By Chris Cassidy
STAFF WRITER
May 26, 2009 09:42 am SALEM — Thanks to a subtle change in job title, some North Shore emergency dispatchers will be able to retire five years early under new rules approved by the Essex Regional Retirement Board. By reclassifying police and fire dispatchers as "signal operators," the board recently allowed the group to retire with maximum benefits at age 60. That puts them into an elite group of municipal workers who are eligible for retirement before age 65 — a benefit typically reserved for those with hazardous jobs, such as police officers, firefighters and electrical line workers. The towns overseen by the Essex Regional Retirement Board — including Boxford, Hamilton, Ipswich, Topsfield and Wenham — first have to approve the change in their dispatchers' job description, but in many cases the retirement system is billing them anyway. "I consider this a raid on the retirement system that will negatively affect everybody in the system," said Ipswich Town Manager Robert Markel. The vast majority of municipal employees, from custodians to town managers, are considered "Group 1" workers with a retirement age of 65. Jobs with a higher degree of danger, like police and fire, are classified as "Group 4," where the retirement age is 55. The changes made by the Essex regional board give dispatchers a status that no other municipal employee group currently has — "Group 2," where the retirement age is 60. 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, which were connected to police and fire stations. Those employees were 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." Still, Markel, the Ipswich town manager, questioned why dispatchers are the only civilian group (except certain electrical linemen) singled out for earlier retirement. He said the retirement board will have to fund the extra benefits by using a combination of retirement contributions and public tax dollars. Gilligan, meanwhile, said the extra costs to the towns are negligible. Last year, for example, they amounted to a fraction of a percent of the overall $17.6 million it collected from the 48 towns and units to fund the system, she said. Regardless, the Essex Regional Retirement Board is the only retirement system on the North Shore to approve the earlier retirement guidelines. Dispatchers in cities like Beverly, Salem and Peabody, who handle more emergency calls during a typical shift, still retire at age 65. A spokesman for the Massachusetts Communications Supervisors Association, an advocate group for dispatchers that has pushed hard for the changes, could not be reached for comment last week. But Salem City Councilor Joseph O'Keefe, a former state fire marshal, said dispatchers deserve the perk — even more than the highest ranking municipal leaders, like mayors and town managers. "There's a big difference between town managers and dispatchers," said O'Keefe. "They're home in bed at 3 in the morning — not waiting for calls to come in." Staff writer Chris Cassidy can be reached at ccassidy@salemnews.com.
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