Last year, the Town of Hingham filed legislation, H-5517, which would allow the Town to establish a separate fund for COLAs, but would not include the COLAs as part of retirees' permanent pensions. This is contrary to state law which guarantees that COLAs, once given, are a contractual right.

The Hingham proposal would also have had the effect of locking future Option C widows into the original pensions of their husbands when calculating Option C pensions. State law requires that COLAs be added to the original pension when calculating an Option C benefit.

Wisely, the Legislature rejected Hingham's bill last year, but the Town again filed the legislation for the '99-00 legislative session. The bill's new number is H-4077. The Legislature's Public Service Committee held a hearing on the proposal on March 23 and the Committee is studying the bill.

"The Hingham COLA proposal flies in the face of everything we've fought for," said Association President Ralph White. "It ignores the responsibility of integrating COLA benefits into a community's long range funding program - a responsibility that the Mass. Municipal Association has long championed. Strangely, the MMA, which opposed Chapter 17 as being too costly, supports the Hingham bill.

"Unfortunately, the only individuals being hurt at this time are the Hingham retirees and survivors, who have not received a COLA since 1996. However, this unfortunate circumstance cannot justify the passage of H-4077, which is, plain and simple, bad pension policy. It's sad that the Hingham retirees are being used as pawns by the Town in its fiscal chicanery."

"Under H-4077, Hingham is attempting an 'end run' around the current statutory requirement to fully fund pension benefits. It is an ill-advised resumption of the flawed 'pay as you go' approach towards paying pension benefits," said Association Legislative Chairman Bill Hill.

"One need only look to the problems now facing the 'pay as you go' Social Security Program to see why the Commonwealth and its municipalities adopted full funding in the '80s. One of our, and the Commonwealth's, strongest arguments against mandatory Social Security (see article, p.9), is that we are fully funding our pension obligations, while the federal government is not."

It should be noted that the Association does not stand alone in its opposition to H-4077. At the Public Service Committee hearing on the bill, several unions and associations spoke out against H-4077.