About Public Retirement

So what is 'Public Retirement'? That's a common question for many people. The first thing to distinguish is what a public employee is. Public employees are usually those people who work in some full time capacity for a branch of government. This can be State, City or Township Government, or in education. In Rhode Island, your employer (city or town) must choose to become covered by The Employees Retirement System of Rhode Island. Once your employer has made that election, the administration of your retirement plan is handled by ERSRI, a division of the Department of the Treasury.

Now, the primary difference between your Public Retirement benefits versus privately administered retirement benefits (such as IRA's, 401K's or individual investing and saving) is that with private retirement planning instruments, you own all the risk of the investment choices and contributions. This primarily means that the amount of benefit you would receive is highly dependent on how much money YOU put into the plan, and how well that money is invested over time (how it will grow). If there are adverse conditions affecting your investments, there is no guarantee whatsoever that you will have the amount of money available to you that you planned when you made the investment.

With Public Retirement, your benefits are fixed by legislation of the State of Rhode Island. You still make contributions to the plan (as does your employer, on your behalf), but your benefits are fixed as soon as you become 'vested' (see the Membership & Retirement handbook for a description of vesting, or go to our glossary or FAQ page). These benefits can be fairly easily estimated using a basic equation. The equation involves your service credits and your final average salary. Again, you can find out how these two items are determined in the member handbook or our FAQ page.

At any rate, the key difference is that with privatized retirement plans, YOU own all the risk of the invested money and it is not guaranteed to you (except with certain insurance policies). With public retirement, your employer and the State of Rhode Island own the risk of investing your money to guarantee your retirement benefits. This means that you have little control over how the money is invested OR how much benefits you receive, but, the benefits you will receive are guaranteed by the State.

Depending on who your employer is and what position you hold, the Rhode Island General laws dictate what benefits you receive when you retire. These benefits may be different for people in high risk public service jobs, such as Police and Firemen, or may have unique provisions for counting service credit, as with Teachers. ERSRI administrates about 21 different benefit structures, which may include Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA's) over time, health insurance, or unique retirement eligibility conditions. For this reason, some public employees are entitled to different benefits than others. To understand and plan for your retirement, you should browse our web page to familiarize yourself with your retirement benefits. As you near retirement, the Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island offers free retirement counseling at our offices and at 'outreach centers' around the state.

If you need to contact us you have three options:

• The most efficient way is by email through the "Contact Us" page. You may get to this page by clicking on its link on the navigation bar on the left side of each page.
• You may also write us, or mail in a filled out form downloaded from the "ERSRI Forms" page. You may get to the "ERSRI Forms" page by clicking on its link on the navigation bar on the left side of each page.
  Our main mailing address is:
  Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island
  40 Fountain Street, First Floor
  Providence, RI 02903-1845
• If your communication is of critical importance you may contact us by phone during regular working hours at:
  401-222-2203

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