Two Candidates Meet Members

Bill Keating, Receives Retirees Endorsement For 10th Congressional District Seat

The political side of the gathering of 250 members was in recognition of our Association's endorsement of Bill Keating, candidate for U.S. Representative of the 10th Congressional District, and Steve Grossman candidate for Treasurer and Receiver General of Massachusetts.

In introducing Keating, currently the outgoing District Attorney of Norfolk County, Association President Ralph White pointed out that when

Steve Grossman, Association's Pick for State Treasurer and Receiver General

Local Option First, State/Teachers' To Follow

JULY 2010 VOICE: The House and Senate have each passed a provision, sponsored by our Association, that will allow for local retirement systems to increase the base to which the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is applied.

While both chambers agreed on a local option for increasing the COLA base, the Senate did not include the House language necessary to pay a 3% COLA to eligible state and teacher retirees, beginning July 1. As a result,  the COLA language remains an issue now before the conference committee that is attempting to iron out the differences between the House and Senate FYll budget proposals.

Calls For Widespread Reform Grow

JULY 2010 VOICE: The Washington, DC-based Coalition to Assure Retirement Equity (CARE), of which the Associaton is a founding member, held a major summit in late March to discuss ongoing efforts to repeal  Social Security's Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO).

More than a decade after the formation of CARE, membership has swelled to include a broad range of organizations from every corner of the country. Together, over 80 different groups have brought the WEP/GPO to the forefront of the national Social Security debate.

JULY 2010 VOICE: Efforts are now underway to avert a quagmire from developing within the retirement community. We are referring to the potentially disastrous repercussions resulting from the recent court decision (O'Brien v. CRAB) that disallowed the inclusion of clothing allowances in calculating pensions.

Before the O'Brien decision, it was a long-recognized policy that those, who received a clothing allowance and made retirement contributions on it, would have those payments included in calculating their pensions. In fact, when the Legislature enacted pension reform last year (Chapter 21, Acts of 2009), it contained a provision that eliminated the clothing allowance from pension calculations no later than June 30, 2012, meaning that the clothing allowance would be used before then.