Notwithstanding the BMG jihad on mainstream media*, Bob Oakes is a great interviewer….
You can read his interview of Trav here.
Trav, well spoken in my opinion, views budget along the lines of:
1. Stem cell research, $10 million a year
2. Higher Ed, +$15 million a year
3. Matsusaka, +18 million a year (off budget)
4. Most programs at roughly same level, including local aid
Oakes: Since my opening question we talked about Deval Patrick’s agenda. Let me ask you, and we’re talking about money, let me ask you one question about a topic he raised during the campaign, and that is trying to ease the property tax burden, the local property tax burden on the residents of Massachusetts cities and towns. Does the money exist in the coming year for the legislature to increase local aid in some way or find some other way to ease the property tax burden in local communities?
Travaglini: It’s a little disappointing Robert that in this discussion the fact that we increased local aid significantly, to the tune of 15 to 17 percent last year and held harmless the municipalities during the entire fiscal crisis of three and four years ago.
We have given significant aid to the municipalities across the Commonwealth and there continues to be a need. What has to occur is there has got to be greater fiscal responsibility on the part of municipalities to control their spending as it relates to the financial growth we’re experiencing in the economy.
You can have growth in the economy at 3.5 percent and have increases in local municipal spending of 11 and 12 percent. You’ve got to renegotiate some of these collective bargaining agreements, some of these other outstanding agreements with the unions and other officials that are more in tune with the times.
For those who feared 3 Dems in wild spending spree, early indicators may soothe a bit. Just posturing to temper ginormous expectations of Dem interest groups? Or preview of final budget? Or….?
(*Kidding. Please, no more Danny Glover, no more Mel Gibson).
I think it’s pretty well-established that there’s not that much extra money to spend.
New “extra money” possibilities w/o taxes
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a) Slots/gaming
b) “Bonds” – off budget
c) Accelerate Rainy Day fund raid
d) Accounting trick to run up more local/state pension liability
e) Romney fave – fees!
Patrick needs to make good on his explicit campaign promise for property-tax relief, and his implicit promise to bring new money to the cities and towns.
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Some of that can come from savings, including local savings, but nota ll, and even the savings will be at the cost of goring someone’s ox (e.g., repealing the Quinn bill to save money).
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Travaglini’s astonishing “hold harmless” comment suggests he is firmly on the side of the status quo. It also betrays (big surprise here) a Beacon-Hill-o-centric view of the world, in which local government is Not Invented Here and should (a) take care of itself and (b) be grateful for whatever it gets from the Legislature.
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Patrick can’t duck this one. If he provides fiscal relief to the cities and towns and at least some property-tax relief to taxpayers he will fundamentally shift the political dynamic in Massachusetts away from the insincere zero-sum, take-the-pledge nonsense that brought us so many Republican governors. If he fails, he’s lost the game.
While it’s certainly a laudable goal to seek property tax relief for residents of our cities and towns, I haven’t yet seen how Deval plans on actually getting cities and towns to lower those taxes.
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Here’s the thing. Let’s say that local aid is increased and the additional funds are disbursed to our cash-strapped municipalities. They see the increased money and then see a choice: cut taxes by using the local aid or pump that new money to address deficient local services? Cities like Worcester and smaller towns would likely lean toward the latter and look to reopen closed schools, higher laid-off teachers, officers, and firefighters, as well as repair those roads, bridges, and dams.
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Sure, the legislation could be crafted so that the funds are only to be used for tax relief, but municipalities may resent the heavy-handed nature of such a bill. Also, does this extra funding turn into a new “entitlement” for local government, like Chapters 70 and 90? If so, what formula is used and how to build it into the annual budget process to pay for it? What programs are cut in order to fund it, or what other taxes are raised at the state level to pay for it?
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Deval is right about property taxes being regressive and the tax that needs to be cut. However, there needs to be a plan to do it, and I haven’t seen it.
That was the gist of my post: it isn’t going to be easy, and if Patrick fails, he fails big. So the stakes are very very high.
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But your question seems to be along the lines of, How can you get the money to the local taxpayer?
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If you assume the money is there–by making painful choices and reordering priorities–I don’t see any difficulty in earmarking some for property-tax relief and some for fiscal relief. That seems to be your “how” question, am I right?
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But that is the trivial part. Make some money available for fiscal relief through a revamped local-aid formula, under the condition that the community also accepts money for tax relief under a separate tax-relief formula. I guarantee you that the cities and towns will be falling over each other to opt into such a program.
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The devil is in the details, of course, and the nontrivial part is paying for it. This is nothing short of a fundamental reordering of state priorities. I think it is what people want.
Don’t assume that everyone wants property tax relief. While people living in Wellesley, with a full plate of services, would surely welcome a lower tax bill, people in Worcester would probably appreciate some Wellesley-like services.
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Increased local aid puts the money into local control. Local elected officials decide what they want to do with it. That is how govrenment is supposed to operate — not just via ballot initiatives that offer a false set of choices.
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I can guarantee you that if the state handed Springfield a pot of money and the city polled residents and said “would you like $100 back on your taxes, or would you like to beef up public safety so that the body count (at 15 this year) drops”, most would say “beef up public safety”. Why shouldn’t we have that right?
“How can we keep the Asselins from stealing it?”
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Or, as appeared in my local paper:
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“Localities make their own priorities in spending, and set their own tax rates. If the city of Cambridge chooses to lay off police officers, while paying their nine councilors and two full-time employees more than $969,000 for doing the same job as our selectmen, who get $1,000 – why should we subsidize that bad choice with our tax dollars? We don’t even want to subsidize some of the mismanagement and bad financial decisions made by other towns on Cape, let alone in Worcester. Refusing to lower the income tax to give property tax aid does exactly that. The state has no voice in how local aid money is spent, and how a town manages itself, and giving cash relief from our taxes perpetuates mismanagement.”
If course you can’t guarantee that some criminal isn’t going to steal municipal money, that a town is 100% efficient in its operation, or that the town doesn’t have screwed-up priorities, but your point seems to be that since this can’t be prevented, NO towns should get relief. That doesn’t follow up at all. Cities and towns are clearly different in their needs, and those needs should be plainly obvious to anyone. Increased needs correlate with decreased ability to pay for those needs, that is very clear to me.
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Springfield has the highest crime rate in the state, it is in the top 20 nationally. We simply do not have the same level of policing that 99% of other communities in the state have, to the point where people don’t even bother calling the police for things less than “shots fired” because they know that the cops will never show up. Why? Because our need for policing is probably 5 times the need in a small wealthy community — yet our local revenue to pay for police is probably 3 times less.
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A state-imposed financial control board has been in place in Springfield for three years. They have been over, under and through every corner of the budget. They played hardball with the unions and won concessions from each one. They have analyzed and improved operations in every department in the city. They are doing a remarkable job, and were long overdue.
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But do you know what the quote was from Phil Puccia, Republican Executive Director of the FCB? Something along the lines of “we can’t restore this city via further cutting of the budget, we need to find new revenue”.
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In other words, there was inefficiency, there was mismanagement, but there is also a need for substantially more help because Springfield’s citizens have the lowest level of service in nearly every category in the state, to the point where many of Springfield’s middle-class residents have left, and have been replaced with poor people from other communities, many from out-of-state. Does it really help the state to have such a poverty-magnet in place?
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Oh, and by the way, the Asselins stole FEDERAL money, not city money. In fact, of all the corruption in Springfield, virtually none of it involved city funding. It was all federal dollars being stolen from federal agencies and programs, most of which had little oversight. Unfortunately it gave Springfield a black eye because everyone assumes that state aid was being stolen rather than used to provide basic services to residents. It wasn’t.
And why should we all subsidize Springfield’s inefficiency and bad management, given their demonstrated procliviity to reelect the authors of the financial disaster, as long as the right people got a share of the swag, and just sit back and suck their thumb and wait for state/Federal rescue instead?
The citizens of Springfield did not steal from the federal government, nor did people elected by the city of Springfield steal from the federal government. Theft from the federal government, or more accurately, from people in Springfield, was committed in Springfield. 99.997% of the people aren’t lining their pockets, they are having them picked too.
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You are certainly a master of the frame. No city or town is wildly efficient, nor can every town be above average in the efficiency department. Some towns simply have more problems than others — problems cause by a small group of people — and problems have a way of exacerbating inefficiencies.
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How many shootings are there per day on the Cape? What is Barnstable ranked for violent crime in the country? I’m willing to bet it isn’t #18 as is Springfield. Inefficienct bureaucrats aren’t shooting each other. There are simply more problems here. No “subsidies” (hot button frameword) are required. Investment is needed.
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But let me throw it back at you. You complain about your high property taxes. Maybe you should instead focus on making your life more efficient. Cut out those coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts, bring a bag lunch to work every day. That should cover the cost of your tax increase.
But the state makes the rules on revenue re: overdependence on property taxes, etc.
The only line item in CBAs that has gone up above inflation in recent years is health insurance. So basically Trav says put more of the cost of health insurance on individuals. Some progressive! How about real health care reform to work towards a solution to this problem rather than offloading the costs onto working people?
is a little known fact that a few years ago, none other than Trav himself was the lead senate sponsor of the Massachusetts Health Care Trust bill. This bill is the single payer affordable universal coverage reform legislation that will be re-filed in Jan. by the folks at MassCare.org. I’m not sure who the lead sponsors will be in Jan. but last session they were Rep Frank Hynes and Sen Steve Tolman.
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See MassCare’s Legislation page at http://www.masscare…. for details on the HC Trust bill, and also to view their good powerpoint on Chapter 58, the state’s flawed health reform law.
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Multiple independent studies and analyses have been done that demonstrate that the state could recapture billions of state budget monies now spent on healthcare. that is if the political will and leadership existed to pursue these ends. many are wondering, and hoping, will this leadership exist come Jan 4th?
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Every single Governor’s candidate totally dodged this issue. It came up in a debate, and Gabrielli said benefits matching was just about right, and the rest of the gang dived for cover.
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Not one of them addressed this because they’d lose the SEIU or the MTA or …, yet, this it’s the single budget buster third rail: collective bargaining agreements with i) health insurance at 85% plus ii) guaranteed tenure raises that excess 2 1/2 per year. It’s the reason the towns are bitching and moaning about their budgets and there’s not one politician who doesn’t know it.
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Finally, someone said it.
That grotesquely low 15% employee contribution applies only to state workers. Cities and towns all have different rates – some have zero, some have 60%. And the killer is, they are all trapped like flies in amber, because a state law was passed which gave the relevant union steward veto power over any contribution change. So, a town that fully covered benefits 40 years ago is now stuck.
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Contribution rates for heatlh insurance are all over the map for municipalities.
Is this true, or a distortion?
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While such a law may exist, isn’t the health care contribution still a bargainable point? Can’t a city or town negotiate a higher employee contribution?
Guess how many – who have to be reelected by thos same union members – allow towns to increase the rate of employee contribution, even in the face of layoffs. No, what we need is an OVERRIDE!
Of course it is bargainable. A number of municipalities have successfully bargained for increased employee contributions.
Face it: Prop 2 1/2 is a cudgel rather than a scapel for managing city and town finance: it only controls revenues and not spending. Of course, it’s become too easy to game that system: unaffordable local raises (in my town, more than 6% each year for a three year contract for teachers) create a false choice: either approve an override or lay off new teachers to fund raises for older teachers. I have some ideas to solve this, but very curious about what others think. And no, one does not need to be the enemy of teachers (or police or firefighters) to support responsible fiscal management at the municipal level. Trav’s right, but what’s he gonna do about it?
your ideas on how to solve this?
What town gave its teachers 6% per year for three years?
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Show me the numbers.
Granted, my calculation of “average increase” is rough, but here are the numbers from our 2002-2005 contract.
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Here are the numbers from our current contract. Here’s a bit of a breakdown:
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45% of teachers are receiving annual raises >= 6.0%
21% are receiving annual raises >= 5.0% < 6.0%
7% are receiving annual raises >= 4.0% < 5.0%
20% are receiving annual raises >= 3.0% < 4.0%
6% are receiving annual raises >= 2.4 < 3.0%
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Upon ratification, the contract was described by the Lowell Sun thusly (emphasis mine):
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The “2.5 percent pay raise” is actually not a pay raise, but a schedule adjustment. I believe it is a common mistake made by journalists. Which takes us to Arlington… Pablo, that’s your hometown, right?
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In addition to a whopping $21,000 raise given to their Superintendent shortly before her tenure expired, the raises given to teachers were described as:
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I’m guessing here because, unlike Westford, Arlington does not post their teacher contract online, but I’d say these are schedule adjustments, not raises. So, the actual payout would be far in excess of 3.5-4%. Evidence that I am correct can be found the following year in a report projecting a $1.2M increase in salaries. Sadly, but predictably, the recommended process to balance the budget is to layoff teachers.
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I couldn’t find details about the real dollar increase seen in 2004, but it appears there might have been some difficult negotiations. But by Dec. 2006, there is yet another contract, this time:
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I don’t know how you can have both an annual increase of 3-4% and a payout between 2.7-3.7%. How can the payout possibly be less than the annual increase? I would love to see those numbers.
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This is true, and is a dirty little secret of teacher contracts.
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Many, perhaps most systems have “steps”. Springfield’s steps (before the latest contract) called for 2.5% raises for each additional year put into the system for teachers with 0-10 (or maybe 0-15) years of experience, and then the steps became bigger – the raise kicked in every 5 years.
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When a new contract is negotiated, the “raises” announced are increases to the level of each step. The steps remain.
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So if the contract calls for a 2% raise over 3 years, and the steps have a 2.5% raise for every additional year employed, the annual raise is 5.5%, not 2.5%.
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If a union says “we haven’t had a raise in three years”, that is essentially a false statement – if the step raises are being paid out, people are getting raises.
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Now I will be the first to say that I don’t think we are paying teachers enough. I base this on teacher shortages that are arising in low-income districts, I base this on what I perceive as a degredation in the talent pool. But I think that pay increase should be argued and awarded in the open, not buried in municipal mechanisms that most people don’t understand.
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I’m willing to bet that many teachers themselves don’t understand this fully, and that they fall prey to the rhetoric that accompanies contracts. So even though someone may get a 5% raise because of a combination of a 3% step raise with a 2% contract raise, they may still “feel” short-changed because they may be focusing on the 2% that is the public number, not the 5% they get.
What are you basing your statment on teacher shortages on?
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I searched the Springfield Republican, the Springfield schools website, and the DoE website, but I found only one SPS job opening in Springfield, and that was for a long-term PE substitute.
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I’m not saying shortages don’t exist, especially in Math, Science and SPED, but I don’t see the evidence of teacher shortages in Springfield. Lynn is already recruiting, so I’d guess they are anticipating a lot of hiring. Even that, however, doesn’t mean that classes are left unstaffed or filled by unqualified applicants.
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I’ve heard about teacher shortages ever since I was in ed school more than 10 years ago. Yet, even with dual certification in music and math, it wasn’t easy finding a job. The shortage, it seemed to me, was largely a myth. Certainly, suburbs are very competitive, but so is Boston.
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As for teacher pay, consider that the average household income in Springfield is about $50K. In Lynn, its about $48K. A first year teacher making $34-36K would be one of the higher paid residents in the city.
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I’m willing to pay teachers more, but not in the form of school-wide merit pay. Market shortages should be a factor. A math/sci/comp sci major has many more job opportunities than the eng/his/pe/music major. After a certain level of competency is reached, a teacher with 5 years experience is doing the same job as a teacher with 10 years experience yet the pay differential is significant. I would rather pay more for the teacher who is able to work successfully with the most challenging students, who gets the best results, or who is able to handle larger classes.
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Springfield has about 23% teachers who are unlicensed. The state average is 93.8%. I’m under the impression that a district doesn’t choose an unlicensed teacher when a licensed teacher is available.
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My belief is that the unlicensed teachers of the state are pooling in Springfield because the salary here doesn’t justify the demands of the job here. If Springfield had the highest salaries in the state, it would have more licensed teachers, but those unlicensed teachers would likely just be spread across other communities. There’s not a large pool of teachers sitting out the year, refusing to work in Springfield, waiting for a job in another community to open up.
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It is misleading to compare the pay of Springfield employees to the average household income in Springfield. It’s comparing apples and oranges in an attempt to cloud the issue. Springfield has a 20-25% poverty rate — if its poverty rate was 100%, does that somehow justify paying Springfield teachers less than in other surrounding communities?
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The way to gauge whether teachers in Springfield are underpaid is by looking at turnover and fill rates. I can’t give you the turnover figure, although some have estimated that 40% of the workforce turned over during this latest contract squabble. I can tell you that 23% of the workforce being unlicensed tells me that both the pay here isn’t high enough, and there is a shortage of teachers in this state.
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That may be because people leave the state instead of teaching in low-pay, high-stress districts, but I’m just saying, when there is a shortage of qualified workers at a “company”, that means the pay is too low for the job required.
In the words of Bill Clinton, depends on what “is”, “is”. Some accounts (Additional Assistance) were deeply slashed a few years back, some such as “charter school reimbursement” and MCAS remedial aid have been in and out of recent budgets. There was one “Municipal Revenue” package a few years back that helped a bit and a local meals tax proposal got all the way to Gov. Swift’s desk before being vetoed.
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There are certainly a lot of deserving interests and not everyone can be satisfied. It will be interesting to see the recommenations of the Local Govt Task Force amd more interesting to see how much they are moved forward, particularly those that don’t require new state spending.
Trav said:
Oh really? Check out the cherry sheets.
Arlington, total receipts, FY02: $18,616,604
Arlington, total receipts, FY07: $15,600,746
That’s 16.2% less than we received five years ago.
In 2005, we passed a $6 million override. A modest 3% increase in local aid would have brought our state money up to $21,581,746, or $5,981,000 more than we are currently receiving. We raised property taxes and cut services, as our override just filled the hole from the state’s disinvestment.
Wow, the country get dealt a huge blow in 2001, and still you wonder why you saw a dip after FY02?
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You know that Arlington saw some enrollment decreases early on. While your numbers have rebounded admirably since then, your current C70 funding for FY07 is only about 1.5% off your targeted aid. Unless your district has some dramatic growth, and unless Arlington is ready for yet another override, it looks like you’re going to need to learn to deal with reality. It’s a shame if you lost an opportunity to bring some structural stability to your budget in the latest round of contract negotiations.
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There was a good commentary piece about creating more nimble fiscal systems in the Aug. 30, 2006 edition of Education Week. The title is “Must Enrollment Declines Spell Financial Chaos for Districts? Avoiding budgetary shell games to create more nimble fiscal systems”. I recommend it!
What you don’t know is that Arlington obtained considerable concessions from the union in terms of employee contributions for health insurance.
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I really resent this blanket statement that we are not negotiating responsibly with the unions, when we have been tough and fiscally responsbile leaders. To have a huge cut in local aid, then to have a state leader pass down the blame for their withdrawal of local aid, is a poor excuse for leadership from the senate president.
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By the way, Ms. Weir’s town of Westford is a high growth town, and for some reason, the local aid formulas have been changed to favor places like Westford. Proposition 2.5 restricts taxing authority but adds growth after calculating the levy limit based on the previous year. Densely developed communities with no room for growth (like Arlington) have little opportunity for growth, and are getting reductions in state aid.
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A town like Westford, with lots of vacant land near I-495 and high rates of growth, have lots of growth in the levy limit and local aid. It’s very easy for someone in Ms. Weir’s situation to look down at other communities with a high and mighty attitude, that because Westford is doing well, there must be something wrong with towns that aren’t. That doesn’t do much to help create a meaningful dialogue.
You say that “considerable concessions from the union in terms of employee contributions for health insurance”. But, from the story about the Dec. 2006 ratification (again emphasis mine):
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I understand that reporting is not always accurate. Which account is correct?
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As for growth, you say:
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blockquote>By the way, Ms. Weir’s town of Westford is a high growth town, and for some reason, the local aid formulas have been changed to favor places like Westford.
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And then go on to talk about Prop. 2 1/2. One has nothing to do with the other.
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The growth aid that Westford has received has largely come from the Foundation Reserve Program. Eligibility requirements have been expanded. You should really check it out and see if Arlington qualifies. You can see a history of the grant program here.
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Just so folks have a point of comparison, from 1995-2005, Westford’s school enrollment increased from 3,566 to 5,216. Until two years ago, our enrollment increases were consistently over 100 students a year, in one year enrollment jumped by over 5%.
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Arlington’s by contrast increased from 4,059 to 4,522. I do not have a “high and mighty” attitude, nor am I looking down at you. I will call out poorly negotiated contractsregardless of which town makes them.
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In light of the information presented here, why do you turn this into a personal attack and begrudge Westford for being eligible for a Reserve Foundation Grant?
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You conveniently omit the fact that Arlington received almost $800K more than Westford in FY06 Entitlements and Allocation Grants. I don’t blame you for that!
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But, yes, when the only press coverage of teacher contract negotiations doesn’t fully divulge what is being paid, — shame on us! When a single employee earns more than the average TOTAL household income of our communities — shame on us! When we offer huge raises just before retirement that will have to be paid for by our towns for the life of a pension, — shame on us!
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I highlighted Arlington, Mr. Schlichtman, because you bring it up. You cherry pick data to make it seem like it’s just awful being an educator, especially in Arlington. You ignore the fact that teachers and school administrators are among the best compensated employees, and many earn individual salaries that exceed the average household incomes of the communities they serve.
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I work in high tech. After leaving teaching with 4 years experience, it took me another 4 years to get an annual (12-month work year) salary equal to what I would have been earning in a 10-month school year. Since then, my 12-month salary has exceed my 10-month salary, but my monthly rate as a teacher would have still been over $1,000 more than my current monthly rate.
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I’m well paid in the private sector, and I was well paid as a teacher. Furthermore, teaching comes with intangible benefits that I think few occupations provide. The rhetoric of the type you spout, I believe, damages the profession.
That last blockquote should have contained only the first paragraph. The rest are all my comments, not Mr. Schlichtman’s.
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Sorry, I cannot agree…
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Read this previous BMG post by yours truly.
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Some people say…
He must practice his DP fellating technique.
Because no one–not even here at liberal DEM BMG–wants to talk about raising taxes.
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In a nutshell, the state’s revenues are not sufficient to support an increase in local aid that is sufficient to lessen that rising property tax burden and accomplish everything else people want out of state government. Where do the state’s revenues primarily come from? The income tax, right? When was the last time we raised the income tax? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it in 1989 or 1990, during the budget crisis at the end of the Dukakis administration?
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What does a business do when its revenues fall short (since we all want government to act more like a business)? It cuts costs, but also raises additional revenue by increasing the price of its products. We pay those increased prices every day in the form of higher electric bills, higher rents, higher gas bills, higher health insurance premiums and on and on. But God forbid, should someone in government suggest the same thing and the world comes down on them. I, for one, would rather see my income tax raised somewhat if it would restore the funding lost in local aid in the past several years and reverse other cuts that have reduced our government’s ability to function.
State House News Service
Wednesday, September 7, 2005
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Report: State pays smaller share,
residents a larger share of local budgets
By Michael P. Norton
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The state is paying for a smaller share of local budgets than in 1988 and residential homeowners are picking up an increasing portion of the tab, according to a new report.
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The report and analysis by a task force convened by urban mayors finds Massachusetts cities and towns are facing a long-term financial crunch and concludes it’s up to Beacon Hill leaders to fix an unpredictable system of municipal finance and local aid that “is now broken and needs immediate attention.”
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The analysis, conducted by a Municipal Finance Task Force of public and private sector experts led by Sovereign Bank of New England Chairman John P. Hamill, said three large problems are haunting local officials in city and town halls across the state: increasingly restricted and unpredictable local aid levels, constraints on ways to raise local revenue, and health care, pensions and debt costs that are growing far faster than municipal revenues.
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The property tax, one of two major sources of revenues for local budgets, accounted for 53 percent of total municipal revenues in 2004, up from 48 percent in 1990. The other major source of local funding is state aid.
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And residents, rather than commercial property owners, are paying 72 percent of total property taxes, up from 68 percent in 2000. The average family property tax bill rose by $910 between 2000 and 2005, according to the report, while per capita, inflation-adjusted municipal budget growth since 1981 stands at 1.1 percent.
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The percentage of the state budget devoted to local aid peaked in 1988, according to the report, at 20 percent of state expenditures. It fell to its low of 13.4 percent in 1993, before rising to 16.7 percent in 2004.
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“I think it is fundamentally true that we have a system right now that’s broken,” Hamill said at a Beacon Hill press conference to release the report. “It has been cobbled together over many years, attempting to solve the problems that arise at different times in our lives. There are well-intentioned people that put those solutions in place but over a period of 25 years you find that you have different pieces that don’t fit together.”
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While most of the report’s recommendations have been aired before on Beacon Hill, the report’s authors hope the comprehensive analysis and set of recommendations will refocus attention on key issues that help determine how much money is available for municipalities to spend on public works, public safety, education and other priorities.
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“This is an important document that lays out the real issues facing mayors, selectmen, and taxpayers in the Commonwealth,” said Northampton Mayor Mary Clare Higgins, the vice president of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. “We need to understand these trends and make the necessary policy adjustments that will let our cities and towns thrive in the future.”
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The Metro Mayors Coalition, a group representing the leaders of 10 urban Greater Boston communities, convened the task force, which worked with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The task force includes city officials from Cambridge, Revere, Quincy, Medford, Everett, Boston and Melrose.
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The report recommends that the Legislature adopt a revenue sharing policy that would allocate a fixed percentage of state tax receipts to local aid. In recent years, the Legislature has agreed to similar accords to provide predictable revenues to the state’s school construction program, its pension system, and the MBTA. Analysts are also calling for the Legislature to once again deliver all Lottery proceeds, as originally envisioned, to cities and towns, and urging lawmakers to reform the formula used to distribute the biggest pool of local aid, Chapter 70 education aid.
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Municipal officials said it’s difficult to determine how much money they will receive each year, as health care costs rise and they’re forced to cut other core services. “Local aid has been uneven,” said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. “It’s like being blindfolded on a roller coaster ride. Totally unpredictable.”
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Another recommendation has long caused controversy at the capitol, and has been shot down in recent years by the Legislature. Cities and towns need to be granted more flexibility to develop “local option” meals taxes, parking excise taxes, or rental car surcharges, the report declares. And the municipal-finance study panel is urging a review of Internet-based hotel-motel tax issues.
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Chelsea City Manager Jay Ash said the state’s refusal to allow local officials to develop local taxes and surcharges means municipalities will grow even more dependent on state aid. “If the state restricts our ability to raise revenue, then the state has a responsibility to provide us with assistance,” he said.
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Coalition members, including state Sen. Steven Tolman (D-Brighton), said they hope the report will help Democrats and Republicans agree about how best to aid cities and towns. “There are certain options in the report, but there weren’t specific plans,” Tolman said. “Any issue that is going to be changed needs a consensus. And it has to come within, from both sides of the aisle.”
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More broadly, the task force is calling on state decision-makers to clarify the roles of municipal and state governments, and to develop a plan to let the state take responsibility for its functions, mentioning regional transportation and county-based responsibilities as two examples.
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“There is no one single answer, but what’s clear is that, if there’s not a partnership that works in a way that citizens can in fact depend upon state government, local government, and in some cases, federal government working together, we’re not going to be able to attack all these issues,” Hamill said.
Thanks for posting this most informative Hamill Report. Who can be contacted to f/up on it and what’s being done? I suppose my leges could be a start, as well as Sen Steve Tolman who has shown himself to be a lege who doesn’t shy away from taking bold positions if he thinks they make sense and will benefit his consituents, e.g. Tolman is a lead sponsor of the MA Health Care Trust bill, the state’s single payer univ. coverage legislation.
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Multiple independent studies (scroll down page to 1996–2000 section for:
Massachusetts Can Afford Health Care for All, Nov, 2000) as well as state-initiated analyses such as the 2002 LECG Report to the Legislature http://www.mass.gov/… demonstrate that the state could recapture billions of state budget monies now spent irresponsibly on layers of healthcare bureaucracy. Vast savings to the state budget can be realized, that is, if the political will and leadership exist to pursue these ends.
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That’s what the health care amendment is all about. It’s a tool to establish the political will to finish the job of achieving comprehensive, affordable, and equitably financed healthcare for all.
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Maybe we should frame it as a taxes and budget issue, because it certainly applies to those items as well as to healthcare. Billions of dollars in state budget healthcare savings is a lot of money for a lot of other worthy uses without having to raise taxes.
I think that a lot of themes in the Hamill report will also be reflected in the Local Government Task Force report when it comes out. After I posted it, I noticed that there was another recent report cited in the Globe today on fees at the local level skyrocketing:
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http://www.boston.co…
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The Massachusetts Municipal Association meets in Boston on January 12 and 13, and one would expect to hear the initial policy thoughts from representatives of the new Administration then. Stay tuned. In the meantime, talking with one’s electeds is always a good start.