Quincy Mayor Defends $475 Million Pension Bond Before City Council

QUINCY -- October 21, 2025, Quincy's mayor told the City Council the city's $475 million pension obligation bond, issued in late 2021 at 2.62 percent, is projected to save taxpayers $168.5 million over the life of the bond compared with the unfunded pension path. Without the bond, the mayor said, the city's annual pension contribution would have hit $50 million in fiscal year 2026 and grown 5.4 percent annually through 2040, now replaced by a flat $37 million annual debt service payment. The mayor also reported that downtown district improvement financing revenues have grown more than 1,375 percent since 2007, with a single block that once generated $43,000 in annual taxes set to produce between $500,000 and $600,000 after a new development comes online. Quincy currently carries $31 million in excess levy capacity this fiscal year and has left $442 million unused since the mayor took office, a figure he said is exceeded by only a handful of Massachusetts municipalities.