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To the taxpayers of Swampscott:
Yesterday the town’s union employees voted to reject the Town’s proposal to join the State’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC) plan. It is evident that meeting the required October 1, 2008, deadline to enter the GIC for Fiscal 2010 will pass without an agreement. Although this will ultimately significantly impact the Fiscal 2010 Budget, it is important for the taxpayers of Swampscott to know that we will continue the work that began five years ago to reduce the impact that health insurance has on our ability to deliver critical services. During that time, and with the support of Town Meeting, we accepted Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 32, Section 18 (the Medicare provision), successfully negotiated a change in employee paid co-pays and also negotiated the elimination of expensive underutilized plans. The beneficiary of
these actions has not just been the taxpayer, but the town’s employees and retirees as well, whose premiums would have increased even more if these actions had not been taken. Today we turn the page, but we don’t close the book on working diligently to find ways to control the strangling increases in the cost of employee health insurance premiums.
Respectfully,
The Swampscott Board of Selectmen
Andrew W. Maylor, Town Administrator
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