Print
Return to online version

November 14, 2011

Even the $17/Week Co-Share: A Portrait of Greed

Monique Chartier

Exclusively, it appears, courtesy WPRO.

Christopher Cardarelli earned $77,000 as a firefighter last year and collected a $37,000 pension as a retired police captain but now he says he is paying too much for health benefits. ...

Cardarelli asserts that the city must reimburse him the $17 dollars a week he has been paying toward his health care because his contract says that if a retired cop is rehired then his town-financed healthcare is suspended, however, it says that the city will reimburse the retiree for any health care payments they are required to make by their new employer.

In addition to the matter of Mr. Cardarelli's unwillingness to pay a healthcare co-share that most of us can only dream about (Paul & Al made him the subject this morning of their "This Is Why You Suck" segment), this also becomes an excellent opportunity to once again highlight the extreme generosity of Rhode Island's public pension benefits: prima facie, Mr. Cardarelli is not ready to retire, nor does he need a pension to survive: he currently works a nice public sector job for North Providence.

Why, then, was he, along with thousands of other public employees, state and local, permitted to begin collecting a pension long before retirement age? And how can the bill on Smith Hill just voted out of committee honestly be framed as adequately reforming the pension system if it leave largely untouched these exceedingly generous pensions?

Comments

The names of all the goons in this state sound like extras in "Good Fellas"

Posted by: bob at November 14, 2011 1:56 PM

Arrogance and greed on public display display all enabled by their union masters. Tell a person he or she is entitled and they begin to believe it. OJ's legal team convinced him he was not guilty of decapitating his wife because the glove did not fit. Denial is a river in Africa and the juice of RI public sector unions.

Posted by: ANTHONY at November 14, 2011 2:11 PM

Just another "dueling pensions" RI cop/fireman gaming a broken system and licking the trough clean. I'm surprised it's even a news story at this point. 1 death is a tragedy, 1 million deaths... you know the line.

More silence from "The Brotherhood" on these abuses. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

Posted by: Dan at November 14, 2011 4:03 PM