In today’s Providence Journal, we learn that the opt-out retirees brought in an expert to testify in their lawsuit about the change made by the City of Providence to their post-retirement healthcare coverage.

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.

You mean they might be stuck with Medicare at age sixty five (like most people in the D.P.S.)? Oh no!

And the list of exceedingly generous benefits bestowed by contract on the retiring Cranston police captain who instigated Ticketgate is nothing less than obscene. The biggest one is that he is retiring AND STARTING TO COLLECT HIS TAXPAYER-FUNDED PENSION at age forty three. This is an absurdly generous and completely unaffordable benefit. Pensions should be paid to retirees starting at age sixty seven (or whatever the full retirement age for social security is/was at the employee’s start date of employment).

From the report yesterday by NBC 10’s Parker Gavigan.

A review of city and Rhode Island Treasury information shows Antonucci will receive $27,542 in state pension benefits. In addition, the now retired captain is entitled to approximately $15,879 in family healthcare benefits from the city of Cranston. The total package is approximately $43,421 a year, which could increase with the rising cost of healthcare. …

City records show Antonucci will also receive approximately $40,000 in what’s called “bust out pay,” an accumulation of unused sick, vacation and comp time.