You may have seen the anti-override citizens group Better Way Marblehead calling attention to a meeting of the town’s Retirement Board, which is scheduled for Wednesday, June 10, the day after the town election in which voters will decide the fate of a tiered set of general overrides to fund town services and a fourth override question related to trash collection.
“The very first item on their agenda for June 10th — the day after you vote on a permanent tax increase — is a vote to increase their own cost-of-living adjustment,” reads a page on Better Way Marblehead’s website. “Your taxes go up forever. Their benefits go up the next morning.”
But is the Retirement Board’s meeting a boondoggle, or in any way related to Tuesday’s vote? We asked Bob Peck, who chairs the Retirement Board, which also includes elected members Fire Chief Jason Gilliland and Firefighter Douglas Knowles, Select Board appointee Charles Gessner and ex-officio member Finance Director Aleesha Nunley Benjamin. (Peck is also president of the Current‘s board of directors.)
First of all, there is nothing unique about this meeting. It happens every year, Peck explained.
In fact, close watchers of Marblehead Town Meeting might recall seeing Peck come to the podium under Article 2, Reports of Town Officers and Committees, and announce the date, time and location of Wednesday’s state-mandated meeting, as he does every year. He prides himself on being one of the shortest speakers at Town Meeting every year, Peck said.
By statute, the Retirement Board is limited to giving retired municipal employees cost-of-living adjustments of no more than 3% — and only on the first $14,000 of their pensions, Peck noted. That differs from Social Security, which gives cost-of-living increases on the full among of recipients’ benefits, he explained.
The town currently has 343 eligible retirees, 316 of whom are non-disability retirees or their survivors, and 27 of whom are disability retirees or their survivors.
The average pension is $32,743, with 72 of the retirees earning a pension of under $14,000, 82 earning between $14,000 and $25,000, and the remaining 189 retirees earning over $25,000, according to Peck.
In recent years, the Retirement Board has always approved the maximum increase of 3%, Peck explained. For all but the 72 retirees earning under $14,000, that 3% increase will amount to $420 per year, or $35 per month.
In the aggregate, “it does add up over time,” Peck said of the overall pension cost. But on the individual level, the increase is modest, he noted.
