Benefits expert testifies in lawsuit by Providence police, fire department retirees

April 19--PROVIDENCE -- An expert hired by a group of city police and fire retirees testified in Superior Court on Monday that moving members of that group to Medicare from their previously promised city health care for life is exposing them to five-fold increases in health-care costs.

The testimony by Dale Yamamoto, a retirement health benefits expert, came during a lawsuit by a group of 68 police and fire retirees who are challenging a 2013 agreement that cut their pensions and moved them to the federal Medicare program when they reached age 65.

The agreement between the city, its firefighter and police unions and representatives of its public safety retirees saved the city $18.5 million and cut its pension liability by $170 million by suspending annual cost-of-living-increases until around 2036 and moving retirees eligible for Medicare off city health insurance.

More than 80 percent of the city's 1,357 retired public safety workers consented to the agreement. The 68 dissidents opted out and sued, and they are in Superior Court asking Judge Sarah Taft-Carter to undo the deal.

As part of the agreement the city agreed to pay for supplemental Medicare insurance Part B and for Medicare drug insurance supplement Part D for all retirees who agreed to participate. The plaintiffs in the suit, the 68 who opted out, have complained about the Parts B and D costs in their testimony.

Most of the day was taken up with Yamamoto's detailed explanations of how he calculated the costs of the benefits of the old city plans and Medicare, but there were some interesting moments.

Retired emergency medical Capt. Richard Hughes testified about the effects of the loss of his COLA and his concerns about moving to Medicare. He noted he'd served the department for 22 years and despite injuries, left with a conventional pension.

"I could have gone out on disability," he said. "They gave it out like candy on Halloween."

On cross examination, Nicholas Nybo, one of the city's lawyers, noted that Hughes' lost 3 percent COLA amounted to $75 a month. He also pressed Hughes on the Halloween remark, repeatedly asking, each time in a slightly different form, if he meant that people who didn't deserve disability pensions had gotten them.

Hughes said he knew of no fraud. Employees were free to request a disability pension if they felt justified, he said, and it was the city that decided to award them.

"Talk to your client," he said, "it's your client that gave them out."

The city initially asked Taft-Carter to reject Yamamoto as a witness because the retirees' lawyers didn't provide the city with background it needed to cross examine him until about a week before the trial began.

Taft-Carter said to deny the retirees a key witness would be too extreme a penalty, but she left the door open to some kind of action. She said she had been troubled by other problems with pre-trial disclosure as well, and told the city's lawyers that if, after the trial, they wanted to propose some kind of sanctions against the retirees' lawyers, she would consider them.

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