Good rundown from SHNS here. Reportedly includes:
- End of 23-and-out for future hires of MBTA; 25 years service + 55 years of age to collect, which is still generous but in line with other state employees.
Addendum: Folks on this thread discuss whether it would have violated contract to change the understanding for current employees. Horrible, but plausible. Be sure to thank Paul Cellucci for playing wicked hardball on this contract back in 1998. - MBTA Carmen join GIC for health care, saving mucho $. About time. They've been a rebellious bird no one can tame.
- Toll equity: You pay your toll on a road, that money now goes towards that road.
- Governor gains some more control over the various transport agencies, grouped now under MassDOT, though “both the T and RTAs would retain a measure of independence. Massport would remain autonomous.” Don't know what that means, don't know how that would work, don't really know if that's a meaningful improvement.
- NO addressing of Big Dig debt killing the T. NO new revenues to stave off toll and fare hikes.
Great, I suppose Terry Murray wins the “reform before revenue” nyah-nyah … but so what? The revenue is going to have to be there, either coming or going, through tolls/fares or taxes. So what'll you have?
A separate bill raising the sales tax and also expected to pass this month would pour $275 million a year in new revenues into the transportation system. Together, the projected savings and revenues fall well short of the roughly $1 billion a year an independent commission has said the system needs just to keep pace.
Over to you, Madame President.
Please share widely!
but two bullets, when combined, give me agita:
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p>The T has to pay $100M a year in debt services for environmental remediation required by the Big Dig project. Yet it would seem that now the state can’t use toll revenue to fund that MBTA debt, and they haven’t addressed it otherwise either.
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p>Ugh. The MassDOT has got to figure out how to transfer that MBTA debt back over to the Big Dig projects (or find some appetite for gas tax, or something).
The vote on the transportation reform bill is now officially a “labor vote.”
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p>The AFL_CIO is sending around a letter telling legislators to vote against the reform bill, and reminding them that “all votes relating to these matters may be considered Labor Votes and calculated into Labor Voting Records upon which endorsements and levels of support are determined.”
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p>The AFL-CIO is upset because Turnpike Authority workers are effectively going to be forced to join the unions that represent MassHighway workers, such as MOSES — which, coincidentally aren’t AFL-CIO unions.
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p>The merger may also likely result in a pay cut for some Turnpike Authority employees who currently are paid more for doing the same job as their MassHighway counterpart.
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p>And the AFL-CIO is upset their MBTA bretheren will lose collective bargaining rights over health insurance and pension.
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p>Any bets on whether this impacts a final vote?
The AFL-CIO made it clear last year that the only thing they actually cared about was casinos. Against casinos? Don’t bother asking for support. The rest of the voting record went out the window.
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p>I expect the legislature will be taking at least one more round of casino votes this session, and when they do I expect that those votes will be the only thing the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO are looking at come endorsement time.
this bill brings ‘T’ pensions in line with other state pensions, doesn’t mean that the result is what we should be paying or that it should be the final word on pension reforms. It’s just an improvement over how it has been. There is still no good reason for any state employee to be retiring with full benefits at 55. Sixty should be the bare minimum, and at that age it should be with reduced pension. Full pension should be at 65. Also, the practice of double dipping should be abolished. If you start collecting a ‘T’ or other state pension, and start drawing pay from another state job or consultancy, then your pension checks should stop immediately. Either you’re retired or your not.
Well, I’m hearing in the other thread that with teachers, it’s not a “full pension” at 55; you do receive something @ 55, but not the whole thing. I’d like to know what’s in the legislation itself, since I broadly agree with your point.
The state usually saves money if public employees retire at 55 instead of 60. When they do, they usually don’t get full benefits. Even at the MBTA, that would only occur if people had worked the 25 years, too.
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p>Getting someone at the top of the pay scale to retire can save a lot of money – you get to pay someone less to do the same job, as well as save lots and lots on insurance costs, from health to life. This is why pension issues are third rail politics — people can’t or at least don’t think rationally about it.
Why have a cut off at all? Why not just look at two factors:
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p>1. Age of prospective pensioner
2. Number of years of service
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p>and then adjust the payout accordingly, according to general actuarial tables?
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p>Work a total of four years and want to retire at 36? God bless. Your pension checks will be really small both because you didn’t serve many years and because payouts will be spread over 40 years. Work a total of four years and want to retire at 76? God bless. Your pension checks will be small only because you didn’t serve many years.
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p>Why only allow folks to collect pension if they worked enough years? Why exclude folks who came to the career later in life? Why exclude folks who worked and paid in but for whatever reason want to move on to a different job opportunity before decades of service?
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p>Any ideas?
401(k) + social security.
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p>Solves this problem nicely. Allows people to move in/out of government service more easily. Doesn’t incentivize people to hang on in a job they would rather leave. Gets rid of the pathology of state/town leaders underfunding the pension obligations. Etc. Etc.
when DOMA is shot down. In the mean time, the SS inequity is a big problem in a state where gay marriage is legal.
If you really want to hold up pension reform over this, I question whether you really want it to happen.
while simultaneously exacerbating the very real impacts of gay discrimination? Nah — let’s solve one problem without making another worse, m’kay.
401(k) has destroyed many a retirement over the past year. It was a lame idea by the government solely meant to make regular folks buy into wall street. It is not a good system for retirement. We need more pensions, less 401(k). Jeebus.
Or even State Rep.
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p>We need ya there!
it receives NO taxpayer money. I know, I was surprised too, but it’s true, just check out their website. I think this has a lot to do with why it was not rolled into the new MA DOT, since it’s a slightly different beast than either MassHighway or Mass Turnpike. MassPort is also the most financially well-off (see: not completely broke) of all the transport-related agencies – yet another reason not to lump it in with MA Highway and the MTA.
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p>This bill looks to be a good step, will save a good amount of money in the long-term, but as always there is much to do. The key to finally getting our transportation system back on its feet is to pay off the Big Dig debt once and for all. This will allow the MBTA and the MTA (soon to be MA DOT) to stop pissing away millions on debt service and climb out of their massive debt hole. Then they can stop having to engage in all these stupid fiscal practices which have made things worse and worse (swaptions, paying salaries by selling bonds etc.).