Chris Cassidy of the Salem News has been doing a great job lately tracking pension abuses at the local level. Today he has one that is so over the top, it boggles the mind. Just how out of touch are these lifer politicians on Beacon Hill? Read it and weep,
Panel: DPW workers can retire at 55
Legislation would give employees same status as officers, firefighters
Department of Public Works employees could retire at age 55 — 10 years early — under a bill at the Statehouse proposed by the Essex Regional Retirement Board and a Lynn lawmaker.
The legislation would give DPW workers the same status as police officers and firefighters, who can retire at 55 because of the inherent dangers of their jobs.
It would also cost taxpayers, who’d be on the hook not only for the extra 10 years of each employee’s pension but for the added salaries and health insurance costs of their replacements.
In this environment, what rationale could there possibly be to give away ten years worth of expensive benefits..hold on to your hats…and wallets,
State Sen. Thomas McGee of Lynn, the bill’s sponsor, said DPW workers deserve early retirement because of the physical demands of the job.
“If you’re talking about working out in the streets doing the kinds of jobs that DPW workers do, it’s a taxing job, and over time it impairs your ability to do the job,” McGee said.
I worked a few summers for the DPW in high school. Twenty years later I still marvel at how little work was done, the multiple breaks per day, etc. This is not to say that all DPW work is easy or all workers are lazy. But, to compare that job to legit public safety work like cops and firefighters is a stretch of epic proportions. Considering the pathetic financial state we are in, this is an unforgivable giveaway to the union at the expense of the taxpayers.
The government is supposed to serve the people. To Beacon Hill lifers like Tom McGee, the taxpayers are there to serve the government. This is just obnoxious and outrageous. If the voters let this stand, we deserve everything we get from the likes of Tommy McGee. When will we take our state back from these lifers who show such disdain for us, their bosses?
Reform before revenue? More like status quo uber alles.
UPDATE: In my haste to get to work this morning, I left out part of the article that deserves highlighting. It just goes to show how the legislature has set up layers on BS that makes these outrages possible.
The Essex Regional Retirement Board — which represents towns like Boxford, Hamilton, Ipswich, Topsfield and Wenham — filed the bill at the request of local DPW unions.
…Essex is the same board that recently approved a subtle language change that allowed police and fire dispatchers to retire five years early — at age 60. It also spent $60,000 last year on a lobbying firm to guide a variety of bills through the Statehouse.
Gilligan said the board files its bills through McGee, a Lynn Democrat, rather than its own local legislators, because McGee is chairman of the relevant legislative committee, and because of his relationship with the retirement board’s executive director, Timothy Bassett, a former Lynn state representative.
The Essex Regional Retirement Board…where croynism, favoritism and no oversight or accountability create the conditions for a more perfect Hackarama. It also provides a case study in what is so rotten about this state.