rhode island governor race

Raimondo, Fung Fight Over Pension Funding, Fees

Allan Fung, Rhode Island’s Republican candidate for governor, released an ad last week slamming his opponent Gina Raimondo for paying “high fees” for “poor returns” on pension investments.

[The ad can be viewed above.]

Raimondo’s campaign issued the following statement refuting Fung’s claims and accusing Fung of mismanaging Cranston’s pension system:

“Allan Fung is recycling the same tired, misleading attacks on Gina that Rhode Islanders have already rejected. Everything Gina has done as Treasurer is to protect workers’ pensions. The fact is, Gina’s investment strategy is working and is providing strong returns with less risk.”

“In contrast, as mayor, Fung has failed to make full payments to the Cranston pension system and is proposing that we actually default on a debt the state owes. That’s reckless, risky and will hurt taxpayers,” she said of his stance on the 38 Studios bonds.

She cited annual financial reports indicating that the city never paid more than 87 percent of its required pension contribution the first four budget years Fung was mayor.

Fung’s spokesman responded to that attack with a subsequent statement:

“Cranston’s locally administered pension plan had been severely underfunded for years before Allan was elected mayor. … He increased contribution levels and negotiated a responsible pension reform plan,” and is “proud of the fact” the city budgets have had enough money to make full payment the last two fiscal years.

The Raimondo campaign has previously acknowledged that the pension system’s investment fees totaled $70 million in fiscal year 2012-13. Around $45 million of those fees were from hedge funds.

The Raimondo campaign has also clarified that the pension system’s hedge fund investments returned 8.8 percent in 2013. The system’s overall portfolio, meanwhile, returned 15 percent.

Gina Raimondo Suddenly Pulling In Union Endorsements

Heading into the primary that took place earlier this month, Rhode Island’s democratic candidate for governor Gina Raimondo had notoriously little union support.

That was due to the 2011 pension reforms she spearheaded. Unions, aside from disliking the policy, thought they never got a fair shake during negotiations.

But now Raimondo is pulling in union endorsements by the dozen. Her stance on pensions hasn’t changed. So how is she doing it? The Providence Journal asked the same question:

What did Raimondo tell these unions to win their support?

Neither Raimondo, the state’s general treasurer, nor her Republican opponent, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, has been willing to make public their written answers on any candidate questionnaires they submitted in pursuit of endorsements.

Why not? They won’t say.

[…]

Gina Raimondo is on a roll, with a new endorsement almost every day this past week.

In the last week alone, the Democratic nominee for governor has picked up glowing endorsements from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 99 and an arm of the Service Employees International Union that represents “nearly 1,000 contracted janitors at office buildings in R.I.”

A week earlier, she netted the endorsement of the separate wing of the SEIU that won the right to unionize at-home child-care workers.

Raimondo has now picked up endorsements from 15 unions.

Unions have vocally opposed Raimondo’s 2011 reform efforts for years.

But it could be that they see her as the lesser of two evils; unions could have reason to believe they’d have better luck with Raimondo in office than her Republican challenger, Allan Fung.

But without the release of the questionnaires, we won’t know for sure.

Fact-Checking Pension Claims in Rhode Island’s Race For Governor

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Amidst all of the pension sparring going on in the Rhode Island governor race, one question recently came to the forefront: Which candidate more effectively managed their respective pension system?

In a recent debate (the video of which can be seen above), Raimondo made the claim that Taveras did very little to improve the health of Providence’s pension system since he’s been in office.

“The pension fund in the city of Providence is only 30-percent funded, about the same level as when he [Taveras] took office,” she said at the debate. “[I] fixed a system for the long term. He made small changes and the pension system in Providence is still in crisis.”

But is that claim true? PolitiFact checked the facts.

We asked the Raimondo campaign for its evidence.

Spokesman Eric Hyers sent us links to two documents. The first was a Jan. 19, 2012 report from Providence’s pension adviser, Buck Consultants, which tracks funding going back to 1994, when the city had 57.4 percent of the pension money it needed.

Since then, the overall trend has been down. The funded ratio had plummeted to 39.3 percent by the last full fiscal year Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr. was in office. It had dropped to 34.1 percent by June 30, 2010, when David Cicilline, now a U.S. representative, was in his last year.

A year later, when Taveras had been in office for six months, the funded ratio had dropped to 31.94 percent.

The second document was the Jan. 31, 2014 valuation report by the city’s new pension adviser, Segal Consulting.

It reports that as of June 30, 2013, with Taveras in office two and a half years, the funded ratio was virtually the same — 31.39 percent. And this was after Taveras won union concessions to reduce pension costs.

But PolitiFact also contacted the Taveras campaign to hear their side of the story.

Michael D’Amico, Taveras’ former director of administration who is now a budget consultant for the city, said it was “a complete oversimplification” to imply that the changes were small because the funded ratio didn’t change significantly.

The actual cost of the pension system was reduced substantially by negotiating changes such as a 10-year suspension of cost-of-living raises and the elimination of 5- and 6-percent compounded cost of living adjustments, D’Amico said.

“We got just about as much as we possibly could have without cutting pensions,” said Taveras spokesman David Ortiz. “In a sense, the administration faced a choice: do we push Providence into bankruptcy to give a receiver the ability to cut pensions?

“The mayor believed the cost and collateral damage of pushing Rhode Island’s capital city into bankruptcy was not worth extra pension savings we would have been able to pursue,” Ortiz said.

Said D’Amico: “If we hadn’t done anything, the funded ratio would have been much lower.”

PolitiFact’s final verdict: Raimondo’s claim regarding Providence’s pension fund is “mostly true.” From PoltiFact:

When Raimondo said, “The pension fund in the city of Providence is only 30 percent funded, about the same level as when he [Taveras] took office,” she was only off by one percentage point, according to the most recent audit of the fund. That funded ratio has not increased since Taveras was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2011.

But that percentage was on a downward spiral at the time, so having it stabilize at 31 percent doesn’t necessarily reflect “small changes,” as Raimondo claimed in the debate. And the changes negotiated between Taveras and the city’s unions are intended to gradually increase the funding ratio.

Because the statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, we rate it Mostly True.

Raimondo, Taveras Continue Throwing Pension Punches in Race for Rhode Island Governorship

The pension system continues to occupy center stage in Rhode Island’s race for governor. In one corner is current state Treasurer Gina Raimondo, whose 2011 pension reforms were among the boldest in the country and are the subject of numerous lawsuits from labor groups.

In the other corner in Angel Taveras, the current mayor of Providence who has been critical of the pension system’s investments under Raimondo and has accused the Treasurer of being in bed with Wall Street.

Raimondo released a new campaign ad yesterday – you can watch it above – that responded to Taveras’ claims. The Providence Journal reports:

In a new one-minute TV ad released to the media on Monday morning, Raimondo, the state’s general treasurer, looks into the camera and says of her leading rival in the Democratic primary race for governor:

“I’m Gina Raimondo and you might have heard about Mayor Taveras attacking pension reform, claiming I did it to enrich Wall Street. Nothing could be more wrong.”

“I was 11 years old when my dad lost his job at Bulova. I have never forgotten how hard that was. So when I became treasurer and inherited the pension crisis, I knew if we didn’t face up to the problem a lot of people were going to get hurt. And we couldn’t let that happen” she says in the video.

Raimondo, who is being sued by the state’s public-employee unions, next says: “Our reforms passed by overwhelming majorities in the legislature and, in the end, most of our changes were agreed to by every union except one.”

The Taveras campaign has been extremely critical of the hedge funds investments and accompanying investment fees incurred by the state’s pension system under Raimondo’s watch.

A Taveras spokesperson responded to Raimondo’s new ad:

“As a former venture capitalist who raised fees to Wall Street to $70 million, the Treasurer [Raimondo] has taken over $500,000 from the financial industry. The Treasurer received a no bid, secret contract managing taxpayer money that ensured that her venture capital firm was paid whether they made money or not. Rhode Island deserves a governor who has a record of standing up to Wall Street.”

Raimondo has been adamant that most unions were receptive to her reforms. But several union leaders have gone on record to say that is not the case. As the leaders told the Providence Journal:

Leaders of several of the state’s public-employee unions — including Council 94, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — accused Raimondo of misrepresenting their position in the high-stakes pension fight headed for trial next month.

“Council 94, AFSCME vigorously opposed the pension changes. The treasurer’s process was a farce,” said Council 94 President J. Michael Downey, a Taveras backer.

“Our ideas and suggested amendments were ignored. She broke her word about taking care of people with the least amount of pension benefits, in her words: ‘the little guy.’ And she harmed many municipal employees whose pensions were healthy,” Downey said.

Added Paul Reed, president of the Rhode Island State Association of Firefighters: “She never negotiated with us on any of these things.”

Both of those union leaders support Taveras.

Watch Taveras’ original ad below:

Taking Stock of Where Rhode Island’s Candidates for Governor Stand On the Release of Pension Hedge Fund Records

Last month, current Rhode Island Treasurer Gina Raimondo (Democrat) denied the Providence Journal access to records relating to the state pension fund’s hedge fund investments.

The newspaper appealed, but that appeal was denied as well.

In a letter written by Raimondo at the time of the denial, she justified her actions with the following logic (the entire letter can be read at the bottom of this post):

For democracy to work, the public, often through the press, needs oversight over how government is acting on its behalf. At the same time, the government, to fulfill its obligations to the public, needs to be able to function effectively, which often requires a measure of confidentiality, particularly when contracting with private sector entities. Over the years, the law has determined how to balance these two requirements, and the actions of Treasury were consistent with that balance.

With elections only a few months away, and Raimondo in the midst of a bid for governorship of the state, Raimondo’s opponents have seized the opportunity to pounce on her decision to deny access to the hedge fund records.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras (Democrat), who is now running for governor of the state, had this to say:

“Apparently, the treasurer is more concerned about hedge funds being able to keep their talent than taxpayers knowing how their money is being spent,” Taveras’ spokeswoman Dawn Bergantino said. “The treasurer should be looking out for our interests, not Wall Street and hedge fund billionaires.”

Allan Fung (Republican) is currently the mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island. But he’s in the running for governor of the state as well, so he put his thoughts on the table:

“There is a dramatic difference between what is required legally and what is necessary to do the right thing,” Fung said. “Current and retired state employees depend on the strength of the pension fund for their retirement security, and all Rhode Islanders face the risk of higher taxpayer contributions if these investments come up short. We all face tremendous risk and we deserve to know the basis for these investments.”

According to the latest polls, Taveras is currently up on Raimondo, garnering 33.4 percent of the vote to Raimondo’s 29 percent. Clay Pell remains a distant third with 11.5 percent of the vote.

Raimondo’s position has notably diminished since she chose to withhold the hedge fund records. Although she is drawing in the same percentage of votes, the issue may have swayed undecided voters to side with Taveras.

On the Republican side, the latest poll has Ken Block maintaining a healthy lead over rival Allan Fung.

Screen shot 2014-08-05 at 2.49.57 PM — Credit: Wikipedia

And, as promised, here is the letter that Raimondo wrote when she denied the Providence Journal access to the state pension fund’s hedge fund records.

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Photo by: By Jim Jones (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons