Category: Blog

July 9, 2015

Profile of the 2015 Boston City Council Race

All 13 Boston City Councilors are running for re-election this year, but the competition is limited. Four incumbent At-Large Councilors and one other At-Large candidate will bypass the September 8th Preliminary Election and compete for the four seats in the General Election on November 3rd. Of the nine District seats, only two District Councilors will campaign this summer for the September 8th Preliminary Election to reduce the number of candidates in each race to two. Five District Councilors have no opponent and two have only one opponent meaning their names and the names of their opponents will only be on the November 3rd General Election ballot. (continued. . .) >

Blog

June 19, 2015

Boston Retirement Board Approves 3% COLA

At its June 17th meeting the State-Boston Retirement Board approved an annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 3.0% on the first $13,000 of each retiree’s pension for FY16. Since an annual 3% COLA increase on the $13,000 base is calculated into the funding schedule through 2025, the Research Bureau supported the 3% COLA for this fiscal year. However, we believe that rather than an automatic increase, in future years COLA increases should be subject to more scrutiny. Read more about our concerns regarding: Boston’s sizeable long-term unfunded pension and retiree health insurance liabilities and their implications for future city services and two of the five standards used by the Administration to evaluate its support for the annual COLA increase were not met, including its expected investment return percentage. (continued . . .)