Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

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    • All of Barnstable Cointy will realize less than one half of what Worcester, #12 on Menino’s list, will get.

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      It’s just underwhelming.

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      BTW – Menino’s gripe sheet?  Where he rails that residential property tax accounts for SIXTY percent of Boston’s revenue?

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      At my town meeting this week, it came up that ours is over 85% reliant on residential property tax.

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      So – we pass this bill, inhibit further telecom expansion of internet to underserved areas like Cape Cod, so we can reduce BOSTON’S property tax burden?

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      Mayor Menino – we are only grateful for the opportunity to help.

      • “Wah!  Johnny got more birthday cake than me.  I don’t want any cake now!”

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        The argument they get more of a good thing than I do, so I don’t want any is just plain, how-do-you-say, underwhelming.

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        Furthermore, the argument that this will inhibit telecom expansion of Internet doesn’t make much sense to me.  After all, it’s not like Verizon et al are going to install more telephone poles for fiber connections — they’ll string them on pre-existing poles for the “last mile”* and bury them like they do now for buried fiber.

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        So – we pass this bill, inhibit further telecom expansion of internet to underserved areas like Cape Cod, so we can reduce BOSTON’S property tax burden?

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        No, we pass this bill, have zero effect on telecom expansion of Internet to underserved areas, and reduce every towns property tax burden for residential property, including over $1,000,000 for Barnstable County’s 200,000 residents.

          * Actually more like a few hundred feet.  A mile of fiber hanging in the air doesn’t do well — it breaks too easily.

        • Stomv – it galls me that this is being promoted as a state-wide panacea.  From the press release –

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          Visitors are also urged to take action via the Web site by submitting written testimony to their legislators and/or sending a letter to their local newspaper about the critical issue of property tax relief.

            And this critical issue will be helped…how?

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          We voted an override of $895,000 this week – almost as much as your town will receive – NOT COUNTING a SECOND override which will come up in about six weeks because one of the towns in our regional school district voted their share down.  It isn’t a matter of ‘if’ for the second override this year, but ‘how much’.

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          So our overrides total almost as much as the entire County will receive – and we are supposed to be happy about the chump change here?  Stomv – EVERY formula the state has – Ch. 90, Ch.70, Local Aid, Aditional Assistance – ALL of them are skewed to metropolitan areas, while the taxes paid in are across the board.

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          Stop ‘helping’ us, lower the tax rate, and let us pay our own bills.

          • And this critical issue will be helped…how?

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            Well, the math is pretty simple.  Every single municipality will gain added revenue from the telephone poles.  Every single one.  So, either their revenue will go up, or the tax rate will be reduced a smidge to maintain 2.5 compliance.  Either way, it’s helpful.

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            Your line of thinking is like walking down the street and seeing a quarter on the ground.  When you bend down to pick it up you discover a nickel, so you don’t bother — you just leave it there.  After all, it’s no quarter.

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            it galls me that this is being promoted as a state-wide panacea.

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            Find me one claim that it’s the solution to everybody’s revenue problems.  Nobody has made that claim.  It’s clear that there have to be a number of changes made, as communities vary so widely throughout the Commonwealth.  I suspect that as these changes get made (poles, restaurant tax, etc) that there’ll be big winners and little winners, and maybe the formulas for 90, 70, etc will be slightly altered to shift a bit more cash to the little winners since the big winners will be relatively better off.

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            But, you still haven’t responded: why the added revenue/rate relief is bad for the Cape.  It won’t generate as much as it will elsewhere (per capita), but it will provide some relief to homeowners — reducing the pinch of your upcoming 2.5 override.

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            Some isn’t as good as more, but it’s better than none.

            My town is a few million in the hole over the next few years — we made some ends meet by raising the parking meter rates and the trash fee, and we’ll bring in a bit more by raising the parking violation fines.  But, it won’t be enough.  We’ve either got cuts in school/police/fire coming, or a 2.5 override in the next year or two… even if we get that $900k.

            By the way, would the additional money be “outside” of 2.5 and add to revenue, or would it be “inside” 2.5 and maintain revenue while increasing the tax base, thereby reducing the amount everybody else kicks in by a smidge?

            • It IS a form of property tax, after all, and is comparable to when somebody puts on a second story and is assessed more.

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              Your point about quarters and nickels is well taken.  Of course we will take what we can get.  The panacea angle has been touted by some of Deval’s more devoted adherents.

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              And as far as what would be lost goes – I am more concerned about telecom and cable asserting that they will NOT expand internet/DSL/T-1 access if this does pass than I believe Deval’s assertion that it’s all just a big bluff and they will so.

          • which regional school?  News from the Cape doesn’t make it out to the Connecticut river very often, the only news I saw was of Brewster accepting its share of the Nauset budget, meaning you’d stick with the regional agreement instead of the state regulated formula.

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            By the state formula, the four towns participating in Nauset are of comparable wealth (should each pay 82.5% of foundation each – that is, the same as the regional formula) but would have quite stunningly different assessments due to the outdated data driving current regulated assessments.

            • …Nauset and Dennis-Yarmouth.  Both are at daggers drawn over unequal assessments and the EQV factor from the state.  In fact, Yarmouth too voted down its share, along with Brewster.

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              The argument centers on wheter a town accepts the original contract – which is per capita from the sending town – or the State’s interpretation of that contract that says some towns are ‘richer’ than others, and should pay a greater share even if they have fewer students.  Brewster voted for the former.  Yarmouth voted for the latter, since Dennis has a higher EQV.

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              Since these contracts – and expectations – are 30 years old, it’s a fine spring donnybrook we are holding here.

              • for nearly all of the Cape towns is identical – capped at 82.5%.  This means all of the towns should be assessed for roughly equal amounts per student – if the actual required minimum contributions matched the target.

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                They don’t.  And on the Cape, the difference from the target is about as big as it is anywhere in the state.  Some towns (Brewster, Oaks Bluff, Dennis) are assessed almost exactly at their target, while others (Chatham, Tisbury, Orleans, Provincetown, Wellfleet, Truro, another dozen) have assessments up to 50% above their target.

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                In three years, all the assessments will hypothetically come down to the target.  Lot of good that does for the several regionals that switched from their original charter to the state’s regulated formula this year, because the DOE dangled a carrot in front of the towns that could reap a short term windfall but couldn’t find anyone able to articulate why the formulas are where they are, and where the legislature has committed that they will go.

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                We’ve got similar differences from target out around the Connecticut River – not quite as big as those on the Cape, but a lot in the 25% plus range.  So far, no new regionals here seem to have abandoned their original charter this year; one seems up in the air still.  Many already switched over a few years ago; there, the property tax pain isn’t a new thing, it’s just built in to the baseline of taxes assessed and services available.

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                So far, the governor hasn’t caught on that one of the easier ways to help the towns that have been punished most by property taxes in recent years is by following through on or accelerating target share reform.  Hopefully, whatever is proposed either will continue the legislature’s committment to achieve equity in aid and burden for comparable towns, or die on the vine …

    • More and more, I’m thinking any prominent Massachusetts politician should have a heavy-duty website outside the Massachusetts government.  Now that we’re at the level of a permanent campaign on each issue, it would probably help him explain his side of the issue better.

        • So somebody needs a “defensible” (read: one similar to my own) position to earn the right to have a website?  Upthread we have a discussion going about how helpful this change really is.  Regardless, it is the nature of politics that a position seems more “defensible” once a pretty and highly promoted private website starts to trumpet it.

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          What familiarity I have with this issue indicates that Patrick is on the right side of this.  But if we are going to have a permanent campaign on every issue in this state directed parallel to yet outside the government, I’m fine with people other than Patrick having a voice in it.

          • is that maybe he doesn’t want people to know the details of his position, because they won’t be palatable to the public at large.

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            But yeah, in the abstract, sure, Sal should get on the web and do what Patrick’s doing. That’s the idea.

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