Beacon Hill: Why?

Phew!

Beacon Hill, obsessed with Gambling Lobbyists, backroom deals and unspoken promises, ignoring scandals, indictments cronyism and public cynicism has finally noticed that there just might be things....you know....the People's business that needs to be conducted.

Who woke them up? What forced them to hear a public outcry when they couldn't even pass an expanded BOTTLE BILL because leadership is too invested in special interests?


House passes pension bill, upping the minimum retirement age, but stopping short of Senate’s changes
By Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff


The state House of Representatives today unanimously approved a plan to tighten the state’s pension provisions and raise the age that lawmakers and public employees are eligible for retirement. The move follows passage of a similar plan by the Senate earlier this fall. Both plans would only affect future hires, not current employees or retirees.

The House version passed today would boost the retirement age from 55 to 57 and could ultimately save $6.4 billion over 30 years, House lawmakers estimate. The Senate version went farther, raising the minimum age for retirement to 60. [How about eliminating pensions and contributing to Social Security, just like the common folks, the taxpayers?]

The Legislature is looking to change the public employee pension system to shrink an estimated $20 billion unfunded liability and to protect the fund for future years.

The bill comes two years after state leaders eliminated loop holes in the state’s pension system, a first step in controlling costs.

Among the perks that were ended in 2009 were a “one day, one year” provision that allowed elected officials to boost their pension by an entire year of service, even if they only worked one day in a calendar year. It also eliminated lawmakers’ practice of collecting a “termination allowance” if they failed to win reelection.

Earlier this week, a House committee passed a version of the bill that included language exempting anyone who was vested in the system before the 2009 law took effect.

But the final bill that passed by the House last night contained no such language.

Rep. John W. Scibak, a South Hadley Democrat who chairs the Joint Committee on Public Service and championed the pension bill, said the stricken language was not an attempt to undo the 2009 reforms.

“This bill is much stronger than what we did a couple years ago,” said Scibak. “I don’t think we should be distracted by the procedural process.”

Neither Scibak nor Seth Gitell, a spokesman for the House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, would say why that language was inserted in the committee’s version but not the final version.

Even after the language was removed from the bill, Scibak filed an amendment that would have allowed elected officials with six years’ service by 2009 to be considered fully vested – even though they do not satisfy the new, 10-year minimum, required by the 2009 law. That amendment was not taken up today.

A separate amendment that did pass calls for employees who shift positions late in their careers to work for at least a year before becoming eligible for a larger pension. The provision appeared to take aim at an attempt by a former Weymouth mayor to boost his pension after he briefly filled in as fire chief just before retiring.

House and Senate lawmakers must now rectify the differences in the two bills.


Did you forget that it was after this? ---


Bill would allow nonprofits into state retirement savings plan.
By Michael Norton
State House News Service

BOSTON — The House on Wednesday voted 143-7 to approve a bill allowing non-profit entities, which represent about 14 percent of the state’s workforce, to access retirement savings plans managed by the state Treasury.

Treasurer Steven Grossman said the legislation, if passed into law, would open up retirement savings options for many smaller non-profit employers currently unable to afford the cost of setting up savings plans. Grossman said the Treasury was not aware of any other state that offers a similar option. [That means Massachusetts taxpayers should absorb the costs why?]

The Treasury currently oversees a deferred compensation plan for about 300,000 people and that plan has close to $5 billion in assets. Grossman said the added costs of administering the plan in a segregated fund for non-profits would be “tiny” given the infrastructure already in place to manage $5 billion in assets.

Which means the costs are what? Tiny? Means what?

“I’m very much hoping that this will move quickly through the Senate,” said Grossman, identifying Sen. Jack Hart (D-South Boston) as the bill’s chief proponent in that branch. [Senator Hart testified in 2010 about how wonderful slot barns were as long as they were some where, any where, far away, in places like...well....maybe Middleboro....or maybe that other town in western Massachusetts whose name he couldn't remember...ah! The best and the brightest!]

The bill (H 3754) was approved with no debate and after Reps. Garrett Bradley (D-Hingham) and James Cantwell (D-Marshfield) spoke in favor of the proposal.

Bradley said the bill (H 3754) would make available new pre-tax retirement savings opportunities for employers that lack the cash overhead to set up retirement plans. "No state money is involved," he said.

The bill requires the treasurer to obtain approval from the Internal Revenue Service for the plan and to ensure that the plan complies with the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

“We have a strong sense that this will be viewed positively by the I.R.S.,” he said.

The bill contains language ensuring public bidding on plan management, Grossman said.

Asked his advice for employees who don’t work for non-profits and whose employers do not offer retirement savings plans, Grossman said that’s a public policy matter worth further consideration.

“There are huge gaps out there,” Grossman said. “That’s a conversation for another day. I certainly am cognizant of the financial insecurity that many people feel while approaching retirement.”

Grossman’s predecessor, Tim Cahill, pressed for a similar bill in 2009. At the time, Massachusetts Nonprofit Network officials said less than one in five non-profit employees had a retirement plan and the a lack of retirement and other benefits at non-profits hindered their ability to recruit top workers.