Employees of the former St. Clare's Hospital in Schenectady have been fighting for years to get their pensions back. New York Attorney General Tish James is in Schenectady updating the pensioners.
St. Clare’s hospital shut its doors permanently 13 years ago. The Catholic hospital was absorbed by Ellis Medicine following a recommendation from a state commission on consolidating healthcare facilities in the state. St. Clare's pension fund was established in 1959, about 10 years after the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese co-founded the hospital.
In March 2019, the St. Clare's Corporation petitioned the state Supreme Court to dissolve, claiming it had run out of money to distribute to some 1,100 pensioners. The fund was decimated in the 2008 recession.
According to the Daily Gazette, St. Clare's had made only partial deposits to its pension fund in three years and no deposit at all in the other seven years of the decade leading up to its 2008 closure.
New York state did pay St. Clare's $58 million to cover transition costs including $28.5 million to cover the pension fund's anticipated needs. A move to drop federal pension insurance protection in the 1990s doomed the fund.
Mary Hartshorne co-chairs the St. Claire’s Pensioner’s Committee: "For us to be treated like this is a shame and we have begged for answers from the diocese," said Hartshorne.
Pensioners pressed on. They rallied at the state capitol. They filed a lawsuit. They met at various times with elected officials including Democratic 110th district Assemblymember Phil Steck, who said the pension plan was clearly insolvent before the 2008 recession effectively wiped out the plan's money, and the Roman Catholic Church shoulders a measure of responsibility for the pension fiasco.
"The Catholic Church just got a tremendous amount of money from the sale of Fidelis Care and from the Cabrini Fund, they have to step up to the plate and join with the state in setting this situation right," said Steck.
Republican state Senator Jim Tedisco pointed to New York State's involvement in the pension collapse.
"They were right-sizing their health-care system," Tedisco said. They had a Berger Commission. They said St. Clare's hospital, who provided for the sickest and the lowest income individuals time and time again, who did not receive payments in many instances but kept caring for those people, they were the one hospital, maybe in this entire Capital District area, certainly in Schenectady County in that region, who were taking care of patients who probably couldn't afford to pay or could afford to pay a limited amount. And now you've got 1,100 or more citizens who are either being reduced drastically with their pension that they were promised, or a good portion of them not receiving any of their pension. That's totally unacceptable."
Pensioners' cries for help to Governor Andrew Cuomo and Governor Kathy Hochul seemed to fall on deaf ears.
The Times Union reports today James is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany over the alleged mismanagement of the pension fund, seeking restitution for the pensioners.
The paper says the lawsuit alleges that Albany diocese officials, including former Bishop Howard Hubbard, mismanaged the fund and lied to the Internal Revenue Service, telling the agency that required annual contributions were being made to the pension plan.
The diocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
