Pension experts say that whatever decisionsDetroit makes could set a precedent for retiree benefits in othercash-strapped cities and counties nationwide. To a degree, someprecedent has exists, in Central Falls, R.I.

When a city goes bust, the one certainty is uncertainty.

Bankruptcy leaves citizens wondering how many essentialservices, such as police and fire departments, will be cut. Cityworkers wonder whether they will keep their jobs.

And then there are those who have begun to enjoy retirementafter years of service to their towns and cities. Living on fixedincomes, they are left to wonder whether their plans will be tornasunder by misfortune and perhaps the mistakes of others.

All those questions are in play in Detroit, the largest U.S.city so far to declare bankruptcy. The resolution is likely yearsaway, and the courts and the state legislature will play importantroles in any outcome.

Already, however, the city's labor unions are fighting thenotion of cuts in the pension checks and health benefits ofDetroit's 20,000 or so retirees.

Of Detroit's $18 billion in long-term liabilities, $3.5 billionstem from city pensions, while another $6.4 billion are related toother benefits, mostly retiree health care, according to the city'semergency manager.

While there is disagreement about thosefigures, pension experts say that whatever decisions Detroit makescould set a precedent for retiree benefits in other cash-strappedcities and counties nationwide.

To a degree, some precedent has already been set, in CentralFalls, R.I.

Retired city workers in that city had their pensions slashed,some by more than half.

The saga began in August 2011, when the city of 18,000 declaredbankruptcy. Myriad woes stemming from an industrial economy indecline helped cause the problem. When Central Fall declaredbankruptcy, it had a debt of $21 million, an unfunded pensionliability of $80 million and an annual budget of $16 millionagainst $21 million in expenditures. Something had to give.

Under the Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing, the state-appointedoverseer, Robert Flanders, slashed the pensions of Central Falls'police and fire retirees by as much as 55 percent. Emotions ranhigh.

“The media was not very kind to us,” recalled Donald Cardin,president of the Central Falls Firefighters Association. “[It]portrayed as all having pensions of over $100,000. In reality, mostpensions were about $35,000.”

According to Bruce Ogni, president of the Central Falls PoliceRetirees Association, just one of the 110 police and firepensioners who had worked for the city was receiving as much as$50,000 annually.

Regardless, Ogni and Cardin say the cuts to pensions were rammedthrough with no time to study the matter or offer to negotiate.There was a single meeting during which the cuts were spelled out.It turned out to be a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

“[Flanders] wouldn't meet with us. He wouldn'teven look at us. He treated us as thieves,” Cardin said.

Both men see a deeper motive for the swift reduction in pensionpayments and medical benefits meted out to the Central Fallsretirees.

“We were supposed to be the model for pension reform for thestate,” Ogni said. “Ninety days before the bankruptcy was filed,the legislature passed a law putting bondholders ahead ofeveryone.” That meant other creditors, including retirees, had towait in line.

Since the Central Falls bankruptcy, unions in two of RhodeIsland's larger cities, Providence and Cranston, have negotiatedchanges to their retirement benefits, each giving up all or part oftheir cost-of-living adjustments for a decade, something Ogni sayswould have been far less painful than the cuts his membershipfaced.

And as onerous as the decrease in monthly payments was toCentral Falls retirees, the changes in medical coverage was evenmore a burden for many.

Before the bankruptcy, retirees paid nothing for their medicalcare. That changed post-bankruptcy, leaving many unable to affordthe cost for what turned out to be less coverage. Because theirlabor contracts had allowed employees to retire well beforeMedicare would kick in, many were then left without medicalcoverage.

Others like Ogni have been able to get benefits through aspouse's workplace. But that hasn't come free, Ogni says. Inaddition, a low-cost life insurance policy that retirees had paidinto for years was canceled.

When the retirement benefit cuts were put in place, Ogni andCardin and other union leaders looked for ways to soften theblow.

With the public sentiment riding high against them, they soughthelp in the form of a bankruptcy lawyer. That put them on a path tothe legislature—the same elected body that changed the law to putthe pensioners behind bondholders in paying down the debts owed bythe city.

What the retirees found, according to Cardin,is that many lawmakers had not fully considered the human cost thatwould be exacted by the pension cuts.

“A lot of legislators told us that if we had been told [aboutthe impact of the cuts] we would never have signed off onbankruptcy,” he said. “That's when we made the decision we had toplay the political game.”

That game included face-to-face meetings with legislators toexplain the plight of the retirees.

“We won over legislators who were dead set against” helping us,Cardin said.

Winning them over meant a great deal, at least a while to come.Lawmakers agreed to kick in enough money over a five-year span tobump the pensions back up to 75 percent of where they had beenbefore the cuts.

Cardin, for one, was able to use the money to keep his home.

“If I had to tell the people of Detroit one thing,” Cardin said,“I'd say now is the time to get political and get a bankruptcylawyer.”

So far, Detroit's city worker unions haven't done that.