NORWELL — Oct. 14, 2026 — Plymouth County Retirement Association officials told the Norwell Select Board on Wednesday that the pension system will not be fully funded until 2032, a year later than planned, and that member communities face average projected assessment increases of 9.75% a year after a new actuary pressed for more conservative assumptions. The board also appointed Deputy Police Chief John McDevitt acting police chief.
The Full Story
Chair Brian Greenberg welcomed Treasurer Tom O’Brien and Executive Director Lauren Durham of the Plymouth County Retirement Association as the board’s guests.
Association officials said the longtime actuary was stepping back and that the replacement firm told the association’s board this spring that its 7.875% assumed rate of return was too high, insisting on 7.4%. The new actuary also called for an updated mortality table and said salary assumptions had been too generous because member communities were raising payroll faster than projected.
The association’s board settled on 7.625%, adopted the new salary projections and mortality table, and extended the funding date one year to 2032. Options the board rejected would have produced increases of 23% to 25%, or 15% to 18%, the officials said. The chosen path yields an average projected increase of 9.75% in each remaining year, higher for communities whose salaries outrun the assumptions and lower for those whose salaries do not.
So it wasn’t the investment performance side that was increasing the liability. We were meeting our bogey. It was a change in assumptions that we had to deal with.
— Plymouth County Treasurer Tom O’Brien (as Chairman of the Retirement Board) (7:14)
Reaching full funding would cut what communities pay by 60% to 70%, O’Brien said, and the valuation locks in assessments for fiscal 2028 and 2029. Research prompted by town questions found that only Group 1 employees who start young cover their own retirement costs, they said. At Town Administrator Chad Lovett’s request, O’Brien confirmed member communities received the valuation report Sept. 22.
Peter Smellie asked whether the association had considered checking the new assumptions against a second actuary, given its record of beating its return target . O’Brien said the association’s board had made the same argument, but none of its members are actuaries, and the state regulatory agency had been pushing retirement boards toward lower rates.
Norwell had built a five-year plan around reaching full funding in 2031, Smellie said, and a revised plan would probably involve some level of override.
Greenberg said the change had flown under the radar for him.
But it is someone at some point making a judgment call. And so that obviously becomes frustrating.
— Brian Greenberg, Select Board Chair (47:18)
In later questioning, Treasurer O’Brien said the state regulator had already sent an approval letter and that a level schedule stretched to 2034 or 2035 could no longer be considered. They said the association will discuss in January whether to run an early valuation, which would restart the two-year cycle.
