Sends Back Amended Budget Section
JULY 19, 2021: Governor Charlie Baker signed the $47.6 billion Fiscal Year 2022 budget on Friday, July 16th. While no changes were made to the State and Teacher retirees COLA or the Group Insurance Commission line items, he did return certain items to the legislature with amended language.
Sends Back Amended Budget Section
JULY 19, 2021: Governor Charlie Baker signed the $47.6 billion Fiscal Year 2022 budget on Friday, July 16th. While no changes were made to the State and Teacher retirees COLA or the Group Insurance Commission line items, he did return certain items to the legislature with amended language.
One of those items was relative to the permanent increase in the hours public retirees can work post retirement in a public sector job within Massachusetts. The conference committee report that was sent to the Governor earlier this month included an increase from 960 hours to 1200 hours annually. The Governor amended the language to increase the hours from 960 to just 975 hours, indicating that he felt that this number was more in line with traditional part-time work versus the 1200.
Annualized on 52 weeks, 960 hours represents just under 18.5 hours per week. An increase to 1200 hours annual would therefore average roughly 23 hours per week.
The next step in the process is for the House and Senate to take up the items that the Governor has sent back. We have urged the members of the House and Senate to reject the Governor’s amendment to the post retirement work hours language. We are asking that members who are impacted by the hourly limit change to contact their State Representative and State Senator ASAP and ask them to reject the Governor’s amendment.
You can find your local legislator here: https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator
The Governor also made a minor change to language for the supplemental payment to the Pension Liability Fund. The amendment would utilize funds from the surplus tax revenue from Fiscal Year 2021.