Latest News

Includes State/Teachers’ 3% COLA & Extends Retiree Work Waiver

December 4, 2020: House and Senate leaders completed work on the $46 billion-dollar FY21 budget with both branches voting on a conference committee report in a rare Friday session. The final version now goes to Governor Baker for approval. The vote today takes us one step closer to ending the 6-month delay of a final FY21 budget.

NOVEMBER 20, 2020: This week, our Association President Frank Valeri joins me for our weekly video update. While it’s most often my face that our members see in these weekly updates, it’s important to remember that we have a team of people here at Mass Retirees working on your behalf. In the coming months you’ll be seeing and hearing more from them on a regular basis.

COLA & Retiree Work Extension In-Works

October 27, 2020: Working in coordination, Governor Charlie Baker and the state legislature have passed a 3^rd interim FY21 State Budget that funds the Commonwealth’s operations through November. The first interim budget was passed in late June, covering operations for the month of July. A second budget was then passed to continue operations through October.

Secretary, Locals Aim for Safe In-Person Voting

Matt Murphy, State House News Service

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, OCT. 5, 2020.....With less than a month until the election, Secretary of State William Galvin on Monday urged voters to make a plan and not wait if they anticipate casting their ballot by mail to ensure that their vote gets counted.

Local officials are slashing funding for everything from education and health care to orchestra subsidies.

Alaska chopped resources for public broadcasting. New York City gutted a nascent composting program that could have kept tons of food waste out of landfills. New Jersey postponed property-tax relief payments.

Prisoners in Florida will continue to swelter in their cells, because plans to air-condition its prisons are on hold. Many states have already cut planned raises for teachers.

And that’s just the start.

Rating Discrepancies Underscore Need for Research

Colin A. Young, State House News Service

SEPT. 9, 2020.....The Massachusetts state pension fund is teaming up with the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative to try to improve the data available to investors who want to make decisions based on things like the way a company treats its workers, its carbon emissions or its product safety record.

A tablet made by a Massachusetts company is using artificial intelligence to help seniors with chronic health conditions as well as to identify symptoms of the novel coronavirus. The technology is empowering seniors to have more control of their health and avoid trips to the doctor and hospital.

Well Prepared to Weather Storm

APRIL 24, 2020: Learning from the 2008 Financial Collapse and Great Recession that followed, Massachusetts’ 104 public pension systems are financially stable and secure. Not a single system in the Commonwealth is in financial hardship or stands in danger of not being able to meet pension obligations to retirees.

Managers Overseeing $70.7 Billion Fund From Homes

Colin A. Young, State House News Service

BOSTON, APRIL 22, 2020.....The state pension fund is confident that, despite the volatility that has rocked financial markets over the last six weeks or so, it will have no problem paying out roughly $1.3 billion for pension benefits this year.

Answering Member Questions 

Public retirees were among the 469,000 Mass. residents who filed unemployment claims with the Mass. Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) over the past 3 weeks. With the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and economic decline, that number will unfortunately continue to grow at least for now.

Members, who have lost a job during the crisis, have reached out to us with their questions on applying for unemployment. Anticipating much of the same this month, we’ve listed below the most frequently asked questions.