|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Editor’s Note: This story was corrected on Wednesday, July 30, 2025, to indicate that Mayor Jon Mitchell will seek a reimbursement of longevity pay given to elected officials since 2019.
Councilor Brian Gomes rose to speak and, in his signature booming crescendo, cried out, “They’re saying we should be federally indicted! Send it in! Because I did nothing wrong.”
Many of New Bedford’s political junkies and hangers-on have for weeks made the case over talk-radio broadcasts and during City Council sessions that there is something rotten in Denmark. Some elected officials, it recently became known, had for years received “longevity payments” — annual bonuses between $450 and $850, intended for unelected city staffers who served 10 years or more.
These elected officials — including some long-serving city councilors, assessors, and the mayor — were mistakenly receiving longevity payments through 2023, when Mayor Jon Mitchell noticed a difference in his own paycheck upon reaching the 10-year mark of service.
This past December, after review from the city’s lawyer, the administration ended all longevity payments to elected officials. That means there have been no longevity payments to elected officials since 2023.
Mitchell returned the $900 he received over two years into the city’s coffers, and has made that receipt public.
On Wednesday, Jonathan Darling, the city’s public information officer, said the administration will seek reimbursement from elected officials who have received longevity pay since 2019 — the statute of limitations on this matter. The city is still formulating a plan on how it would collect or enforce those reimbursements, he said.
The swirling waters of New Bedford politics resurrected the issue with accusations, name-calling, and an alleged conspiracy said to stretch back up to 100 years. In short, longevity payments had become a full-on, hometown political scandal.
Councilors allegedly were “enriching themselves with these bonuses,” said Chris McCarthy, a local talk radio host, on the air. More than just the dollar figures, which were modest, the payments smacked of government overreach and selfishness, McCarthy said. “It’s called licking the plate,” he said. And, “Let’s party on the taxpayer’s dime!”
Moreover, McCarthy led the rallying cry that these payments were egregious enough to merit legal action. Speaking about Councilor Gomes, McCarthy wondered aloud: “Shouldn’t he be spending his time speaking to a defense attorney?”
Gomes and other city councilors, however, said this was much ado about nothing.
“They’re making it sound like there’s some kind of mafia going on here,” Gomes said in remarks during a recent City Council meeting. “Any type of corruption … [and] I’d be the first one to hang you.”
Though longevity payments to elected officials have not been paid since December 2023, The Light asked the Mitchell administration for documents and information from its internal inquiry. That inquiry found $63,500 in longevity payments were given to elected officials over the last 20 years (which is as far back as the city’s digital records go).
Current councilors who have received longevity payments are Gomes, Linda Morad, Naomi Carney, and Joe Lopes. (Lopes received payments in 2020 and 2021, but not since his reelection to the council in 2023.) Councilor Ian Abreu reaches 10 years of service this year, so he would’ve likely received a payment this December if the mayor had not stopped the practice.
Gomes, the council’s longest-serving current officeholder, has earned a total of $12,350 in longevity pay since 2005, more than any other elected official in the city’s analysis. His annual longevity bonus was $850 in 2023. Assessor Marty Treadup was second to Gomes, with a total of $11,550 in longevity pay.
In 2023, longevity payments went to seven elected officials for an average of $579 per person, which represented 1.7% of those individuals’ salaries. (All of the salaries were part-time, besides Mayor Mitchell’s. City councilors are paid a base salary of $27,768 a year, assessors $20,291 a year.) The total $4,050 of longevity payments to these seven individuals in 2023 was 0.000859% of the city’s $472 million budget that fiscal year.
That means a single-family homeowner paying the typical tax bill of $4,234 that year would contribute only 3.6 cents toward longevity payments to elected officials — a ha’penny for each one.
“This entire thing, from my point of view, was four quick questions that came three days before payroll was run in December [2024],” said City Solicitor Eric Jaikes. The payroll office asked Jaikes to double-check whether elected officials were supposed to receive longevity pay, according to city ordinances. “I quickly answered the question” — his answer was no — “and I moved on to, frankly, other things that I thought were more important in the City of New Bedford.”
“Don’t get me wrong, if we shouldn’t be paying someone, we shouldn’t be paying someone. That’s an important matter. But in terms of the money that was involved, I moved on to other things,” Jaikes said.
As for the legal ramifications of these longevity payments, Jaikes said the city could seek reimbursements from elected officials who received payments in the last six years.
“If someone wanted to come forward and say, ‘I should not have received those monies, it was improper, I would like to return it to the city’ … I believe the city would accept those monies,” Jaikes said.
In Jaikes’ opinion, no other party besides the City of New Bedford would have sufficient standing to file any claim against the recipients, especially considering the statute of limitations. An individual taxpayer’s financial interest in these funds would be “minuscule,” Jaikes said.
The city’s records, which collected data across two digital municipal governance platforms, stretch back to 2005. It was not feasible to go back any further, said public information officer Jonathan Darling, because older paper records were damaged in a flood.
Still, stories float around City Hall that suggest the longevity payments were around in the 1990s. The late Mayor Fred Kalisz, for example, received $450 of longevity pay in 2005. That would only be possible, Jaikes explained, if the policy counted Kalisz’s full mayoral term (which started in 1998) plus his years on the City Council.
“I was hired by Mayor Kalisz … in 2001,” said Jaikes. “I obviously wasn’t eligible for it, but I knew [longevity pay] existed.”
The most definitive clue for when longevity pay may have started is found in the city ordinances. Every ordinance includes a footnote, which has the dates that the ordinance was written or amended.
The ordinance that defines longevity pay, Sec. 19-7.1, was added to the city’s laws on April 27, 1989. The specific subsection dealing with longevity pay states the amounts employees would receive, and it went into effect on Jan. 1, 1992.
In all likelihood, city officials said, the mistake was simply to treat elected officials as normal City Hall staffers. And it may have been happening for as long as this law was in effect. (So longevity payments to elected officials likely lasted 32 years — not the 100 years of recent rumor.)
“Every dollar counts. So we certainly understand that people could be frustrated or people could think that [elected officials] shouldn’t have gotten this,” said Darling, the public information officer.
“The mayor hears it, and that’s why we want to do our best to put an end to it as soon as possible,” Darling said.
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org and Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org
That’s interesting they think it’s nothing to discuss. If I were to receive even 5 dollars more on my SSI or SNAP benefits, especially over many years, they’d immediately demand the money back and garnish my benefits. If I refuse to pay 100 back to the IRS I face going to prison. Yet, for our lovely local politicians, it’s “oops, our bad. It’s not much money so no biggie.”
Time for change in New Bedford, we need change in the Mayor’s Office and the City Council. No politician should serve more than ten years in office. Put the Mayor’s term back to two years. Just look at the poor decisions that have been made at the expense of the voters and taxpayers and the Longevity Pay is only the tip of the Iceberg, This City has a budget that has grown over $300 Million Dollars in the past ten years, financial issues (the city is run on State Aid and Raising Taxes), priorities are supporting Non Profits (the Z a free 99 year lease and $500 thousand dollars a year in operating cost), giving the Star Store away for One Dollar and not collecting the back taxes owed, while City government continues to expand (City owns and runs over 90 Buildings), look at the Police Department Corruption (Boston Globe Articles (Snitch City) and now the hiring of Police Officers that are not United State Citizens), and the latest issue letting Parallel Products expand (which will be a future Superfund Site). 100% it is time to clean out City Hall, we need new leadership in the Mayor’s Office and the City Council. Once again no politician should serve more than ten years in office, New Bedford Deserves better.
Jeff – you keep going on about the $300 mil increase. Have you accounted for inflation?
Tony it’s all public information, do some research. Hows this, I will give you 50 Million dollars for Inflation, now explain the other $253 Million Dollars. I challenge everyone go back and look at all the other previous administrations, no other mayor in our city’s history has expanded city government and increased spending like Mayor John Mitchell. The facts show for over 10 years (from the 2012 Budget of $247.3 Million Dollars to the present approved budget of $550.8 Million Dollars) the expansion of city government and failed financial and economic leadership ran up the city’s budget by a staggering $303.5 Million Dollars. The blame goes to Mayor Mitchell who year after year submitted these increased budgets and I will also blame the six senior city councilors (Abreu, Carney, Giesta, Gomes, Lopes, and Morad) that were along for the ride, did nothing to stop it, and went on to approve these budgets. 100% there is no doubt New Bedford needs new leadership and the Mayor’s Office and the City Council has to be cleaned out.
💯
Do not re-elect any on the list including the mayor. We definitely would have to pay it back as SSA- SSI- snap they need to pay it back. It’s outrageous that they think they shouldn’t
Inflation has nothing to do with this Mayor growing government with revenue losses. Today we have 300 million I’m revenue sources at best. And our operating budget is 551 million. Most people are not getting the fact that our city is getting close to receivership.
Good, bump out the problems bring in the state!
Who’s the culprit? Not these elected officials.
One of the things we ask of our elected officials is honesty and integrity in their public dealings. Receiving additional payment outside of the base salary should have been noticed and reported, like the mayor did.
I agree with the above statement by Mr. Rogers…something stinks at City Hall and they all need to be removed!
Ironically when I retired in 2010 I was told unit C employees like myself were not entitled to longevity pay. I know in Lakeville a unit C employee wearing two hats COa director and Veterans Agent received two longevity checks for years with less than 2 Veteran clients
Dan
32 years ago John K Bullard was the Mayor. The same John K Bullard that was responsible for NOAA to stick it to the Fisherman with erroneous regulations that hurt our Fisherman and their Families.
The article is a rush to judgment that leans heavily on one interpretation — namely, that of talk show host Chris McCarthy — while failing hook and line for the city’s own shifting narrative.
There’s no shortage of scandal-first pages and social media sewer accounts chasing clicks. The Light is supposed to offer something better — but here again, it leads with a “who knows, could be huge if true” style, rather than grounding its reporting in legal analysis, administrative context, or disciplined attribution.
From the moment the ordinance passed in 1990, electeds got the payments. They are legal and established.
The real story is the background to how this story got built over past six months.
I read this as fact check on McCarthy’s bloviations.
All I can say is, turn out at the polls and vote!!!!
Really??? Talk about a slow news day. Expect more of the Light. And my property tax bill has gone down the last 2years. Often wonder who actual comments here.
Perhaps they should put their names in the ballot.
Perhaps you haven’t upkept your property. If you haven’t improved it, it should remain around the same or lower the value. Meaning less taxes.
You’re wrong about the property being taxed on the value, the mayor and the city council draft a budget, and after cuts are made to the proposed budget, and once the mayor, and city council agree on the final budget, and how much money is needed, that’s when the tax rate is set, not on property values. I’m sure you don’t believe that, but speak with a city councilor and they’ll tell you that’s a fact. When property values increase substantially, the tax rate per thousand dollars is lower, and when the property values drop by 20-30%, your tax rate per thousand dollars is higher.
You need to fact check yourself!I updated my home 25000 in improvements. The value on my home increased 50000. Therefore my taxes went up 400.00 this quarter. As expected! My house and only my house. They go by permits pulled! The assessors come around and update properties for a reason. FACT!
The rate is done that way. Read what was written in the comment. Value, all properties have different value! Dah……..
KT you are correct. The comment by A Taxpayer is how rates are set. If it’s as A TAXPAYER STATED we’d all be paying the same. Check a neighbor online, all houses pay different taxes, the rate is charge on the VALUE!
Question, Mayor Kalisz. Was that from him being in the registry of deeds??????????
Correct. John Mitchell?
What a freaking joke. Sad state of affairs to say the least and we have Brian gomes talking about hanging people for corruption. He’s the biggest force that the city council has and also owes the most money. Incredible new Bedford city hall isn’t asking for the 64,000$ back from the politicians who took it
Well they didn’t take it, they accepted it without questioning. One question years ago could have prevented it. Is the school dept still paying for deceased members health insurance and how much was that??????
It is part of a city ordinance. I’m not saying its right or wrong but why should it be given back. This is a non-story.
These types of payments in the corporate world are called “stay-bonuses” and are typically used to retain institutional knowledge. However, it is unusual, even unheard of, that an elected official should receive such payments, the amounts aside. However, a claw-back at this point is futile — best to move on and take it as a lesson-learned. The Light can play a role in exposing the past to protect the future.
Another sneaky issue from city hall!!! If forgot a few times to pay my quarterly estate taxes and they charge interest which is only a few dollars compared to what these politicians owe!! Not fair on the backs of elderly tax payers!
This isn’t big deal as long as the City gets back any money that was paid in error. It’s very simple, the recipients pay back the “ill gotten gains” the same way they received it, by payroll deductions.
That’s the problem, issues become non stories leading to cover ups.
Exactly, with interest🤞
In the past, lower level city employees have had to return monies that they received in error. Their future pays were garnished, with no discussion or debate! Whatever happened to “all men are created equal” ? Apparently some have different inalienable rights. Can you imagine the theft that gets through if nobody’s watching?
Facts don’t lie, I challenge everyone to go back and look at all the other previous administrations, no other mayor in our city’s history expanded city government and increased spending like Mayor John Mitchell (the facts show for over 10 years (from the 2012 Budget of $247.3 Million Dollars to the present approved budget of $550.8 Million Dollars). We can longer accept the poor decision making, the expansion of city government, and failed financial and economic leadership that have driven the city’s budget up by a staggering $303.5 Million Dollars. There is plenty of blame to go around, but this was the mayor’s vision and year after year he submitted these increased budgets, but we had six senior city councilors (Abreu, Carney, Giesta, Gomes, Lopes, and Morad) that were along for the ride, failed to stop this, and the budgets were approved. 100% there is no doubt, the Mayor’s Office and the City Council has to be cleaned out. New Bedford needs new leadership and a new vision.
Amen to that, Jeff for Mayor!
Thanks Deby, I am just surprised that this doesn’t upset more people. You can go back to Lang, Kalisz, Tierney, Bullard, Lawler, Markey, and Rogers. As Mayor no one expanded city government and increased the city budget like John Mitchell (a staggering $303.5 Million Dollars).
Jeff I myself have commented and The NB Light selectively prints what they want. I put in many comments reporting waste and abuse of power and funds. The confidently are not posted. Wish some with your attitude was in charge. This administration let’s so much waste slide by.