Janet and John Rizzo, who met while working at St. Clare’s in Schenectady, have had to adjust their expectations for retirement since the former hospital’s pension fund collapsed.

Former St. Clare’s Hospital workers attended an event at the Capitol in 2019. Six years later, they’re still waiting for help.

Former St. Clare’s Hospital workers attended an event at the Capitol in 2019. Six years later, they’re still waiting for help.

SCHENECTADY — The collapse of the St. Clare’s pension fund was a stunning blow for 1,100 of the shuttered hospital’s former employees. But for John and Janet Rizzo, the hit was twice as hard.

Janet worked for decades as a payroll specialist at the Schenectady hospital, where her mom had been a nurse, while John was a longtime maintenance worker there. As it happens, St. Clare’s is where the Rizzos met.

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You can understand, then, why the Princetown couple has fond memories of their days at the McClellan Street campus. John and Janet say working at the hospital felt like being with a big family. There was a warmth to St. Clare’s, they say, that few hospitals can replicate.

But those memories have been soured by the pension fund debacle. In 2018, most of the workers, John and Janet included, were told they would receive no benefits.

In an instant, the Rizzos lost the money, roughly $2,000 per month, they had expected would help fund their retirement. Unlike some St. Clare’s pensioners, they have kept their home and have investment income. But their lives are not what they had planned.

“It meant no vacation. It meant necessities only,” Janet, who is 71, told me. “It wouldn’t have been easy (with the pensions), but it would have been a lot more comfortable.”

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It isn’t just the money, Janet added. It’s the principle.

A promise was made to........

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