St. Clare's Hospital retirees and workers take part in a a 2019 news conference at the state Capitol at which they urged the state to launch an investigation of the collapse of the hospital's pension fund.

In 2021, soon after Kathy Hochul became the governor, the group representing former St. Clare’s Hospital employees sent her a letter.

It explained their well-documented plight, telling Hochul how their pension fund collapsed in 2018, leaving 1,100 former employees of the shuttered Schenectady hospital with reduced retirement benefits — or no pension at all.

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“We know you have a tremendous amount on your plate,” said the letter, which was also signed by state Sen. James Tedisco, a Republican, and Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, a Democrat. “We respectfully ask you to please set aside a few minutes in the near future to meet with us and the leader of the St. Clare’s Pensioners Recovery Alliance.”

Four years later, that meeting has not happened, despite additional requests.

“She has always refused to speak with me,” said Mary Hartshorne, a former St. Clare’s employee who chairs the pensioners' alliance. “I’d like her to look at the problem, to listen to what we have to say and to open her........

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