Freetown Select Board learns town likely violates state law on retiree health insurance

FREETOWN — February 5, 2024 — Freetown Select Board discovers likely state-law violation in retiree health insurance payments. Town Administrator Debbie Pichette told the board Monday that the town has been contributing 95 percent of supplemental health insurance premiums for roughly 102 Medicare-eligible retirees — a rate that exceeds the 90 percent maximum allowed under MGL Chapter 32B and, absent a formally adopted subsection of that law, should legally be zero. Total payments run about $30,000 per month. Pichette said she will draft a bylaw for town meeting to adopt Section 9E, giving the board flexibility to set a contribution rate up to 90 percent, and suggested 75 percent as a target, with any change taking effect no sooner than January 1, 2025. The board also heard that a sewer extension project budgeted at $975,000 is roughly $30,000 over budget due to surveying overruns, a modular Council on Aging addition is expected to run past its $300,000 budget once vestibule construction is priced, and a new engineering report on the cracked South Main Street Bridge outlines repair options ranging from roughly $1 million to more than $3 million with road closures of 12 to 48 months.