JULY 1997 - After more than a year of studies and a hard fought lobbying effort by our Association, the Legislature passed the COLA reform bill on June 2. The bill, S-1753, was signed into law by Governor William Weld on June 9, 1997, as Chapter 17 of the Acts of 1997.

While the law does not provide for a COLA to be paid this year, it is a significant change in how all future COLAs will be funded. COLAs will now be funded by each individual retirement system. Annually, the COLA will be based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or 3%, whichever is less, and will be paid on a base of $12,000.

As we have reported in previous issues of the Voice, the new COLA law is the product of a Special Commission established in 1996 to develop a new way of funding retirees’ COLAs. The Commission filed its proposal with the Joint Committee on Public Service early in the year, which was unanimously endorsed by the Committee on March 18.

On April 17, the Senate, after a lengthy speech by Senator Marian Walsh (D-West Roxbury), engrossed the bill by a vote of 38-0, in a show of bi-partisan support for the proposal. Soon after the Senate vote, the Mass. Municipal Association (MMA), which had been a member of the COLA Commission, changed its position on the bill. Local officials, many of whom opposed the bill, began pressuring the MMA to stop the bill from passing the House. For the next month, the MMA fought to derail the bill and stay with the present system of the state paying for the COLA.

“After the COLA passed the Senate, the MMA started getting calls from local officials who were concerned over the cost of paying for the COLA at the local level,” said Association Legislative Liaison Shawn Duhamel. “Once the heat was turned up by their members, the MMA had no choice but to lobby against the bill.”

On Wednesday May 21, the House Ways & Means Committee, chaired by Paul Haley (D-Weymouth), released the COLA bill by a unanimous vote at an executive session. The following day, during a full formal session, the House leadership made a procedural move to bring the COLA to the floor for a vote.

Republican leadership, along with a handful of Democrats, acting on information supplied to the MMA by the actuarial firm of Coopers and Lybrand, painted a bleak picture of the COLAs’ fiscal impact on local government budgets. They argued that the bill should be put off until further studies could be conducted. Opponents of the bill were initially successful in holding off the vote by preventing the bill from being brought to the floor.

Under House rules, any bill which is not printed on the daily calendar must receive a two-thirds majority to be brought to the floor for a vote. In this case, the vote to suspend the rules failed by one vote.

“When we lost the vote to suspend rules, we knew it could be the start of endless delays which would give opponents more time to spread their fiscal propaganda,” said Association President Ralph White. “But having made a commitment that the time had come to get the job done, the Speaker invoked a rarely used rule that saved the day. This bill had been his concept from the beginning and in the clutch he stood by his word.”

After losing the initial vote to suspend the rules, House Speaker Thomas Finneran dispatched his lieutenants onto the House floor to lobby the members on behalf of the bill. Then, using a rarely used procedural move, acting Speaker Angelo Scaccia (D-Roslindale) moved that the House adjourn and meet again forthwith. By doing so, a new legislative day was born so that the COLA could be addressed.

House members, who opposed the bill, were caught off-guard, spending the next five hours in intense debate. Minority Leader Dave Peters (R-Charlton) urged the House to put off voting on the matter for a week, so that more information on the possible costs could be obtained. According to the figures distributed by the MMA, the COLA would push many communities into fiscal chaos.

Arguing against a further delay were Representatives Haley, Timothy Toomey (D-Cambridge), Sal DiMasi (D-Boston), John Slattery (D-Peabody), and Mike Ruane (D-Salem). Each dismissed the information being put forth by the MMA as “bogus” and urged the House not to be swayed be “scare tactics”.

“On face value, the MMA’s numbers had painted a very bleak picture of the fiscal impact on local budgets. However, the data was based on the skewed assumption that local COLAs would be based on current funding schedules,” continued White. “The bill allows the locals to establish alternative schedules that can treat the COLA as a separate entity. Fortunately, the majority of the Reps. understood this and did not buy into the MMA’s argument.”

Finally, at 8:20 Thursday night, the House voted 93-40 in favor of engrossing the bill. This came after attempts by the opponents to offer a variety of amendments designed to dilute the bill. All attempts to do so failed overwhelmingly.