Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 18
This here, | think, is a good step forward but | think there is a little bit more to do. The thing | am not
100% sure of, is there were people that worked under that time frame that have retired and | am not
100% sure that we are not going to hear from them at a later date and say wait a second, | was
employed during that time, why can | not receive that particular benefit. This was done at the State
Level when people tried to challenge the change to the pension system. So nobody can really stop
anybody from suing or bringing in litigation and with that in mind, caution is why | am really looking at
this. | wouldn’t mind if it got taken back to the Committee and maybe a little bit more polished and to get
some of the things | think it has a lot to do. | know some of the things were brought up like the
inequities with the Fire Department. But the Fire Department is a different animal. Those people work
shift and the compression between the Captain on the Fire Department and the Deputy Chief were
getting closer and closer to the point that nobody would want to become a Deputy Chief, which means
that the City of Nashua would have had to go out and hire non-residents, outside sourcing to take the
Deputy Chief and the Chief’s position, because the common sense would be to stay there.
| understand that is happening in other divisions too, but | am not going to vote for it but | do want to say
that | do appreciate the work that the Chair has done and the Vice Chair has done on this. It is just the
pending litigation that | anticipate or could happen, I’m not comfortable with in supporting this. Thank
you.
Alderman Lopez
There is a systemic difference between the unaffiliated employees and the Fire Department as well:
they have someone to negotiate for them whereas apparently we have to do it here. The original
amendment just basically closes the perceived inequity by saying well you have this benefit that you
had before. The amendment allows them to decide not to accept that and continue with what they are
doing. That was brought up because some of the employees don’t want to go back to the 100% of 720
because they have accumulated large amounts of sick leave which could be used as part-time disability
or long-term disability. So if the opt out of it, then they are only going to get 20% of their unlimited
instead of 100% of their 720. That means we are not necessarily going to have to pay them out if they
choose to opt out, we don’t have to give them the one size fits all option that we decided not to do back
in 2000 whatever.
The reason why we added the second amendment was to allow that choice so that employees who it
didn’t work for could say no, don’t change it back, there was no inequity, I’m fine over here. Or people
who felt like no | signed on, | got hired at this certain rate, I’ve been loyal, | wasn’t fully aware that my
benefits had been changed from literally under my feet. | feel like this is a better solution for me. It is
recognizing that those people were entitled to what they signed on for. So | think the amendment gives
us the flexibility to let the person make a decision based on their own situation in a way that may even
turn out to be more cost effective.
Alderman Caron
| don’t know where to begin. Could we ask Corporation Counsel concerning those employees that have
retired that were part of that unfortunately were not grandfathered at that time, if they could come back,
obviously anybody can sue.
Attorney Bolton
That was where | was going to start. Many suits are not successful, some are not even apparently
meritorious on the surface. My sense is that when people were actually burdened by the change is
when they retired. So their right to sue if they have a right to sue, would have accumulated as of the
date of retirement and extend for three years. | think we are talking about another 2 or 3 people,
perhaps.
On the other hand what they might be owed would be reasonably significant, the difference between
20% and 100% of whatever number of accumulated sick time they had. If you are doing it for 11, | don’t
