Council’s Pay Package – Pension system is, above all, legal

The Revere City Council has one of the best pay packages of any City Council in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

This is old news for Revere voters and taxpayers.

According to a front page story that appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe last weekend, Revere’s pay and pension system allows for councilors to collect money in amounts that is the envy of many people working in the private sector, who could never imagine collecting two pensions and having added pension benefits because of longevity.

Mind you, the Revere city councillors mentioned in the Globe piece weren’t accused of doing anything wrong or illegal with regard to their pensions.

And there’s the rub.

The city’s pension benefits being paid to Revere’s city councillors are all above board and legal.

Or as Councillor-at-Large George Colella commented in the Globe, “I didn’t make the rules.”

So the Globe’s front page piece is much ado about nothing.

Nothing here will change unless the mayoral form of city government is changed to a city manager form of government.

In a city manager system, the City Council is relegated to perfunctory duties with its most important duty – choosing the city manager.

In such a scenario, perhaps great changes could be made in the compensation package and pension benefits given to city councilors right now.

For the moment, nothing at all is going to change in the compensation package offered to city councillors.

If at some point in the future the style of city government is changed, there will be the opportunity to save almost $200,000 on City Council pension, payroll and expense benefits.

In the meantime, the Globe’s piece will have little to no effect on how business is done at City Hall in Revere.

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