Category Archives: Public Pensions

5 Minutes With … Richard Ravitch



In our “5 Minutes With …” feature we spend 5 interesting minutes with leading elected officials and policy leaders.  In this “5 Minutes With …” segment we spoke with Richard Ravitch about the State Budget Crisis Task Force and New York State’s fiscal challenges.

Richard Ravitch has been a leader in state and city government finance for decades.  He was a pivotal figure in rescuing New York City during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and has filled an extraordinary number of vital roles since then.  In 2011, Richard Ravitch and Paul Volcker organized, and co-chaired, the State Budget Crisis Task Force, with the goal of conducting an in-depth analysis of the financial condition of six large states.   (More background can be found here.)

The Task Force has now issued its report analyzing New York State’s daunting fiscal challenges. The State Budget Crisis Task Force, the New York Report and New York State’s fiscal challenges are the subject of our 5 Minutes With … Richard Ravitch.

5 Minutes With … Gina Raimondo



In our “5 Minutes With …” feature we spend 5 interesting minutes with leading elected officials and policy leaders.  In this “5 Minutes With …” segment we spoke with Gina Raimondo, Rhode Island State Treasurer, on the topic of pension reform.

When Gina Raimondo took office in 2011, Rhode Island had one of the weakest state pension systems in the country.  Gina Raimondo’s approach in seeking major changes was markedly different from that of many other elected officials around the country, as illustrated by her comment that “we took a tone of no finger pointing, no blame, no nasty divisive rhetoric … [and] my mantra was ‘this is math, not politics.'”

How she moved her state from inertia to action to dramatically change the Rhode Island state pension system is the focus of our “5 Minutes With … Gina Raimondo”.