Bill Mugford of Middleton called this morning to offer his thoughts on the recent Eagle-Tribune series on public pensions. He’s viewed the situation from both sides — as a member of the town’s board of selectmen and an employee of its highway department.
He commended the papers for exposing the greed and exploitation that beset the system, but notes that not every retiree is living high off the hog.
Now 71 years of age, Mugford says he still works part-time nights in Boston to make ends meet. And he doesn’t think it’s fair that though he worked in the private sector long enough to become eligible for Social Security, unlike his private-sector counterparts, his town pension counts against the amount he receives from the federal government.
Mugford says he enjoyed serving the public as both an employee and selectmen, and notes that in his era it wasn’t all about the money. In fact, he said, there’s a former Middleton teacher still living in town and in her 90s, who when she retired gave back several hundred sick days without a dime’s worth of compensation.
