Plymouth considers reducing future employee healthcare benefits

PLYMOUTH — Town meeting voters will be asked to consider an article that would authorize the town to contribute less to future employees’ retirement healthcare plans.

Proponents of the divisive measure say it could save the town money and would empower future employees to renegotiate their benefits without a state law mandating that the town cover a static percentage of their retiree healthcare payments. Detractors call the article “an attack on employees” that would not generate any savings for decades.

A state law from 2003 forbids the town of Plymouth from adjusting its contribution to employee retirement healthcare payments after the employee is hired. This article, brought forward by a citizen’s petition, instructs the town to request the state legislature to amend that law so that it does not apply to any new hires. In other words, the healthcare plans of current employees and retirees would not change, but the town would be able to adjust its contributions to the retirement healthcare plans of any employee hired after the law is amended.

The select board voted against recommending the petition, with only Kevin Canty and Deborah Iaquinto voting in support of it. The 18-member advisory board voted unanimously against the petition.

David Peck presented the petition to the select board in its March 24 meeting—the same day that the petition was submitted—on behalf of Richard Serkey, the petitioner. He argued that it is “standard” in many municipalities to create classes of employees with different benefits agreements based on date of hire.

“It's just creating another bargaining opportunity for the town working with their employees,” Peck said.

Iaquinto said she supported the article because Plymouth’s healthcare benefit plan is already “rich” compared to other towns, with no deductible and “very low” cost sharing, she said. Decreasing the town’s contributions to a more typical level would save taxpayer money once new employees start retiring.

“I need to look at what is in the best interest of the entire town,” Iaquinto said. “So when taxpayers are funding a benefit that is unique to Plymouth and it's something that they don't have themselves, we need to look at that to see if it makes sense.”

Iaquinto said that Plymouth has the fourth-highest Other Postemployment Benefits (OPEB) rate in the state and is the only municipality that has to freeze its percent of contributions to retirement healthcare plans when an employee is hired.

But three current or former town employees argued vehemently against the petition in presentations to the select board. Tom Pinto, a town employee and president of the Education Association of Plymouth Carver, said removing the requirement of frozen healthcare contributions through a town meeting instead of through negotiations is “an old-school anti-employee approach.”

“It is a benefit taken away from our new members,” he said. “You’re talking about balancing the books on our backs.”

Dale Webber, a former town employee and representative of the Collective Bargaining Relief Association, claimed that adjusting new employee healthcare contributions could violate a current public employee agreement. He said that the PEC agreement states that “no other changes will be implemented to the current health insurance portfolio, including both plan design and contribution rates” until the agreement expires in three years.

Town counsel Kathleen McKay signed the article to approve its “legal form” when it was submitted.

Select Board Chair David Golden called the article “an attack on young working people.”

"We're now saying that the folks who have come before you matter more, they are going to get more, and your life is going to be harder, simply because we think that there may be cost savings at some point down the line,” Golden said. “The only way that cost saving happens is if we cut your health insurance rates, if we make you pay more out of pocket.”

Much of the argument centered around negotiations. Canty said that unfreezing town retirement contributions would empower employees in negotiations by letting them choose which benefits to prioritize, but Pinto argued that it would allow the town to “erode a benefit without negotiations.”

It could also affect negotiations with potential hires. One resident argued that if prospective employees would have to pay more out-of-pocket for healthcare, they are less likely to take a job for Plymouth, potentially forcing the town to raise employee salaries to entice applicants—an immediate extra cost compared to potential savings decades down the road.

“As we race to the bottom with benefits, as things go away, as we become like every other town, what do you have left to negotiate with?” he asked.

As healthcare and other municipal costs rise and tax increases are constrained by Proposition 2½, Pinto argued that the town should cut services rather than decrease its contributions to retirement healthcare. But Canty said that cut services could require cut staff: “I do not want to see us in a position where we have to make layoffs in order to sustain a promise that was made this many years ago,” he said.

The three select board members who voted against recommending the article, Richard Quintal, William Keohan and David Golden, said that the petitioner should have gone about proposing an amendment to the 2003 law differently. They thought that supporters of amending the law should have discussed the idea with town employees and union members before submitting it as a warrant article.

“If we're going to readdress [the 2003 law], it needs to be a united front,” Keohan said. “We need to have the employees working with staff, working with the elected officials, and coming up with an understanding of what their benefits will be.”

Voters will have their say on the petition April 11 at 8 a.m. at Plymouth North High School or via Zoom.

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