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 Posted - 01/31/2010 : 5:38:42 PM
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I’ll never know why this was approved and the list of cities and towns is in todays globe but not online and says Everett is one city that's not even close to meeting its obligation.
4. C0053-08 Order/s/Councilor Lorrie Bruno, as President
To transfer $125,000.00 from Retirement Board Payment for Pension Fund Account to the City Services Department Snow & Ice-Highway Road Salt Account to cover the additional expenses for higher than anticipated costs.
For instance, the City of Everett, with a $125 million budget, reported a pension deficit of more than $100 million. As of Jan. 1, 2009 its pension plan was only 37 percent funded. Springfield's pension shortfall is $403 million, three-quarters of its annual budget, and the plan was less than 43 percent funded as of the beginning of the year.
Tipping the balance
As investment losses climb, cities and towns struggle to keep up with pension payments
By Kathy McCabe
Globe Staff / January 31, 2010
The city of Lynn spent $22 million this year on retirement costs. That’s more than the cash-strapped city allotted for any other department, including the police, fire, and public works departments.
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Lynn has an unfunded pension liability of $257 million, the largest of any Massachusetts community north of Boston. And its annual pension contribution next year is due to increase by $1.5 million on July 1 to $23.5 million, according to the state’s Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission, which oversees 106 public pension systems.
“It’s a big number that has to be paid,’’ said Richard Fortucci, Lynn’s chief financial officer. “It’s getting to a point where it could hurt other areas of our budget.’’
Investment losses have meant higher pension costs for cities and towns. Funds in the area lost at least 20 percent of their value in 2008, according to state data. Although Wall Street is recovering somewhat, the 2009 gains might not be enough to offset the pension pinch on local budgets. “It’s not all rosy,’’ said Saugus Town Manager Andrew R. Bisignani. “The jury is still out as to how well [the stock market] will do.’’
Local leaders are banking on help from a pension-overhaul effort on Beacon Hill. Governor Deval Patrick has filed a bill that would give local pension systems until 2040 to pay off unfunded pension liability. State law now has a deadline of 2030.
The bill, separate from a bill Patrick filed last week to improve the state pension system, aims to help prevent local systems from being hit with huge increases in pension costs because of market losses.
“It’s not feasible for a system to absorb a 30 percent increase in its appropriation,’’ said James Lamenzo, an actuary for the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission. “What we have proposed, by extending the payment schedule. . . . If we are not allowed to go beyond 2030, we’re going to have big problems.’’
Under Patrick’s bill, a retirement system would require that any future gains be used to shorten a payment schedule, not reduce annual payments, a state spokeswoman said.
“When the market comes back, and their assets come back, local pension funds will be in a better position to meet their obligation,’’ said Cyndi Roy, spokeswoman for the state Executive Office for Administration and Finance. “The governor recognizes there is a need to give additional tools to help manage pension liability.’’
Pension funds get money from investment income, worker contributions, and tax dollars.
But for decades, communities did not set aside enough money to pay for future retirement costs. Since 1988, the state has required communities to make scheduled payments, with a goal of paying down the debt. A system is considered fully funded when it has enough money to pay for benefits if every employee retired at once.
The original payoff deadline was 2028, extended to 2030 last year as the economy worsened. Still, communities have been hit by cuts to state local aid and lower tax revenues, and some fear the pension burden will only further strain local budgets unless the payoff deadline is extended.
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COMMENTS (20)
“It’s like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off,’’ said Andy Bagley, research director at the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog group. “When cities and towns see payments go up 50 percent, when local aid is cut, it’s a pretty tough time to find another five, six or seven million dollars.’’
Local leaders agree the pension tension is growing. “It’s a real budget-buster, ’’ said Methuen Mayor William Manzi. “It’s a fixed cost, just like health insurance. . . . Add those two 800-pound gorillas together, and you get a one-two knockout punch.’’
Methuen’s pension costs increased $600,000 this year, to $6.6 million. Manzi will tap a reserve fund to pay most of the increase, after the City Council voted last month not to pay the hike by increasing property taxes. Methuen’s pension costs are due to increase $700,000 next year, according to state data.
Manzi favors extending the funding deadline to 2040, even though it will likely mean added costs. “It’s not the best fiscal policy,’’ he said. “But it ought to be extended, because if you don’t stretch it out somewhat, than then these payments are just going to crush municipal budgets.’’
In 2008, Lynn was one of several communities that was told it had to invest retirement assets with the state Pension Reserves Investment Trust Fund. A local retirement system whose returns over a 10-year period do not come within 2 percentage points of the state fund must transfer its assets to the state.
But in 2008, the state fund lost 29.5 percent of its value, leaving Lynn and other communities with higher costs. “It’s ironic that we had to put our money into the system and then, boom, the market crashed,’’ said Gary Brenner, administrator of the Lynn Retirement Board. The PRIT fund had a 17.69 percent gain in 2009, state data showed.
Lynn was facing a $2.7 million increase for next year, until the state agreed in November to lower the amount to $1.5 million. The remainder of the increase will be spread out over the next three years, Brenner said.
Even retirement systems that have historically performed well have had to adjust. In Danvers, the town was on track to pay its $51.54 million by 2024. But after its investment portfolio took a 27 percent hit in 2008, the board voted last month to extend its payment schedule to 2028, trimming its payment by $1 million, to $5 million, for next year, said Leonard Marshall, the town accountant and chairman of the Danvers Retirement Board.
“It’s made things more tolerable,’’ he said. “If a system didn’t do that, you’d take a bigger hit. That is very difficult when everyone is trying to balance dollars and there are fewer dollars to balance.’’
Kathy McCabe can be reached at kmccabe@globe.com.
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2010 : 09:58:16 AM
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Runaway health costs are rocking municipal budgets
But there’s no will or willingness to roll back benefits granted in palmier times
By Sean P. Murphy
Globe Staff / February 28, 2010
First of two parts.
Elizabeth Debski spent eight years as Everett’s city planner, before losing her job in 2006 when a newly elected mayor installed his own team.
But Debski did not leave City Hall empty-handed. In addition to her pension, Debski, at 42, walked away with city-subsidized health care insurance for life. If she lives into her 80s, as actuarial charts predict, taxpayers could pay more than $1 million in all for her family’s health care benefits.
That’s not to say Debski manipulated the system. She simply took what she was owed under a municipal health care system whose generous benefits and colossal inefficiencies are crippling cities and towns across Massachusetts.
A six-month review by the Globe found that municipal health plans, which cover employees, retirees, and elected officials, provide benefit levels largely unheard of in the private sector. Copays are much lower. Some communities do not force retirees onto Medicare at age 65. Many citizens on elected boards - some after serving as few as six years - receive coverage for life, too.
As medical costs across the board rose over the past decade, municipal health care expenses exploded, draining local budgets and forcing major cuts in services, higher property tax bills, and billions in new debt.
“It has got to be dealt with,’’ said Richard Fortucci , the chief financial officer in Lynn. “Or we will all go bankrupt.’’
The cost of municipal health care more than doubled from fiscal 2001 to 2008, adding more than $1 billion in all to city and town budgets, according to state Department of Revenue data. A Globe survey of 25 communities found that they now devote, on average, 14 percent of their budgets to health care, up from 8 percent a decade ago. Somerville, for one, spends $20 million more annually than it did 10 years ago, now devoting almost 20 percent of its budget to health care.
So far, with powerful labor unions resistant to giving away hard-won benefits and a lack of political will in the state Legislature to force changes, efforts to overhaul the system have fallen short.
To be sure, many municipal employees, elected officials, and retirees are paying a greater percentage of their health premiums than ever. Still, almost all of the increase in municipal health care costs in the past 10 years has been shouldered by taxpayers, who are subsidizing plans that are often superior to their own.
“It’s a nice deal,’’ said Debski, now a part-time planner in Malden.
She could get insurance through her husband’s employer but doesn’t, for a simple reason: The municipal plan is far more generous and costs less.
“The system was there,’’ she said. “I find it hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t take what the system offered.’’
A crippling cost
The consequences of failing to face this crisis are on display in many cities and towns, nowhere more vividly than in Lawrence.
In that city, on Feb. 1, children were momentarily trapped in a burning apartment building, down the street from a fire station. But the city had recently shuttered the station, to help close a $24 million budget gap, and firefighters had to race from another location. The children escaped, but the fire chief warned the city it may not be so lucky next time.
Meanwhile, Lawrence, one of the poorest municipalities in Massachusetts, continues to pay among the highest rates in the state for health care benefits. The city’s health care kitty, which it uses to pay for coverage, is currently $4 million in the red.
Health care costs are not the only budget-buster for cities and towns, of course, but their rise has led not just to fewer firefighters in Lawrence but diminished services across the state.
Library hours have been cut in Wayland and Hull. Wakefield has deferred road and sidewalk repairs. Malden has introduced fees for trash pickup. Class sizes have increased in Chelsea. Major layoffs have hit, among others, Boston, New Bedford, Worcester, and Brockton - with officials in all those communities citing rising health care costs as a major factor. Revere last year closed City Hall on Fridays, to save cash.
“What am I going to do next, put a padlock on the police station and tell people to call the State Police instead?’’ asked Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino of Revere, who, like other mayors, is covered by municipal insurance.
Communities, under a 30-year-old initiative known as Proposition 2 1/2, can raise their tax levy each year by no more than 2.5 percent. In Revere, health care costs are rising at close to 10 percent a year. This fiscal year, the rise in health care expenses alone is projected to consume all of Revere’s $1.5 million allowable tax increase - and then some.
With health costs soaring year after year, communities must ask taxpayers for more money even while providing fewer services. Indeed, local officials say, Proposition 2 1/2 overrides - loathed at kitchen tables - are often attributable, at least in part, to skyrocketing health expenses.
Voters in Weston passed a $1.1 million override in 2006, primarily because of health care costs, which had risen by more than 80 percent in four years.
It proved to be a temporary fix. By 2009 Weston needed more money to cover health care increases, said Donna S. VanderClock, town manager. The town avoided another override after unionized employees agreed to join the state’s health care system, saving about $1.7 million in the first year, VanderClock said.
Beyond the immediate costs, huge liabilities loom. Communities have promised current and future retirees billions in health care subsidies, a burden taxpayers will bear long into the future.
Lynn owes current and future retirees an estimated $450 million in benefits over the course of their lives - five times as much as it takes in annually in taxes, according to estimates by city actuaries. Brookline’s unfunded liability for health care is $320 million; Boston’s is $5.7 billion.
Though some communities, such as Wellesley, Needham, and Boston, have begun putting aside interest-earning money every year to help meet those obligations, the vast majority of municipalities have not. Local officials say they can barely afford to pay today’s health care bills, let alone tomorrow’s.
“We have an unfunded liability of more than $600 million and with no plan to address it,’’ said John Condon, Brockton’s chief financial officer. “Even if we wanted to address it, we don’t have the money for it.’’
‘Very, very rich plans’
Jane Teal said she only wanted to help her hometown when she ran successfully for Lynn City Council in 1995. She served for six years, then stepped down, eventually moving to Florida with her husband. Today, Lynn taxpayers are paying $22,600 a year for the couple’s health care.
“It never crossed my mind that I would get insurance when I ran for office,’’ she said. “But I am glad to have it.’’
Six former city councilors are insured by Everett, plus 12 current ones. In Kingston, 10 part-time elected officials receive town-subsidized health coverage, including four Planning Board members, three Health Board members, and a sewer commissioner, all of whom typically attend two meetings a month.
“That’s the way it’s been done for a long time in Kingston,’’ said Dennis Randall, vice chairman of the Board of Selectmen. “But in tough times, everything should be under review.’’
The extension of benefits to local elected officials is one vivid example of how generous many municipal health care plans are. In fact, national data show that state and local government pay significantly more for health benefits than private employers.
Municipal health care plans were once deemed affordable and have helped cities and towns attract workers to the public sector, where salaries have often been lower. Today, however, they stand out for their comparatively low cost to subscribers and favorable terms.
Taxpayers now underwrite as much as 89 percent of active employees’ premiums in some of the state’s largest cities, while private-sector employers often cover less than 70 percent, local and state data show. As health care expenses have climbed for everyone, taxpayers - already paying a generous share of municipal benefits - have been hit especially hard as those benefits have grown more costly.
The insurance plans many cities and towns offer to employees, retirees, and elected officials also require minimal out-of-pocket expenses, with copayments for office appointments as low as $5. Most have copays for emergency room visits of $25 or less.
By comparison, private-sector copays for office visits are typically at least $20, sometimes more, with $75 copays standard for emergency room visits, according to a survey of Massachusetts employers by the state Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. Unlike most municipal plans, private-sector plans also often force subscribers to pay thousands annually in deductibles before insurers pay anything.
In addition, cities and towns are among the last employers to offer costly indemnity plans, which provide virtually unrestricted medical care. Though phased out in much of the private sector, indemnity plans live on in about a third of Bay State municipalities, according to a 2008 survey by the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
Even with family HMO plans, which typically limit access within a defined network of providers, municipal premiums are, in some cases, 30 percent higher than in the private sector, according to a Globe survey of communities and state data.
Though cities and towns have some control over what benefits they provide, they are limited by state law: Not only does the law subject health benefits to local collective bargaining, the state also imposes certain mandates on municipalities. Communities that offer health care to active workers, for example, must also offer coverage to retirees.
The generous terms of municipal plans compound the problem, because they create incentives for higher use: Low out-of-pocket costs - particularly the minimal copays - encourage subscribers to use more medical services, thus driving up the overall expense to communities.
“When a group uses a high number of services, high premiums result,’’ said Brian Pagliaro, senior vice president of Tufts Health Plan.
Among the communities that pay the highest family premiums are Framingham, which spends $34,075 per family; Waltham, at $30,100; and Everett, at $26,000.
“The municipal plans are rich plans,’’ said Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone of Somerville. “They are very, very rich plans.’’
A boon for retirees
For taxpayers, there is no relief in sight, and for one simple reason: Municipal health benefits are especially good in retirement, and the number of retirees has grown by a steady 2.5 percent per year since 2001, in part because of longer life expectancies.
Under state law, any municipal employee with 10 years service is eligible, in retirement, to get health care benefits for life from age 55, a benefit typically worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per person. (People such as Debski, who have 20 years public service - she worked 12 years in Salem before going to Everett - can immediately qualify if they are terminated, regardless of their age.)
Most municipalities also grant spouses generous health care benefits.
In some cases, retirees and spouses live decades beyond the date of retirement, the Globe found in a review of thousands of pages of municipal retirement records. The widow of a Lynn police officer who retired on disability in his 30s in 1953 is still receiving city-subsidized insurance - 57 years later.
Less than one-quarter of private-sector retirees nationally receive any health care benefits from their former employers, said Roland McDevitt, director of health care research for the consulting firm Towers Watson.
Some cities and towns do not even compel retirees to use Medicare for nonemergency care once they reach 65, in effect leaving millions of dollars in federal subsidies on the table. Instead, retirees choose to stick with the more generous, and more costly, municipal plans.
Communities, under a state law passed in 1991, can force employees to enroll with Medicare, but only if the change is approved by the city council or town meeting. In some places, that has proven politically difficult, given the clout of active and retired municipal workers.
Boston, Lowell, and Lawrence are among those that have yet to adopt the provision. In Boston alone, there are more than 1,500 retirees who are eligible for Medicare but do not take it, costing the city almost $5 million, according to city estimates.
“Getting into Medicare is a tough vote,’’ said Condon, of Brockton. “People don’t like change. And in Brockton, we have more than 700 retirees on the voting rolls.’’
Other municipal retirees don’t sign up for Medicare simply because they are not eligible. Most police, firefighters, and teachers retire before age 65, and are thus too young to be covered by the federal system. That means cities and towns pay as much to insure them - at least until they reach 65 - as they do to insure active employees.
Even when retirees are on Medicare, it is still expensive for municipalities, because state mandates require communities to help cover drug costs and other expenses not paid by the program. By contrast, private-sector retirees are typically on their own.
“In the private sector, when you turn 65, most employers say, ‘Good luck on Medicare,’ ’’ said McDevitt, the national health care consultant. “And that’s it.’’
Tomorrow: How cities, towns, and the state have tried and often failed to solve the problem.
Sean Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2010 : 09:34:35 AM
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Unions safeguard health benefits
Strapped towns seek law change
By Sean P. Murphy
Globe Staff / March 1, 2010
Second of two parts
It was the spring of 2009, and Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, staring at a $1 million shortfall for her city, had an idea: What if she could get employees to pay more for their health care?
Salem had already trimmed 18 positions since 2008, partly to help offset rising municipal health care costs, and Driscoll offered the city’s eight unions a deal: No further layoffs if they agreed to raise, from $5 to $15, certain copayments. She even pledged to pay the first five higher copayments for every worker.
“To my mind, it was a no-brainer,’’ Driscoll said. “But we got turned down by all eight unions. One of them, the police, wouldn’t even discuss it.’’
It is a familiar lament. Mayors, city and town leaders, and state officials, including Governor Deval Patrick, have launched repeated efforts to rein in the expense of providing health care to municipal workers, retirees, and elected officials.
But organized labor, fiercely protective of its members, has largely refused to budge, resisting local efforts to transfer more health care costs to workers and move communities onto the state’s health care plan. State lawmakers have shown little appetite for forcing an overhaul of the system.
The state forbids cities and towns from shifting health care costs to employees without bargaining with unions. It is this aspect of state law that municipal officials say the Legislature must rewrite to address the crisis.
Municipal unions and retiree groups, however, have for decades cultivated close ties on Beacon Hill - spending generously in campaign contributions - and have so far successfully fought major changes.
Nancy O’Donnell, president of the Salem Police Patrolmen’s Association, which represents about 50 patrol officers, said police rejected Driscoll’s proposal for higher copayments because just a year earlier they had reluctantly agreed to her demand that officers pay an additional 5 percent in premiums.
“We didn’t feel it was right to come back for more,’’ she said. “Basically, we had to stand our ground.’’
O’Donnell bristled at the suggestion that employees should bear a greater burden of health care costs. She said it was up to the mayor and other City Hall officials to come up with “creative solutions’’ to the budget crisis, including possible tax increases and better management.
Still, she said, “I really don’t know what the answer is.’’
In recent months, cities and towns from Braintree to North Reading have tried to win similar health care concessions from unions. In Arlington, town officials spent a year at the bargaining table before all unions finally agreed in November to join the state’s health care plan, a move the town said would save as much as $2.5 million annually. But at the last moment, the teachers union backed out, killing the deal.
“It was terribly disappointing and discouraging,’’ said Brian F. Sullivan, town manager. “Without the deal, we’re back to facing a substantial budget deficit.’’
Robert McCarthy, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, an umbrella group for municipal firefighters, said unions are not about to just give away health care benefits won in tough negotiations over many years.
“It’s not like we’re just sucking this thing dry,’’ he said. “We go by the law. We go by collective bargaining. That’s the system. What are we supposed to do? Give them everything? They have to negotiate. That’s the system.’’
BENCHMARKS SET EARLY
So how did we get to this impasse?
The Legislature first gave cities and towns the authority to provide coverage in the 1950s, but only if approved by the local city council or by town voters.
Many communities initially decided against providing benefits. Those that did give them were limited
by law to paying no more than 50 percent of premiums. Across the state, about 10 percent of municipalities - mostly towns - still adhere to that original 50 percent rate, including Hingham, Barnstable, and Hudson, according to a 2008 Massachusetts Municipal Association survey.
Lawmakers gradually gave cities and towns wider discretion in setting the proportion of premiums they could pay. With health insurance historically not a huge budget driver, some municipalities offered, during contract negotiations, to pay a higher percentage in exchange for lesser pay raises.
In 1989, the Legislature established a cap of 90 percent on municipal contributions to HMO premiums. But that cap became a benchmark as many unions fought to increase their benefits.
“Since that time, municipal unions have been aggressively resisting municipal efforts to increase employees’ share of premium cost,’’ said Paul Mulkern, an attorney who specializes in municipal health care law.
The Legislature decades ago also linked health care and pension benefits. Anyone who qualifies for a pension qualifies for health care coverage. But there is one key difference: With pensions, employees have to work decades to earn full retirement benefits; with health care, municipal employees, the moment they reach 10 years of service, are entitled under state law to full benefits when they retire, from age 55.
This has made even relatively low-paying jobs, such as teachers’ aides and school cafeteria workers, highly coveted.
“People understand the value of health care benefits, and there’s great competition to get any job because of the benefits,’’ said Frank J. Zecha, director of the Brookline retirement system.
PUSH FOR CHANGES FALLING SHORT
With great fanfare, Patrick in his 2007 inaugural address invited municipalities into “a new partnership with state government,’’ one that promised to bring long-sought relief from persistent increases in local property taxes.
The Legislature responded by crafting a bill to allow cities and towns to shift their employees and retirees from locally managed health care plans to the state’s much larger, more flexible one, called the Group Insurance Commission. Consolidating all municipal plans into the state GIC would save more than $1 billion a year by 2018, according to estimates by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, two nonpartisan business-backed watchdog groups.
The GIC saves taxpayers money in two ways, including by requiring employees, retirees, and elected officials to pay more out of pocket.
In contrast to cities and towns, the GIC is free by law to make changes in the health care plans for its 265,000 subscribers without union bargaining. As recently as Feb. 1, the GIC imposed higher copayments to meet a funding shortfall. The GIC, in some cases, requires a $250 copay for hospitalizations; in Boston, subscribers pay nothing.
The GIC also uses its market clout, as the state’s largest purchaser of health care insurance, to get better rates, said Dolores L. Mitchell, the GIC executive director. “We get better service because we are a bigger customer,’’ she said.
But the bill allowing local communities into the state plan contained a major catch. It required a 70 percent vote of a committee of local union representatives before a municipality could join, effectively giving teachers unions, typically the largest, a veto.
After some early interest, unions have shut the door, and the initiative has fallen far short of expectations. In the first year the GIC was offered, 10 municipalities, school districts, and charter schools joined; the second year, there were 15. But then the exodus from local plans ground almost to a halt; only Brookline and Hopedale have signed up to join, as of July 1 of this year.
“The City of Boston would save more than $18 million a year if its employees paid the same copays and deductibles as the state GIC,’’ said Lisa Calise Signori, director of administration and budget for the city. “That’s the entire budget for the Parks Department.’’
Leaders of communities that have joined the GIC say it has made a huge difference. Springfield officials credit the GIC as a major factor in the city’s recent financial turnaround. With Springfield’s finances still shaky, the city’s unions agreed in 2007 to become the first municipality in the GIC. The move lowered annual health care costs by about $7 million.
“The city has definitely saved money,’’ said Linda Parent, Springfield’s city insurance director. “Every study that’s been done shows it.’’
One study, conducted in 2009 by the University of Massachusetts-Boston and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, confirmed Springfield’s savings.
There are two bills pending on Beacon Hill that would give cities and towns the authority to reduce health care benefits without union approval. One was filed by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the other by the municipal association.
“It’s simple: Health insurance costs are unsustainable over the long term,’’ Menino said. “The more we pay for health insurance, the less we have for city programs.’’
Both bills remain in committee, and proponents are not optimistic they will move forward. A separate measure on Beacon Hill originally included a provision to give communities greater flexibility in setting health care benefits, but it was deemed “too controversial’’ and removed, said state Representative Paul J. Donato, Democrat of Medford, the bill’s lead sponsor.
Meanwhile, even with greater attention in Massachusetts and nationally toward reining in the expense of medical care, no one expects health care costs to stop their rapid rise anytime soon.
“It’s a cataclysmic situation,’’ said Marc Waldman, Wellesley’s treasurer. “Something has to happen.’’
Sean Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2010 : 09:18:40 AM
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Editorial
Soaring municipal health costs cry out for a state overhaul
March 2, 2010
MUNICIPAL HEALTH care costs in Massachusetts are unjustified and unsustainable. Curbing their excesses is an essential mission for the governor and Legislature.
From 1999 to 2009, the cost of insuring municipal employees and retirees surged from 8 percent of the budgets of Massachusetts cities and towns to 14 percent, according to a Globe survey of 25 communities. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars that are not going to property-tax relief, schools, parks, law enforcement, or any other legitimate government purpose. These costs are a yoke around Massachusetts, hurting the state’s economic prospects.
Cities and towns have been happy to take state aid but have proven incapable of using it wisely by cracking down on abuses in their own payrolls. Lawmakers must enact a thorough overhaul of the system. Their guiding principles should be to sharply reduce costs to taxpayers while providing reasonable health-care coverage to all municipal employees and retirees. People who worked for the government and expected to be covered for life should remain covered. But no one should be exempt from reasonable changes in coverage to bring municipal health costs more in line with the private sector.
The problem to be overcome is twofold: Lifetime benefits promised to workers for too-few years of public service, and a stubborn resistance by the state’s Balkanized municipalities to seek savings in larger group plans or by shifting eligible seniors onto Medicare.
Three reforms that should be enacted as soon as possible are:
#9632;Cities and towns should be compelled to reassess such totally unjustified practices as granting lifelong health benefits to people who serve on local boards for as few as 10 years. In exchange for attending as little as two meetings a month for that period, the officials get lifetime coverage costing taxpayers as much as $30,000 per year. While no current beneficiaries should lose coverage, such boondoggles must end now.
#9632;All beneficiaries over age 65 should be compelled to join Medicare. The shift to the federally subsidized program would reap major savings - $5 million per year in Boston alone. Under current law, cities and towns have the option of moving eligible recipients to Medicare, but local opposition has proved to be insurmountable in some places. The Legislature should require all communities to make the switch.
#9632;Cities and towns should be given the same ability to design their health plans, without municipal worker union approvals, as the state now employs for its own workers. The inefficiency is costing taxpayers as much as $100 million a year, according to the Massachusetts Municipal Association. A bill in the House offers a solution that is fair to both employees and the people who pay their salaries. It would give municipalities the authority to design their own health plans, including raising copays and deductibles, provided that recipients get coverage on par with state workers. Another good reform would be to allow city and town officials to enroll their workers in the state Group Insurance Commission plan without first getting union approval.
There are reasons why such sensible reforms have failed in the past. Workers and retirees represent a disproportionate political constituency in places where other citizens participate only sporadically in local politics, and they refuse to give up such overly generous benefits as doctor visits with copayments of $5 or less. The rest of the taxpayers who are footing the bill should demand changes.
Rather than legislate for the greater good, the forces on Beacon Hill tend to defer to local control. While the system of micromanagement, in which each town operates its own services, has its appeals, it also has weaknesses. And it is incumbent on the state to recognize those weaknesses rather than submit to them.
More than money is at stake. Public confidence is eroded when taxpayers feel that the government is being run primarily for the benefit of its workers. Massachusetts lacks crucial infrastructure, and budget cuts are eating away at such important civic services as libraries and summer jobs for teenagers. The state’s ability to answer these challenges is directly related to its ability to quell the perception that its workers and officials are gaming the system.
Generations of reformers of both parties have failed to curb these and similar excesses, or backed away in favor of more glamorous pursuits. Now the perception that nothing can be done carries the day on Beacon Hill. And yet those same representatives profess to be shocked when voter anger surges against the system, as if they were victims of a natural disaster rather than their own failure to grapple with the state’s problems.
The deficiencies in the municipal health system are real. The solutions are clear enough. Now something must be done.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 03/03/2010 : 7:46:06 PM
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Coverage switch urged for localities
Study finds savings in state health plan; Law change sought to empower towns
By Sean P. Murphy
Globe Staff / March 3, 2010
Cities and towns would save tens of millions of dollars in health care costs for employees, retirees, and elected officials by joining the state’s much larger, more flexible health care system, according to a new report by the Boston Foundation.
The foundation’s detailed study of four municipalities - Boston, Cambridge, Melrose, and Marshfield - illustrates how health care expenses are severely hampering communities across Massachusetts.
Boston, for example, could reduce its health insurance premiums this fiscal year by up to 17 percent, or $45 million, by joining the state’s Group Insurance Commission, the report finds. Melrose, which joined the GIC in July, will likely save $1.6 to $1.8 million annually, says the report, which the foundation will release today.
“The irrefutable point,’’ the report concludes, “is that there could be significant savings for cities and towns - in a time of severe fiscal challenges - if they were allowed to join the GIC apart from collective bargaining.’’
Currently, communities can join the GIC only with the approval of local unions. But with some exceptions, unions across the state have rejected such a move because it would end up costing their members more money, particularly in the form of higher copayments.
Cities and towns are pushing the Legislature to change the law so communities can join the state system without union approval.
“It’s the single most important step the Legislature can take to address the budget crisis of the cities and towns,’’ Paul S. Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, said in an interview yesterday.
The Globe reported earlier this week on how exploding municipal health care costs are wrecking local budgets, forcing cities and towns to cut services and ask more of taxpayers.
Grogan said that municipal plans stand out by being far more generous to subscribers than almost all other plans in the public or private sectors.
“The current plans in the municipalities are just way out of whack compared to what everyone else pays,’’ he said. “All we are asking is to bring the municipalities into line with others.’’
The Globe reported that municipal plans pay as much as 89 percent of premiums, while typically requiring $5 copayments for office visits and $25 for emergency room treatments.
Plans in the private sector typically pay less than 70 percent of premiums, and require $20 copayments or more for office visits and $100 for emergency room treatments.
The GIC’s copayments are on par with the private sector’s.
The Boston Foundation report also recommends that the Legislature give municipalities who do not join the GIC the power to increase premiums and copayments of the plans they offer without collective bargaining. In addition, the report says, cities and towns would save millions by forcing retirees onto Medicare at age 65, a politically difficult decision some communities have refused to make.
Since 2007, when the state Legislature changed the law to allow cities and towns into the GIC, 19 municipalities have joined the system, including Springfield, Quincy, Weston, and Norwood.
But unions in only two municipalities agreed to join the plan as of July 1 of this year: Brookline and Hopedale. Unions in other cities and towns, meanwhile, rejected such a move.
Public employee unions are leery of changes to municipal health care plans.
Brad Tenney, secretary-treasurer of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, an umbrella group of local unions, said his members are willing to “sit down with leaders on Beacon Hill and in the municipalities to reach a meeting of the minds.’’
“We recognize the significant cost of health care,’’ he said. “But we feel it is unfair to look at health insurance in a vacuum. Members gave up pay raises or accepted smaller pay raises through the years for the health care benefits they have.’’
Public employee unions and retiree groups, which make generous donations to the treasuries of many state officer-holders, are well-connected on Beacon Hill.
In brief interviews on Monday, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray expressed little desire to strip union employees of long-held collective bargaining rights. Murray also said she did not believe the GIC was capable of accepting cities and towns without increasing its staff.
The GIC provides health insurance for about 300,000 state employees, retirees, and elected officials, including employees and retirees of numerous independent authorities. State law allows the GIC to adjust the amounts subscribers pay in premiums and copayments without union negotiations.
The report found that Cambridge, by moving into the GIC, would save up to 10 percent, or $4.4 million, while Marshfield would save up to 11 percent, or $530,000.
Robert Carey, a consultant and former GIC official who wrote the Boston Foundation report, said in an interview that the GIC would save municipalities not only by shifting more costs to subscribers, but also by lowering overall costs.
He said the GIC saves money in part by steering subscribers to those medical providers whom the plan rates as most cost-efficient. It does so by providing a financial incentive. Subscribers who go to doctors rated the least cost-efficient pay a $45 copayment, while they pay $20 copayments for doctors rated the most cost-efficient.
The GIC also rewards subscribers for using lower-cost hospitals.
Sean Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2010 : 09:54:00 AM
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GIC has always been turned down by the unions. That is why this will never happen unless it gets implemented without union approval.
While I think this is in the best interest of the taxpayers...what about the workers and retirees that are "literally" just getting by? Something like this can put them over the edge. With higher co-pays, some may not be able to afford their medications.
I just think they need to meet in the middle somewhere. Maybe, something like............"retirees are grandfathered in"......it needs some work and when you start shutting the unions out, work production will go down hill, and that does not help either. |
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just wondering
Senior Member
387 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2010 : 10:04:55 AM
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Good Point tails....but that middle ground is non existent at this point because municipalities have no leverage in negotiating.
How do you feel about the city providing life time health coverage rather than having to move to Medicare? |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2010 : 10:13:08 AM
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| They both come out of the taxpayer. Which way is a lesser burden on the taxpayer? I personally don't have a problem with municipal workers having to do the same as the rest of us, which is Medicare at age 65. Do municipal employees pay into Medicare? |
Edited by - massdee on 03/04/2010 10:16:33 AM |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 03/07/2010 : 10:51:14 AM
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New England in brief
Two missing girls found safe in Everett
March 7, 2010
Boston
Two Dorchester girls who had been missing since Friday were found unharmed in Everett last night, Boston police said. Maithe “Daniela’’ Ruiz , 10, and Angela Rivera, 12, were found with a relative of Ruiz’s at 7 p.m., said Joe Zanoli, a spokesman for the Boston Police Department. The girl were safe, Zanoli said, and the relative is not facing any charges. “Right now, all indicators suggest it was a runway situation,’’ he said. The girls were last seen Friday morning, when they left together from their home to go to school. Ruiz attends Kenney Elementary School, while Rivera attends Dever Elementary School, police said. Last night, the girls were brought to Dorchester and were interviewed by police and the Department of Children and Families.
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2010 : 07:13:16 AM
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Ailing woman is killed in Everett fire
Fast-moving blaze leaves brother in critical condition
The two-alarm blaze at 8 Blake Terrace was spotted shortly after 9 p.m. by an off-duty State Police sergeant.
By John M. Guilfoil
Globe Staff / March 11, 2010
EVERETT — An infirm, elderly woman was killed and the brother who was caring for her suffered critical injuries in a fast-moving fire in their home last night.
Edna Power, 80, died and her brother, Edward, 76, suffered serious burns and was in critical condition at Massachusetts General Hospital early this morning, said Everett Deputy Fire Chief Bill Humphries.
The fire broke out shortly after 9 p.m. in the 2 1/2-story multifamily home at 8 Blake Terrace. An off-duty State Police K-9 sergeant was driving in the neighborhood and saw the flames, State Police Captain Dan Risteen said. The sergeant rushed into the house, but was pushed back by heavy smoke and flames, Risteen said.
Firefighters quickly arrived and brought the Powers out of the burning building.
Everett Fire Chief David Butler said: “We went right into rescue mode. They [the fire crews] knew there were people trapped.’’
Humphries, who was the first fire officer on the scene, said, “We had the whole front of the building going, from the first floor. The first company had a report of victims in the building. They attempted a rescue in the second floor.’’
Fire officials believe the two-alarm fire started just outside the front of the dwelling. Humphries said a first-floor occupant told investigators she had been smoking a cigarette on the porch shortly before the fire broke out.
State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan said the two occupants of the first floor escaped.
The backyard of Pam Calnan’s Glendhill apart ment faces the burned home. She sobbed last night after learning that her neighbor had died.
“They live right in the back. You look out my window and you can see their house in back. That’s his car right around the corner,’’ she said between tears.
“I can’t even believe it. I’m so upset. I talked to them all the time.’’
Calnan said that the woman had been very ill lately and that her brother was caring for her with the help of visiting nurses.
“She was a very sick woman,’’ she said. “He was dedicated to his sister. He did everything for her.
“I always greeted them. I just talked to him. He goes ‘Hi Pam. How you doing?’ I go ‘Hi, how ya doin? How’s your sister?’ and he would say, ‘She’s not doing well, Pam, but we take one day at a time.’ ’’
The home was seriously damaged by flames, smoke, and water.
Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr., who was at the scene, said he grew up in the neighborhood. He was shaken by the sister’s death and brother’s injuries, and said the victims were very close with his family.
“They’re just really, really great people in the community,’’ DeMaria said. “It’s terrible — they’re elderly people — for anyone to lose their life, but to lose their life that way it must be unimaginable.’’
Fire crews from Chelsea, Boston, Revere, Malden, and Massport assisted.
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2010 : 11:25:49 AM
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Elderly Everett man succumbs to fire injuries
Tried to rescue his disabled sister from flames
By Laura Crimaldi
Thursday, March 11, 2010 -
A devoted Everett brother has died after he desperately tried last night to rescue his wheelchair-bound sister from their burning home which firefighters say was set ablaze by “smoking materials” tossed out by a downstairs neighbor.
State police Sgt. Michael Fiore tried to rescue Edward Power, 76, but Power broke away to try to reach his sister, Edna, 80. She was trapped on the second floor in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank, said Deputy Fire Chief William Humphries.
“The trooper tried to get him but was driven back by the smoke,” said Humphries, who added Fiore spotted the fire from the street and was the first responder on the scene.
Firefighters later rescued Power, performed CPR and brought him to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he died, a hospital spokeswoman said.
His sister was pronounced dead last night.
Humphries said the cause of the fire is “careless disposal of smoking materials.’’
Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. said his cousin, Jerry DiPierro, was the first person to arrive at the Blake Terrace home. He said his cousin tried to convince Edward Power to leave the building.
“They were yelling to him to get down,” said DeMaria. “He wouldn’t leave his sister.”
DeMaria said Power was suffering from burns and smoke inhalation when he was rescued. The mayor said he was introduced to Edward Power years ago by his uncle, Angelo DiPierro. He added Power was one of his supporters and displayed his campaign signs in his yard.
“They were nice people,” DeMaria said. “They will be sorely missed."
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Edited by - massdee on 03/11/2010 11:26:29 AM |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 05/09/2010 : 11:01:18 AM
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Police make 2 arrests in shootings of past week in Everett and Revere
By John M. Guilfoil
Globe Staff / May 9, 2010
Police yesterday announced two arrests in shootings in Everett and Revere over the past week.
On Friday afternoon, 20-year-old Kyheme Harris of Everett turned himself in to police there to face charges he shot and killed 28-year-old David King on Tuesday night, the Middlesex district attorney’s office said in a statement yesterday.
King was found shot twice on Colburn Terrace in Everett. He was pronounced dead at Whidden Hospital.
Harris has been charged with first-degree murder. He is to be arraigned tomorrow in Malden District Court.
Last night, police in Revere announced they made an arrest in another Tuesday shooting.
Damon Neach, 35, of Revere was arrested shortly after he allegedly shot a man he knew in the neck.
Neach faces charges of assault with intent to murder, carrying a firearm without a license, possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm, and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a home.
The victim in the Revere shooting, a 36-year-old Woburn man, survived.
Police have called him “very lucky.’’
Police are calling the shooting a domestic incident, but said last night that the case remains under investigation.
Meanwhile, Chelsea police continue to investigate the shooting death of 17-year-old Chelsea High School student Ronald Palacios, who was the victim of yet another shooting Tuesday.
John M. Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 06/19/2010 : 4:59:44 PM
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Everett
RODRIGUES JOINS COUNCIL — David Rodrigues was recently chosen by the Everett Common Council to fill a vacant Ward 3 council seat. Rodrigues replaces Sal DiDomenico, who resigned after he won a state Senate seat in a special election May 11. In an initial round of voting, Rodrigues received 11 votes to 3 for Leonard Jordan, who had finished fourth in the race for three Ward 3 seats last November. Councilors then made the vote unanimous. Rodrigues graduated in May from Suffolk University Law School, according to Caroline McCorry, the City Council’s administrative assistant. — John Laidler
FIREFIGHTERS HAILED — Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. recently presented citations to three members of the Fire Department: Deputy Chief John Berghello, Captain Norman Solari, and firefighter Michael Baldwin. Berghello and Baldwin were recognized for helping four residents escape a burning building on Bow Street on May 25. Solari was recognized for his quick order to his crew to evacuate the building, which collapsed moments after they exited. — John Laidler |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2010 : 11:41:56 AM
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Boston Globe - Two Everett women charged in Winthrop stabbing
November 12, 2010 08:52 AM
Two Everett women are facing charges in the stabbing of a 44-year-old woman in Winthrop on Thursday night, Suffolk County prosecutors said this morning.
Sharnell Donahue, 31, and Diane Tuck, 51, are to be arraigned today in East Boston District Court in the alleged attack at 7:40 p.m. in the area of 12 Forrest St.
Donahue is charged with armed assault with intent to murder and armed assault with intent to rob, while Tuck is charged with armed assault with intent to rob, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office said in a statement.
The victim is in critical but stable condition at Massachusetts General Hospital, prosecutors said.
Winthrop police are investigating with the assistance of State Police detectives assigned to the district attorney's office. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2010 : 08:06:19 AM
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A cunning scheme, a spark of conscience
Middlesex County Sheriff James DiPaola had hit the daily double — a sly but legal way to collect his state pension and salary all at once. Then, after a dark and sleepless night, he decided to just say no.
By Andrea Estes and Sean P. Murphy
Globe Staff / November 21, 2010
Middlesex County Sheriff James V. DiPaola had it all lined up. He was going to take advantage of a loophole in state law allowing him to collect a $98,500 annual pension on top of his sheriff’s salary of $123,000, starting next year.
But after a sleepless Friday night, he succumbed to second thoughts.
“I think I made a mistake,’’ he said in an early-morning phone call to a Globe reporter yesterday.
Instead of taking his pension and keeping his job, the longtime sheriff said he has decided to resign in January, just weeks after easily winning reelection on Nov. 2. Governor Deval Patrick will name his successor.
Until the Globe began asking about his retirement deal on Friday, DiPaola had a much different plan.
DiPaola, a 57-year-old Democrat, had quietly filed retirement papers on Oct. 28, looking to exploit a section of the state pension law that allows retirees to run for paid elective office without losing their pensions. All he had to do was not accept a paycheck until his new term began in January.
That gambit, which even his own employees seemed unaware of, would have increased his annual income by $98,500 for doing the same job he’s been doing since 1997.
“I’d always be remembered for this, for double-dipping, that that would be my legacy,’’ he said yesterday, crediting a Globe reporter’s question for his spark of conscience. “From a financial perspective it was great. It was legal. But I tossed and turned all night. I did put myself first this time, and I don’t want it to end that way.’’
He continued, “I asked myself, ‘Is this really worth it?’ ’’
DiPaola, who is giving up six years’ salary worth $738,000, concluded it was not.
“This is black and white, and there is no cagey way to get around it,’’ he said. “I had a feeling in my stomach.’’
Just a day earlier, he had defended his decision, saying, “There is nothing evil about it. I don’t see it as grabbing something. I’m supposed to say no to it?’’
DiPaola’s stealth retirement was precisely the kind of maneuver that prompted the governor and Legislature to toughen pension rules last year after a series of Globe stories detailed the ways many public officials had taken advantage of obscure rules and loopholes to enhance their retirement benefits.
But lawmakers apparently never contemplated a scheme like DiPaola’s; he might have been first to pull it off.
On Friday, when contacted by the Globe, Patrick said he would try to prevent DiPaola from collecting the additional money.
“This is absolutely outrageous,’’ the governor said.
Yesterday, Patrick issued a statement praising DiPaola for the change of heart and his “wise decision to resign.’’
“The sheriff did the right thing,’’ Patrick said. “He is a fine man and has done a fine job in office, but this kind of double-dipping is exactly the kind of thing that discredits government.’’
The governor added that the next bill he files to further tighten pension laws would include a prohibition on DiPaola’s maneuver. According to state retirement officials, who must still process his application, as long as DiPaola didn’t get paid as sheriff until he was sworn in for another term, he would have been entitled to both checks. He had already taken himself off the state payroll and intended to continue working as sheriff on a volunteer basis until next year.
The exception DiPaola planned to take advantage of was intended to prevent retirees who want to run for office from being penalized by having their pensions suspended. But in most prior cases, there was a break in service.
Elected officials who collect pensions while serving in office have almost without exception retired — really retired — before running for office. For example, Reed Hillman, a former state representative and the 2006 Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, retired from the state police before running for office.
Former State Police Colonel Thomas Foley is collecting a disability pension from his police service, and even though he agreed to reduce his pay if elected, his pension became an issue in his recent campaign for Worcester county sheriff. He lost to Republican state Representative Lewis Evangelidis.
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and a vocal advocate for pension reform, said clever public employees can find ways to manipulate state pension law.
“The loopholes are limitless, and there is no end to the creativity,’’ he said. “Public officials manage to find the very loophole that feathers their nest.’’
DiPaola was a Malden police officer for 18 years before being elected a state representative in 1992. His career on Beacon Hill ended with his successful campaign for Middlesex sheriff in a special election in 1996 — an election that was prompted by the conviction of the previous sheriff on corruption charges. DiPaola was elected to full six-year terms as sheriff in 1998, 2004, and this year.
If he had chosen to keep working rather than resign, his pension would have remained largely flat, since he has enough years of service to receive the maximum benefit allowed.
Joseph Connarton, the state public retirement commission director, said his agency’s interpretation of the law is that DiPaola could have legally received his pension and his salary, so long as he wasn’t paid as sheriff until his new term.
Tomorrow morning, DiPaola will have some explaining to do to his 800 employees.
When a reporter called the Middlesex County Jail on Friday asking to speak to the sheriff about his retirement, the clerk who answered the phone was puzzled.
“His retirement?’’ she said.
Andrea Estes can be reached at estes@globe.com. Sean Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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card
Senior Member
117 Posts |
Posted - 11/28/2010 : 08:33:23 AM
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Bedbugs are biting once again
By Taryn Plumb
It could be the synopsis of a horror movie.
They come for you in the middle of the night. They feed on your blood. They spread rampantly and unseen, and annihilating them is an elaborate, tactical process that doesn’t ensure they won’t come back again.
But this infestation — of tiny, resilient, and fast-breeding bedbugs — isn’t on multiplex screens, it’s in bedrooms, hotel rooms, and institutions across the country. The nocturnal bloodsuckers are proliferating at an alarming rate locally, according to officials and exterminators, and this time around, they may be a permanent pest.
“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my industry,’’ said Galvin Murphy of Malden-based Yankee Pest Control. “It’s been beyond our ability to believe.’’
Rusty-red, oval-shaped, and about the size of a lentil, bedbugs — which remain dormant by day and feed on human blood by night — were ubiquitous in the United States at the turn of the century and then went nearly extinct after World War II with the introduction of the insecticide DDT.
But now, they’ve nestled right back into America’s bedrooms — and fears.
In one of the more publicized cases locally, the insects were discovered in roughly 40 elderly-housing units managed by the Salem Housing Authority. Lynn-based A-1 Exterminators is in the process of eradicating the bugs with a high-heat method, according to company president Gary Weisberg. Housing Authority executive director Carol MacGowan did not return calls seeking comment.
But the skin-crawling bugs have been found in “just about any community in metro north,’’ said Murphy, citing Malden, Everett, and Somerville in particular. “There’s probably not a town we haven’t been in.’’
His company is booked until mid-December, and has more workers dealing with bedbugs than all other pests (from rats to termites to ants) combined.
Farther northwest, Michael Beaulieu of Lowell-based Bain Pest Control Service also described an increase of about 30 percent in calls over the last six months. Particular problem areas include Lowell, Manchester, N.H., and Greater Boston, including Chelsea and Revere, he said.
The state Department of Public Health doesn’t track infestations, according to media relations director Julia Hurley, because bedbugs aren’t known to spread infectious diseases.
If you can get past the blood-sucking, they’re relatively benign, more “annoying’’ than anything, said Lowell health director Frank Singleton. Still, he acknowledged, “People don’t get a happy feeling when they’re told they’re a food source.’’
Most often, according to experts, bedbugs are discovered in multifamily dwellings or apartment buildings, elderly housing, nursing homes, hospitals, or public buildings such as firehouses and police stations.
“The more congested an area is, the more calls we get,’’ said Weisberg of A-1. “There’s no place that’s really immune.’’
Nesting areas are a little easier to pinpoint. Bedbugs typically settle anywhere within a 20-foot radius of a sleeping spot, according to Singleton; in addition to mattresses and headboards, they’ve been found tucked away in picture frames, closets, piles of clothing, walls, even clock radios.
“They’re called bedbugs, but they’ll infest chairs, couches — anywhere there’s a crack and crevice,’’ said Weisberg.
And often, people don’t discover them until they’ve got a prospering colony leaving evidence such as skin rashes, bloodstained linens, or dark spots from droppings.
They travel from place to place just as covertly, hitchhiking from bedrooms to cinemas to dressing rooms to hotel rooms, on luggage, handbags, clothes, and even the spines of books.
To minimize proliferation, officials and exterminators urge, don’t pick up free roadside furniture, and, when traveling, keep clothes in your luggage and store your luggage in the bathtub (since the tiny insects have a hard time climbing slippery surfaces). One can also check infestation-tracking websites such as You must be logged in to see this link.
“I don’t know how you prevent them,’’ said Singleton, noting that complaints to his department in Lowell have rocketed from about a half-dozen a year to two or three a week. “They’re now back in the United States, fully introduced, and expanding into their old habitat.’’
But just how they returned is unclear. Many point to the DDT ban in the 1970s; others to increased international travel. Some also note a lack of knowledge on the part of pest services.
Because the boom is relatively recent, Beaulieu said, “the industry doesn’t know enough about it.’’
Singleton agreed, and has been pushing for a revision of the state housing code that spells out an organized approach to eradication.
Because today’s breed is often resistant to pesticides, the bugs are battled with steam, vacuums, cryogenics, or heat. The latter involves blasting the entire home or unit with temperatures up to 135 degrees for several hours, according to Murphy of Yankee, which also relies on the trained nose of a rescue dog to sniff out live bugs and viable eggs.
In the end, he and others don’t expect a letup anytime soon in the war against bedbugs.
“Unless they come out with some new technology,’’ said Weisberg, “we’re going to be dealing with this for a long time.’’
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
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Boston Globe 2010
