PROVIDENCE — Meeting under the so-called “Plunder Dome,” the city Retirement Board yesterday awarded a partial municipal pension to Frank E. Corrente, convicted of corrupting his public office.

Corrente served two distinct terms of employment for the city, interrupted by about three years and eight months when he was out of office: first as a financial specialist and then city controller, and later as director of administration for former Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr.

A majority of the board reasoned that although Corrente was proven to be a lawbreaker as director of administration, there is no suggestion of wrongdoing during his tenure as city controller, so he should receive a pension based on his first term.

Corrente was Cianci’s top aide, and both men were convicted of running City Hall as a racket as the result of the federal investigation called Operation Plunder Dome. In nicknaming its investigation, the FBI referred to the dome atop the Empire-style 19th-century City Hall, where the board met yesterday.

The pension dispute, by law, must now be settled by a Superior Court judge.

If the Retirement Board’s decision stands, the annual pension for the 79-year-old Corrente will have been reduced from $70,576 to $22,231, with no provision for annual cost-of-living increases. It was not immediately clear whether Corrente would be allowed to resume drawing a pension, which has been suspended since his conviction on six counts in U.S. District Court in 2002, before the matter is thrashed out in court.

The board decision, made on a 7-to-5 vote with one member absent, flies in the face of efforts by Mayor David N. Cicilline, Cianci’s elected successor, who wanted the pension revoked in its entirety.

An indignant Cicilline denounced the decision as an insult to residents and city employees, and he vowed to oppose it in court. He may have to hire special legal counsel to do so because the city Law Department is duty bound to represent the Retirement Board.

Corrente’s lawyer, former Rhode Island Speaker of the House John B. Harwood, expressed tentative satisfaction with the outcome, calling it “equitable.” Harwood had conceded that a reduction in the pension would be justified and he had urged the board to treat the two employment periods as different careers.

A city ordinance requires honorable service as a prerequisite for a pension and mandates that a dishonorable employee’s pension be reduced or revoked upon conviction of a job-related crime.

One board member, City Council appointee Carla Dowben, declared that until now the Retirement Board had never embraced the concept of “presumed innocent until caught.” Dowben was in the minority that favored revocation of Corrente’s pension.

Corrente briefly faced news reporters in a corridor after the vote. Referring to his accomplishments, among them helping to negotiate a deal that led to the development of Providence Place mall, Corrente complained, “Everything is forgotten.”

Asked if he owes the people of Providence an apology for his misdeeds, a cryptic Corrente replied, “The decision on Plunder Dome is not over yet. At the appropriate time I will have a lot to say about Plunder Dome and the people involved.”

The Retirement Board adopted a series of recommendations from a hired consultant, Larry J. Ritchie, a professor at Roger Williams University School of Law. In addition to a pension award based on Corrente’s initial 20 years’ employment, Ritchie said the city should return to Corrente any employee contributions that he made to the city pension fund during his second term of employment, without interest.

But Ritchie also advised, and the board agreed, that Corrente should also be required to refund any overpayments he got for the three years and three months he was collecting the $70,576-a-year pension prior to its suspension. An actuary retained by the city calculated that Corrente would be liable for a repayment of $121,862 if interest is charged or $23,729.99 if interest is not charged.

The board did not state whether interest would be charged.

The board is an amalgam of mayoral and council appointees and elected representatives of active and retired city employees. Its members appeared to have come to the meeting with their minds made up, so although the dissenters earnestly pressed their position, there was little debate.

Cicilline had personally lobbied most of the members for revocation, and Richard Kerbel, his director of administration, sent the board a letter arguing that position. A couple of the members who voted in the majority, including Fire Department Capt. James L. Potenza, contended that the private entreaties were ethically inappropriate.

Former City Councilman David G. Dillon, a mayoral appointee to the board, said at the meeting, “I don’t think it’s too much to ask people to be honest every day they work here.” The board should take a firm stand and revoke the pension, he said, as an example “for the rest of the people out there who are tempted” to abuse the public trust.

While Dillon acknowledged Corrente’s first-term service seemed “exemplary,” he said a city career should be seen as a whole and, once corrupted, a pension based on that career must be taken away.

Councilman John J. Igliozzi openly fretted that by reducing rather than revoking Corrente’s pension, the board will undermine its legal position in defending the pension revocations that it has approved for Urbano Prignano Jr., a former chief of police, and Kathleen M. Parsons, a former Parks Department office manager. The board needs to be consistent in applying sanctions, he contended.The Corrente years

June 1967-April 1987: Frank E. Corrente works as a financial specialist and then as controller for the City of Providence. He retires with a $22,231-a-year pension.

December 1990-July 1999: Serves as Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr.’s director of administration. He retires again, with a $70,576-a-year pension.

June 2002: Jury convicts Corrente of racketeering, conspiracy and attempted extortion.

October 2002: City suspends his pension.

October 2002-July 2006: Corrente serves a prison sentence at Fort Devens in Massachusetts and is released on home confinement through November 2006.

May 2007: Providence Retirement Board formally commences process of revoking or reducing pension by offering Corrente a hearing.

August 2008: Retirement Board moves to reinstate pension, but at the lower sum Corrente drew after his first term of city employment.

gsmith@projo.com