Thursday, 4:30 PM
SJC rules Bulger can keep most of $29,000 pension hike
(Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)
William Bulger, shown in a photograph taken last month, will get to keep much of a $29,000 increase in his state pension, according to a ruling today by the state Supreme Judicial Court.
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff
The state's highest court ruled today that William M. Bulger can keep most of a controversial $29,000 increase to his annual pension that he received by including a monthly housing allowance he received as former president of the University of Massachusetts.
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said Bulger was correct in including the $2,419 housing allowance he counted as income when calculating the pension he received as president of UMass from 1996 to 2003. But the court said he could not include a $19,000 annuity.
Together, the two sums had boosted his annual pension from about $179,000 a year to about $208,000 a year. The ruling means that Bulger, who was president of the state Senate before going to UMass, gets to keep about $17,000 of the annual increase, according to his lawyer, Thomas R. Kiley, who was pleased with the decision.
"Mr. Bulger has always been entitled to this sum," he said. "It has been a hard-fought battle to get what he is entitled to, and the court has taken a reasoned approach that is in marked contrast to the approaches of political figures who had previously looked at the issue."
Attorney General Tom Reilly issued a statement after the ruling that focused on the roughly $12,000 that Bulger will lose from his pension, saying that the "Commonwealth has been very good to Bill Bulger."
"I am pleased that the Court agreed his request for a pension based on perks goes too far," Reilly said. "But this case has always been about more than Bill Bulger and we should be concerned about the dangerous precedent this may set for our pension system."
