The Insider

On the Horizon

     Over the past several years, state employees and teachers have been treated poorly by the Governor and  Rhode Island General Assembly.  First, there was the 1% increase in contributions to the Employees' Retirement System.  Then, there was the creation of a two-tiered retirement system, providing much lesser benefits to teachers and state employees who had fewer than ten years of service as of 2005.

     Affecting teachers, there was the privatization of Charter Schools.  This was followed by tuition tax credits for private and parochial schools with no consideration of charitable contributions to public schools. There was no increase in state aid to education for this school year, and it has already been announced that there will be no new state aid for the next school year.  The Assembly did not live up to its promise to enact a state aid to education formula that was part of the property tax and school budget cap that was enacted last year (S 3050).  Cities and towns are limited in how much money they can raise to support public education, and each year the cap gets lower.

     The State of Rhode Island has no tax policy.  There is no evidence that the tax breaks for the wealthy have created or will create jobs in Rhode Island, and yet these breaks are given out like candy on Halloween.  There is no interest at the Assembly in rolling back any of the tax breaks, for example, even holding the capital gains tax at its current level instead of reducing it, as it will be unless stopped.  The State has simply given away major chunks of its revenue.  There is no interest in raising revenue unless it's in targeted fees.  For example, the Board of Regents has budgeted that teacher certification fees double, generating $400,000 for the State budget.

     The State has a structural deficit problem.  It has costs that it says it cannot sustain.  Who does the State want to restructure to get out of its hole?  Poor people, infirm people and public employees.

Look out for proposals that may:

• Take away or reduce the COLA on retirement benefits;
• Reduce the retirement benefits for everyone in the Retirement System;
• Increase contributions to the Retirement System again;
• Convert the Retirement System from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. This is the same thing as privatizing Social Security.  Your benefits would depend on how the stock market performs.
• Put teachers in the state health care plan with United;
• Make bargaining for health care by teachers' unions illegal;
• For state employees, attacking state-subsidized retiree health care.

     When the General Assembly is in session in 2008, you will be receiving a card from the RIFTHP.  It will ask for your help.  If these and other proposals to restructure us and the most vulnerable in our society are to be stopped, it will only be by collective action.  We will have to run a campaign as if we were running for political office.  The voters that we have to persuade to vote for us are the members of the RI General Assembly.  We will have to call them and ask them to vote for us.  We will have to send them e-mails to ask them to vote for us.  We will have to write them letters to ask them to vote for us.

     A vote for us is a vote against the pieces of legislation that will harm us.

     Our lobbyists at the Assembly can tell the stories of how important the COLA is to public employees and how important our medical coverage is to us.  Hearing the stories, reading about the stories from the people who are affected is so much more compelling.  It puts a face and a real person behind the issues.  Without you, we have faceless arguments.  We will need your help.  You are the face of the Union.  We need to count you in.

Marcia B. Reback, President
Rhode Island Federation of Teachers
and Health Professionals