Union Boss: Retirees "Open for Discussion" with Fung about Failing Pension Plan

The head of the Cranston firefighters union said retirees in the city's failing local police and fire employee retirement fund are "open for discussion" with the mayor about how to fix the $257 million underfunded pension plan.

"We're open for discussion," Paul Valletta, president of the Cranston firefighter's union, said in an interview. "We were open for discussion a year-and-a-half-ago. There's no surprise we had a problem — we took the city to court in the 70s because we knew there was a problem because the city wasn't funding it."

But the dire situation of the pension plan has Cranston retirees ready to talk now, especially after seeing retirees in Central Falls lose big when the troubled municipality declared bankruptcy.

Cranston Mayor Allan W. Fung met with a group of about 250 retirees at a meeting last week at Cranston, route: {:controller=>"listings", :action=>"show", :id=>"cranston-high-school-east"} -->