Rhode Island's capital city had, it would seem, only the best intentions in promising its firefighters and police a healthy pension plan with generous cost-of-living increases.
But as a recent Reuters report discusses, those who were gifted with pensions that multiplied with annual six-percent COL boosts, are now seeing their benefits modified or dropped as the state becomes less and less able to pay its bills and tries to contend with a billion-dollar deficit.
As an example, former fire chief Gilbert McLaughlin, now 75, makes $196,813 a year as part of his pension; under the initial payment plan, he could have been making as much as $700,000 a year if he'd lived to 100, with his payouts doubling every 12 years.
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"Nobody ever did the math on this," Paul Doughty, head of the local firefighters' union, told Reuters.
The automatic raises have ended and payouts have been capped; the issue points to a larger, across-the-board problem in America of cities and corporations that are now unable to follow up on the promises made to their longtime employees.
Read the whole story here.
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