Where the State Board of Retirement denied a petitioner’s application to purchase contract service, the board’s denial of the application should be affirmed because the petitioner was not a “contract employee” while working for a third-party for-profit private vendor that was not an instrumentality of the commonwealth.
“Petitioner Diane Kelley timely appealed, under G.L.c. 32, §16(4), the decision of the State Board of Retirement to deny her application to purchase contract service from December 10, 2010, to October 21, 2012, because, as a vendor’s employee, she was not a ‘contract employee’ for purposes of Chapter 32. …
“When a member retires from public service she may be entitled to a superannuation retirement allowance based in part on her years of creditable service. G.L.c. 32, §5(2)(a). Section 1 of Chapter 32 defines ‘creditable service’ as ‘all membership service, prior service and other service for which credit is allowable to any member under the provisions of sections one to twenty-eight inclusive.’ G.L.c. 32, §1. One form of ‘other service’ that a member may purchase under certain circumstances is ‘contract service’ with the Commonwealth. … An employee may not, however, purchase service based on employment for a third-party vendor, even if the employee performed work for the Commonwealth. …
“Here, the Commonwealth did not establish or operate PeopleSERVE. Rather, … it appears as though EOHHS contracted with PeopleSERVE, a for-profit corporation, and several...
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