Only in RI: 'They just broke the city'

"Only in Rhode Island," is an oft-invoked sigh of resignation in RI, usually inspired by the latest ugly turn of events in a culturally-ingrained, historically unending course of government ineptitude, mismanagement, and corruption. And too often taking their place at the periphery, if not the center, of these disspiriting political messes are the involvements of public employee unions. And in this case--this well-documented case--they are right at the center of Providence's unworkable pension and retirement healthcare obligations.

Not long ago, the front page of the Providence Journal ("Projo") displayed a half-page graph showing the relatively meager $millions of funding put away and available to meet the $billions of obligations owing for state and municipal pension and retiree health benefits in Rhode Island. Meeting those obligations is impossible. The new state treasurer has now set about bringing all the parties to the table and to the process of cutting back these obligations to workable levels that reflect what semblance of fairness can be achieved for both affected public employees and taxpayers. (And, yes, I know that it is not only in RI. Lots of other states and municipalities have crafted their own disasters of irresponsibility and incompetence in these areas of public employee benefits.)

But this article on the front page of today's Projo details the ludicrously indefensible involvement of Providence public union employees, often public union officers, holding a majority of seats on the Providence Retirement Board. The public union majority members came to dominate unchecked the recommendation and approval process for increasingly unworkable levels of increased benefits, and the process of funding them. It evolved that neither the City Council nor Mayor could oversee or overrule their decisions. Unbelievable. Government failure in so many ways, on so many levels.

For my friends outside RI, there will likely be the bewildered question of how any properly functioning representative government could define the roles of public representatives to allow this to happen, how they could be complicit in allowing the public unions to exercise such control in these matters. For those friends who share my years of life and work in the Ocean State, but also didn't appreciate the full history of this particular episode, the only thing left to them is to more despondently than ever say again, "Only in Rhode Island."

(Click on the link above or below for this real-life story of how far out of control the role of public-employee unions can get--and how irresponsible and unrepentant the former government and union officials were and are about it.)

Link:
http://www.projo.com/news/content/providence_pension_history_06-05-11_HPO9OU2_v101.3125e19.html