Politics & Government
Acton's OPEB [VIDEO]
Three Acton residents think we should have put more money into a trust fund to start paying off Acton's OPEB liability rather than the amount approved at Town Meeting.
OPEB – it’s been dubbed the dark cloud hanging over Acton’s financial future. OPEB stands for Other Post Employment Benefits – the unfunded retiree healthcare budget.
Acton’s estimated OPEB liability is roughly $87 million and the Segal company, hired by Acton to calculate how to properly fund this liability suggested that we pay at least $4 million a year for the next 30 years, with an increased payment of 3.5 percent a year.
At Acton’s 2012 Town Meeting, the Finance Committee and the Board of Selectmen took the advice of the Acton Leadership Group (ALG) and placed $500,000 into a trust fund to initiate the payment. Voters rejected , and amendment to place $1,364,000 into the trust fund.
Find out what's happening in Actonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“We should start from the Segal Report and go from there,” said Nitschelm in an Acton Patch interview. “We shouldn’t be coming up with our own imaginary number which is $500,000 and figuring out from there if we should go up or down. We should start with Segal – they are the experts that the town hired and unless someone has a reason for not using Segal I think we should be having our conversation around what their report says and how we fund this unfunded liability.”
In the interview, Calandrella stated his concern about voters being unaware of the OPEB issue.
Find out what's happening in Actonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“Town and school officials are aware of this (OPEB) but I am afraid that it just doesn't register with the majority of voters as to how serious this particular problem is and we can only hope that the Finance Committee, the Selectmen and the ALG will go out and take a much harder look at this thing this summer and address it the way it should be addressed,” said Calandrella.
Kadlec pointed out that this is a serious obligation for Acton.
“I think an important thing to emphasize is that this is a contractual obligation, it’s not just a promise as it has sometimes been described,” said Kadlec.
Attached to this article is a video interview with Nitschelm, Kadlec and Calandrella (Note: this was a half hour interview edited into a two minute video, highlighting what I thought were significant points).
Also attached to this article is their powerpoint presentation on their amendment proposed at Town Meeting.
To read more arguments on this issue made by Mr. Nitschelm, check out the Acton Forum.