa’s opponent, Credle, is focusing on.
Micholas Credle is running for treasurer in Rhode Island, he answered questions for NBC 10 about his plans for the role if elected. (WJAR)
Asked by NBC 10 about some retirees rallying to his opponent’s side, Diossa said, “I fully understand how they’re feeling with everything being so much more expensive today with the cost of inflation.”
“But I also have a responsibility, not only to the retirees, the actives and future retirees, and I have to do what’s best in a fiduciary, in a responsible way,” Diossa said.
Reform benchmarks for the pension fund’s health, required to restore cost of living benefits, have not yet been met.
Restoring certain pension cuts would cost tens of millions of dollars, or more.
Credle claims he can do it by cutting out waste in the system.
Diossa says some of the requests from retirees could cost billions.
He says he’s met with them.
“And I’ve said to them that I’m very supportive in understanding of their needs, but some of their ask, it’s very expensive,” Diossa told NBC 10.
The office of Rhode Island General Treasurer James Diossa. (WJAR)
Asked if he’s being overly cautious, Diossa pointed to the city where he was previously mayor, Central Falls, and its 2011 bankruptcy that led to the slashing of employee retirement benefits.
As for talk of potentially bringing back benefits early, Diossa told NBC 10, “I think it’s not realistic. And it’s creating false sense of hope. We have to be very honest with people and that’s what I’ve been, what I’ve done. And not because of what I think, I show it through numbers and numbers don’t lie.”
In 2024, state lawmakers lowered the threshold for when workers who retired after 2012 can get cost of living adjustments back, from the pension fund being 80% funded down to 75%.
At the time, Diossa expressed caution over the cost of that change.
He says now the pension fund is on track to meet that benchmark in 2029.