Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 20
an Alderman | won’t name, 2015 retired with $65,000.00 in severance and $94,000.00 in annual retirement.
The following year his annual retirement went up to $121,000.00 because there was retroactive pay that
hadn’t been paid yet. And today, this Alderman makes $111,844.00 / $112,000.00 a year. In addition, this
Alderman gets $7,349.00 in checks for his medical subsidy paid directly to the City of Nashua. So the total
retirement cost this year is $119,200.00. Compare that to social security to see how really bad it is. The
average social security recipient for all beneficiaries is $18,170.00 a year. $18,000.00. The average age
65, some of you retire for social security this year 2021, $15,582.00, compare that with the $119,000.00 |
just mentioned. You want to know the maximum social security, the absolute maximum you can make...
Chairman Dowd
30 Seconds.
Mr. Teeboom ... enormous earnings is $27,862 so $46,700 if you retire at age 70. This Alderman was a lot
younger than age 70 making now $119,000.00. That is the problem. You can’t just sit there and say we
cart help it, it’s the other guys. That’s your job to fix it Mr. Mayor, | don’t know how you do it, but if you can
fix the spending cap you can fix this problem. Thank you.
Mayor Donchess
There is a lot of focus on pensions for good reasons, but! wanted to state the converse before we leave
the subject. This issue doesn’t have to do with the employees. | already said that 80% of the money is
going to build the assets which means only 20% of the money we are contributing year by year is
necessary to cover pensions for the current employees 20%. So if we did not have to deal with the State’s
mess, the pension bill would not be $29 million; it would be about $5 or $6 million. But $24 million is going
to build up the assets with Mr. Teeboom and | agree isn’t really necessary but that’s what they want to do.
We don’t have a choice, this is a State Law and until the Legislature changes it and yes this time it was
certainly a party line vote, but 10 years ago or whatever, it has been a problem created by 10 years ago
both parties in the Legislature.
But the fix this time, you know, was clearly party line issue as it was last time. So again this doesn’t have to
do with the current employees, if we could just pay for the current employees, your taxes would go down
over 10%, over 10% of your money every year is going to build up the assets of the State Pension System
based upon first the mismanagement and then the dictates of the State Pension System and the State
Legislature that the assets should be increased above $7 % billion dollars. And I'll repeat it a third time the
problem is not the current employees it is the mismanagement of the State System, the dogmatic approach
taken by the Pension System in the Legislature in requiring that these assets that billions of dollars be
added to the assets even though Mr. Teeboom and a lot of others, Brian McCarthy the late — also the same
thing there’s no need to do this. But, you know, until the majority in the Legislature decides otherwise, this
is the system we are stuck with.
Chairman Dowd
Excuse me, you cannot make comments from the audience. Next we will go Administrative Services
Division, Department 106, Administrative Services; Department 110 Arlington Street Community Center;
Department 111 Human Resources; Department 113 Benefits; Department 120 Telecommunications; 122
Information Technology; 128 Risk Management; 129 City Buildings; 130 Purchasing; 132 Assessing; and
134 GIS.
Laurie Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street. Let’s start with the Administrative Services position. | am all for
removing that office. I’ve seen a lot of what it has done and it has run costs up very high on this City. | had
the pleasure of spending 7 hours with the Director on Friday gathering information about how business is
done in the City and | have to tell you | was disgusted and underwhelmed. If you all recall this picture that
ran in the newspaper a while ago when | was working on Assessing issues, it is a picture of the Director
and her staff with thousands of property record files out on the photo with the Mayor saying that | was
retaliating against the City by doing my research. And that is was costing us $100,000.00. | then learned in
