Mayor Domenic J. Sarno commended the Springfield Retirement Board today for their decision to approve a new local option to increase the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Springfield city retirees up to 5% as a result of a State law that was signed by former Governor Charlie Baker in November 2022. Mayor Sarno will now sponsor an order for the City Council to consider which will increase the total COLA for city retirees from 3% to 5%.
In October 2022, Mayor Sarno submitted an order that was approved by the City Council to increase the COLA for city retirees to 3%. On November 16, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law, Chapter 269 of the Acts of 2022, which provides a local option to increase the COLA to up to 5%.
Mayor Sarno states, “Building off the previous 3% COLA increase I sponsored last year for our city retirees/seniors, I want to thank former Governor Baker and our Springfield Retirement Board for approving this additional COLA increase of 2%. This will now bring the total COLA increase for our city retirees to 5%. Thanks to our sound and prudent fiscal management, and with the unprecedented times of a 40 year high in inflation and a looming recession, it is imperative that we assist our city retirees/seniors, ‘to help make ends meet’. Simply put, this is the right thing to do as I do not want our city retirees/seniors to have to make the difficult decisions whether to get their medicine and/or put food on the table.”