Timothy Bassett's salary rose a staggering 52 percent over the last six years, thanks to an unusual clause inserted into his contract as executive director of the Essex Regional Retirement Board.
Bassett, whose role as board chairman is being investigated by a state agency, signed a new contract in 2006 that opened the door to tens of thousands of dollars in raises at the expense of taxpayers.
The unique deal directly tied Bassett's pay to the salaries of highly compensated town managers.
Specifically, it guaranteed Bassett would be paid either $110,000 per year or the average of the salaries of the two highest-paid town managers within the Essex Regional Retirement System — whichever is greater.
As a result, Bassett's salary skyrocketed. In 2003, before the new contract took effect, he was making $88,515; by 2009, he was up to $134,250 — an increase of 51.7 percent over six years.
"I've never heard of anything like that before," said Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "It's highly unusual that a salary would be pegged to a decision made by other government agencies."
The contract also allows the board to grant him additional raises and fringe benefits, and guarantees a $3,000 yearly stipend for his dual responsibility as board chairman.
Bassett's special provisions came to light after The Salem News obtained copies of his two most recent contracts earlier this week.
His handsome raises have catapulted him past the salaries of other county retirement board administrators, many of whom oversee much larger investments and many more retirees than Bassett.
Bassett heads a system with 5,000 members and $209 million in assets (which are in the process of being transferred into the state system. By comparison, Plymouth County Retirement Board Administrator William Farmer looks after $491 million in assets for the board's 12,000 members. He is paid $9,000 less than Bassett.
Bassett's pay even outpaces those at the state level.
Nick Favorito, the board administrator for the State Retirement Board — which handles benefits for 136,000 state workers — is paid $117,300 a year.
While Bassett has been enjoying the kind of pay deal that most workers only dream of, he has also secured a variety of other perks for himself.
In 2004, the board awarded him a lucrative, $500,000 retirement benefit. They began setting aside an additional $83,400 a year for him in a trust. When he retired at age 65, he would have had an annuity that paid him $40,000 a year for the life of the account — up to a half-million dollars.
That was to supplement the $41,000-a-year state pension he has been collecting since he "retired" from the State Land Bank about 15 years ago.
However, Bassett declared last year that he would no longer accept the annuity, citing "market conditions" and "the economic realities facing cities and towns." The board had come under intensifying scrutiny for posting the worst returns of any retirement board in the commonwealth in 2008.
Still, Bassett has enjoyed other comfortable benefits. He gets five weeks' vacation and an initial reserve of 62 sick days, plus an additional 15 sick days a year.
He even has a protection clause. If the Essex Regional Retirement Board is abolished, his contract guarantees that within 60 days, he'll be handed a severance package equal to his annual salary for the remaining term of his contract (Dec. 16, 2012) or his 65th birthday, whichever time is greater.
The opportunity to travel to far-flung resorts became another cushy perk for Bassett and other board members. In 2005, Bassett, Glenn Morse and Kathy O'Leary flew to Las Vegas for a national public retirement conference, where they stayed at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and dined at Emeril Lagasse's Delmonico Steakhouse.
Total cost of the trip: $7,015.
Bassett also attended a Washington, D.C., conference in 2006, where he stayed in a $339 a night room at the Hyatt Regency, just two blocks from the Capitol.
No one on the retirement board wanted to defend Bassett's contract this week. O'Leary and Morse didn't return messages left at their homes. William Martineau and Roberta Josephson declined to comment.
Bassett himself hasn't returned phone calls left at his Danvers office over several days.
Meanwhile, Beckwith, the head of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, questioned why the salary of a retirement board director would be so closely tied to that of a town manager when their job responsibilities are vastly different.
"Town managers and mayors oversee hundreds of employees and deal with issues ranging from public safety and public works to immediate reaction to crisis," he said.
"It's the 24/7 nature of the position," he said. "Just think about what happened in Danvers. The town manager is the one responsible for coordinating the response and effort.
"That would never be the case with the administrator of a retirement board."
Staff writer Chris Cassidy can be reached at ccassidy@salem news.com.
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