North Andover and some other Essex County communities are being forced to pay more into their retirement fund so emergency dispatchers can retire five years earlier than other public employees.
The Essex Regional Retirement Board, the pension system serving 19 towns, six regional schools, 17 housing authorities and six special districts across the county, has reclassified police and fire dispatchers as "signal operators."
The move makes dispatchers who have sufficient years of service eligible to retire with full benefits at age 60, rather than 65, on the grounds their jobs are more hazardous than other jobs.
It's up to individual cities and towns to accept the reclassification for their own dispatchers, and North Andover has yet to do so. But the retirement board already has increased its charges to North Andover and other member communities to pay for the earlier retirements.
"I don't know how they can do that, but they did it," said North Andover Town Manager Mark Rees.
North Andover is the largest community served by the Essex Regional Retirement Board.
Both municipal employees and the communities they serve pay into the pension fund, much as a private employer and its workers might contribute to a retirement plan. Workers pay a percentage of their incomes. The percentage ranges from 5 percent to 11 percent, depending on when the worker joined the plan, according to North Andover fire Chief William Martineau, who is an elected member of the board of directors of the retirement board.
But unlike private employers, communities that are served by the regional board have no say in how much they will contribute to their employees' retirement. The retirement board simply presents a bill for the assessment that the town must pay. A discount of a fraction of more than 2 percent is offered if the full assessment is paid promptly.
The retirement fund is a major expense for North Andover. Its 2009 assessment, discount included, was $2.469 million. Its payment for the 2010 fiscal year will be $2.596 million, an increase of $127,900 or 5.2 percent.
Included in the assessments for both years is an increase to cover the earlier retirement of North Andover's nine dispatchers, even though the town has not agreed to reclassify them as signal operators. Rees said the increase in the assessment for the dispatchers was 0.2 percent, or about $5,000 a year.
Rees said he would discuss the increased assessment for the earlier retirement with the Board of Selectmen to see what position the town will take.
"They shouldn't be increasing the assessment until we've agreed to make the change," he said.
Municipal workers are placed into one of three groups defined by how hazardous their jobs are. Those with the least hazardous jobs are classified as "Group 1" and must work until age 65 to receive full benefits. Those with the most hazardous jobs — police, firefighters, corrections officers and the like — may retire with full benefits as young as age 55.
The dispatchers were moved from the first group into a middle classification, "Group 2", that includes ambulance attendants, licensed electricians and mental health hospital attendants.
Lilli Gilligan, the Essex Regional Retirement Board's chief operating officer, said the system is merely righting a wrong.
Years ago, before the days of computerized 911 dispatch centers, those answering emergency requests for aid were called "signal operators." Their responsibilities included answering and maintaining the electrical alarm boxes scattered throughout cities and towns that were connected to police and fire stations.
Those employees were classified as Group 2 and eligible to retire at age 60.
However, as the technology changed, so did the job titles, Gilligan said. Signal operators became dispatchers, but their job was lumped into Group 1 and their retirement age rose to 65.
"The law was never updated to suggest dispatchers," said Gilligan. "They do the same job as signal operators. ... When we were approached, we looked at it and saw it was clearly an error just due to a job title. It was essentially fixed."
According to Martineau, the retirement board had to be ready for the possibility that a retiring dispatcher would sue for Group 2 benefits, arguing there was no law justifying the moving of dispatchers into Group 1.
Communities that have not approved the change are already being assessed the higher rate because the retirement board will be liable for the earlier retirements if employees file such claims even 10 or 20 years from now, Martineau said.
Is the job of a modern "dispatcher" as dangerous as that of the "signal operator" of the past?
Rees says no.
"I think perhaps when a signal operator went out and maintained the lines and checked junction boxes ... but no, I don't think the danger of the job is there today," Rees said. "That being said, I know it is a very stressful job."
Martineau said the retirement board made the right decision.
"It's probably one of the most stressful jobs out there, other than that of a firefighter," Martineau said. "They're dealing with people in the worst situations of their lives."
Salem News reporter Chris Cassidy contributed to this report.
