As your recent readers are aware, the Harvard selectmen voted in September to move 75 retired teachers (of which I am one) from an excellent health plan (the GIC) to a lower-quality one—and charge us more for it. This was explained as a budgetary move. I get it; the town needs the savings more than I need the protection of the GIC.
The selectmen have the authority to make a change that will deal a severe blow to the financial and medical situation of Harvard’s retired teachers; presumably the power to make tough decisions on the town’s behalf is the reason board members ran for election in the first place. But tough decisions inevitably create winners and losers; elected officials need to do what they think is right and cannot look to the citizens who come out on the losing end of official actions for approbation or personal absolution.
Last week, I received a “Dear Retired Teacher” form letter signed by board Chairwoman Lucy B. Wallace that did exactly that. Its self-serving, sanctimonious tone really got my dander up. The letter describes how difficult the board’s decision to downgrade our health insurance was for the board members, then attempts to elicit sympathy for the board from the very people who were hurt by the decision.
Ms. Wallace’s letter assures us that she “lost sleep” over the insurance vote and states that it was “not an easy decision” but one that required much “soul searching” (whereas we firmly believe that it was in fact a foregone conclusion and that the selectmen never for a moment considered any of our input or suggestions). Her rationale can be boiled down to “this hurts us more than it hurts you.” I can no longer pretend to have any respect for this board or for its chair. It’s one thing to ask me to live with a decision that I see as unfair; it’s quite another to ask me to feel sorry for you because the decision process cost you some sleep.
The letters I wrote to the selectmen and this newspaper on this issue were fact-based and (I believe) measured in tone, not angry or emotional. I think it is not unreasonable to expect that the board’s return communications with me and my colleagues would be similarly professional. Ms. Wallace’s letter was anything but. It came across as whiny and defensive, and it merely added insult to injury.
The letter’s longest paragraph lays out at painful length the town’s justification for making this change. I understand Ms. Wallace believes her primary job is to make sure Harvard keeps its OPEB (other post-employment benefits) account one of the best funded in the state. But it’s absurd for her to expect me to care more about the OPEB rating than about some of my colleagues who do not even have Medicare coverage, or about the much steeper copay I can expect the next time I need to go to the hospital.
To the Board of Selectmen and its chair: Do what you think you have to do, but please—keep your holier-than-thou excuses to yourself.
Judith Boyce
Southborough
