‘The city has not increased the COLA base since 2021, when the board raised it from $14,000 to $15,000, according to Janey Frank, a retired Boston Public Schools teacher and a leader of the Retired Teachers Chapter of the Boston Teachers Union.
Retired city employees have had three COLA base increases since 2010, and those increases combined have only raised pensioners’ annual cost of living payments from $360 to $450.
An extra $90 a year, which amounts to $7.50 more a month, would matter to struggling pensioners, said Erik Berg, president of the Boston Teachers Union, before the retirement board Friday.
Advertisement
“For most of us, maybe all of us in this room … that’s not a cost that we need to think about,” Berg said. “We don’t need to think about splitting pills in half, paying the light bills, being able to survive in the city after 20, even 30, years of retirement, after devoting your career to the city. But retirees do. A modest increase is affordable to this city.”’