So while I continue to lobby in favor of the MPA, it won’t provide any serious property tax relief to the residents of Stoneham. Maybe it will save a couple teachers or firefighters and that would be a good thing. Real property tax relief is going to have to wait on much more aggressive action on Beacon Hill.
Please share widely!
First sentence says override was successful. Second says not?
It failed. Diary has been corrected. Thanks.
Why doesn’t the GIC include Blue Cross/Blue Shield??
Maybe they won’t give the GIC a premium schedule that fits within their guidelines? There must be a reason why the GIC premium rate increases have been so significantly under what most individual towns have experienced.
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I know that part of Stoneham’s problem is that we have a relatively elderly workforce compared to your average town and so experience more claims. We also need to do a better job providing incentives such as lower deductibles for generic drugs, mail order bulk prescription delivery, etc.
…several options, one of which is similar to BC/BS’s fee-for-service plan. Offering BC/BS in addition would be duplicative of that.
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I used to have a BC/BS fee-for-service plan, and it was very expensive.
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As an aside on the pharmaceutical pricing issue, I’ve mentioned that my spouse has been diagnosed with a deep-vein thrombosis. He is currently taking Warfarin as a prophylactic. Under his GIC plan, he gets a 30 day supply (30 pills) for a US$7.00 co-pay. The retail price would be something like US$50.00 for the same number of pills. In Germany, the equivalent goes for something like US$21 for 100 pills, retail, or about the amount of his co-pay.
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Why the difference? As far as I can tell, Americans are getting screwed by the pharmaceutical companies, in conspiracy with the federal politicians. I suspect that the true cost of pharmaceuticals is the amount of the co-pay, and those without insurance that covers pharmaceuticals are really screwed.
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BTW, it isn’t as though Warfarin was a new compound–it has long been used as a rat poison, and it works exactly the same way–as a blood thinner–in rats as it does in humans. The only difference is the dosage.
One of the objections that has been raised by the employees to the non-BCBS options is that it is apparently harder to for their children who are attending college out of state to find doctors willing to accept their Mass health insurance. BCBS seems to be pretty much accepted everywhere.
…that would be more an issue if the parents select an HMO option (there are several, IIRC, in the GIC plan), instead of the fee-for-service plan. Usually, HMO plans are far more restrictive in what they will pay for and who they will pay than fee-for-service plans. Of course, the GIC’s fee-for-service plan is more expensive than their HMO plans, but that’s to be expected.
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If the issue is college students studying out-of-state, maybe they should be encouraged to make arrangements with local providers ahead of time. When I was at university, I was covered by the university’s medical school, but I acknowledge that not all colleges or universities have medical schools.
My understanding is that Blue Cross chose not to bid for the GIC business.
Amherst also tried to do a comprehensive long term plan with a fairly large override this year, and came up short by a similar number of votes.
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They’ve chosen to hold the line as best they can this year and limited single issue budget advocacy votes at town meeting, rather than trying to boost many line items or proposing smaller single-issue overrides.
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My sense is that the governor has succeeded in establishing the point that “the property tax isn’t working” at least for the current year. Property taxes do bring in stable and dependable revenue, but they’ve been pushed and many places that have traditionally supported raising sufficient funds to pay for local services seem to feel property taxes have gone up too much, too fast in recent years.
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The main reason property taxes have been so stretched in so many places is to compensate for cuts in state aid for schools, following the combination of the recession and the income tax cut around 2003.
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As pertains to Stoneham, I see a shortfall of $655K of Chapter 70 aid from “foundation aid at full phase in”. That is to say, Stoneham is one of the 180 or so cities and towns that the formula says should receive more aid in order to assure that comparable locales receive comparable state support.
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Back in the pre-Readiness-Project days, my assumption was that Patrick’s education plan would include a re-evaluation of the foundation budget and a goal of bringing state support for schools towards the national average. Mass pays about 40% of public school costs with state funds, while the national average is about 57%. Patrick has chosen a long term goal that appears tangential to this goal, and the committee is not likely to even issue a report until after next year’s budgeting process.
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In this setting, the best hope for many locales with the most pressing property tax issues is that the existing target local share reform is accelerated. Jamie Eldridge has been the champion of target local share reform; as he is running for US congress, it seems important for the state reps from the 180 or so cities and towns on the “wrong” side of the chapter 70 formula to be aware of that status and the need to follow through on the committment to establish comparable treatment for comparable locales. I’m not politically connected, so I don’t know the leadership structure on this issue beyond what’s in the newspaper headlines; but it will certainly bear watching should Jamie Eldridge move on to the US congress.
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As for my take on the MPA – I concur with yours. I think the governor should say he tried, and move on to bigger things, having exhausted the alternatives.
I just look at this as a down payment on more significant change in the future. I have to admit to a little disappointment when the big education announcement we were told to expect was a long range vision statement as opposed to something more immediate like a significant fix to Chapter 70. What I was trying to accomplish with my original post was tamp down expectations that passage of the MPA would lead to immediate property tax relief. We have much to big a hole to dig ourselves to start providing any actual cuts at this point.
and fairly close on politics as well. I’m just choosing to focus on a different perspective.
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Best to you and Stoneham figuring out how to stretch and cut the cloth this year.
I think a lot of towns are trying this approach, based on it’s success in Arlington (my town).
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It’s not a bad way to go, and if successful spares the community from a debilitaing annual dose of pain, while allowing a community to demonstrate that is has the fiscal discipline to follow a plan.
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However, there are some shortcomings. In Arlington the plan shut down, at least for five yeras, any discussion of fiscal solutions that might involve users fees, even revenue-neutral plans like pay-as-you-throw (which I happen to think is a good idea if a political hot potato). Similarly community-preservation-act programs are off the table.
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Maybe this just reflects the extreme political sensitivity of these issues, and they would be nonstarters anyway. But the response here has been, Nope, can’t do that, 5-year-plan.
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The other drawback of course is that five years is over in five years. I do not expecially like our chances going back to the voters in 2009.
“Pay as you throw”? What is that?
We studied one in Stoneham. Rather than charge each household a fixed yearly trash fee, you charge them by the bag of refuse. The bags are sold in local stores. Items put out in the recycling bins don’t count against your total. Not only does it encourage people to recycle more, it reduces the tipping fees that the town has to pay to the incinerators.
…I was wondering whether it was for charging for school athletics (something that I would approve of, but that’s another issue).
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In our little town outside of Munich, they work it pretty much the way you describe. The town will pick up one trash barrel for free (actually, included in property tax) and the town sells bags for additional trash.
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There are two potential differences between here (MA) and there (Munich). One is that people in Germany are encouraged to compost, where they have the space to do so. My mother in law has three compost piles going at any point in time and her flower garden shows the benefit of composting. BTW, she composts everything except bones: the crows like the meat that she throws out.
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Two, there is an extensive recycling program that is very convenient. Recycling bins are all over the little town, for three colors of glass (clear, green and brown), for paper, for cardboard, for tin cans, and they are heavily used. Moreover, there is a recycling center within walking distance of virtually anywhere in town, so people don’t need an auto to get to one.
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One thing that I read about here in MA a few years ago was that, when a town would institute a pay per throw program, people would suddenly discover trash deposited on their front lawns by other people. (That hasn’t been a problem in Germany.) Has that problem in MA gone by the wayside?
Fees for trash collection, levied per bag (rather than per household). Trash not is specially marked bags is not picked up.
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A typical PAYT scheme tries to target only the marginal trash use–the use that would likely be recycled if the household had to pay to throw it directly.
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For example, each household gets 104 bags per year (say), and must purchase additional bags (if any) at $2 each. The actual impact per household is pretty small because the town is still picking up most of the cost (those 104 free bags). But people change their behaviors and do a heck of a lot more recycling.
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So even if you return the bag revenues to taxpayers in the form of a tax cut (a good selling point), the town saves money from the avoided trash disposal fee. Plus there are the environmental benefits from burying or incinerating less trash.
Bigger things like what? If the Governor caves in on this, as you seem to advise, it’s hard to see how he will be able to advance any agenda that asks the very rich, the very powerful, or the very politically connected to take any kind of a hit. Perhaps I’m wrong, but unfortunately that’s the way this debate appears to shaping up- as a conflict between the people and entrenched corporate interests.
meaning to use the political leverage and visibility he has towards a larger goal.
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The governor’s ed plan as proposed would require something like $2 billion a year, or something like 5 to 10 times the revenue the MPA would bring in. An alternate K-12 ed funding plan, simply to bring Mass up to the same fraction of ed covered at the state rather than the local level as other states, would require nearly as much again on top of that.
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I don’t see the tax portions of the MPA even coming up for a serious review in the legislature this year – perhaps I’ve missed something and I’m wrong about this. But I don’t see this as an issue a new governor with a chance to make a significant change of direction should spend a year on, unless he’s using it as a way to build a coalition for a larger purpose. I think the opportunity cost is too high. We’ve got a governor who likes to talk in broad strokes, and he should work towards a concrete proposal to match that.
In the first order, you get a little more because the state gets some percentage of the local options taxes [25% of revenue, IIRC] which it can then distribute to other towns. I’m not saying it will, but it certainly could.
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In the second order, towns in the Boston metro, some on the Cape, etc which will benefit more directly from local options taxes may see their amount of state aid reduced, freeing that aid up for towns like yours.
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Again, will it actually happen? Will it be measurable? Hard to say. But, it might help a little. Enough to radically change your situation? Nah. Enough to help keep a few programs you might have to cut otherwise? Probably.
of the problems that Patrick and Murray were elected to solve.
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I cant comment on the specifics of our towns and City in my area. Haverhill really is trying to make sure its restaurants stay in town and the mayor is sure to have a lot of opposition to imposing any local meals tax. Mayor Fiorintini is a smart and respected man in town so he does have some persuasive abilty. He may not even want to try to implement a meals tax. Going out to eat also is a nice form of entertainment for people with limited resources.
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The Telecom tax exclusion peice is sure to face push back from Verizon. Patrick was very clear in his campaign that he plans to be an ally of business and I am betting that he can get cooperation.
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The GIC and pension takeover is going to mean different things to different municipalities. The lack of Blue Cross participation sounds like a big drawback. Blue Cross is like Partners—a lot if not most people want to have them as an option.
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As far as the goal to reduce reliance on the property tax this all sounds like a good start to me. Whatever impact it may or may not have I am overjoyed that he has taken this up so early and ambitiously in his first term.
June 23, 2007
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STONEHAM — In a year in which one property tax override rejection follows another and cuts to public services have become the norm, this town may have set a new standard this week.
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http://www.boston.co…
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Sorry to hear this jcsinclair. I hope you are able to get some relief in Stoneham.
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Just saw another article where cities are losing fed funding for after school programs. Our city of Haverhill takes a big hit.
I grew up in Stoneham attending the Stoneham Public School system. I participated in theater, chorus, marching band, art. Those programs and the teachers who led them had such a huge impact on my life. I never paid too much attention to sports even though in the Marching Band we attended every football game; I was not usually watching the field. But I can not imagine what life for the kids in Stoneham Schools will be like now. “Here is your math book; here is your grammar book. Sorry kids that?s all I have for you.” That is not any kind of education. What are they supposed to do now? All those things that people say they don?t want kids doing?drinking, drugs, sex, etc.?I guess that is all that is left for them with no art, music, sports.
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I hear a lot of people who don?t have kids asking why they should have to pay extra taxes for the schools. Didn?t they go to school? Did they have kids who already went through the school system? What is going to happen if these people want to sell their house in the future? Who would want to move to a town that has nothing?
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I think they should force the voters to all watch the movie Mr. Holland?s Opus before they vote on the override.
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What has happened to my hometown? It breaks my heart.
My mother served on the Stoneham School Committee years ago. I am so glad she didn’t live to see this day. It would have been devastating for her. Although if she had lived, at least there would have been one more vote for the override!
I worked for a state agency that spends a lot of money. If given free rein with a red pen I could cut out thirty percent of the total operating budget and put out the same product.
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I am not going to sit here and nit pick, but the larger the governmental body, the larger the fraud, waste and abuse, Massachusetts is one of the most egregious. Until there is a taxpayer revolt and a lot of bloodshed, figuratively, then we will never dig ourselves out of this hole.
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We are just like any business which has become wastefull and slothful. You begin with paring the budget, then cutting into it with an axe, then layoffs, then bankruptcy and going out of business. How far you want to go down the progression is up to the taxpayers. Oh ya, we have to get rid of the castrata on Beacon Hill as well.
The Stoneham cynically selected a program that is totally worthless but probably a bit popular among a significant part of the electorate for termination following a failure to pass a tax increase for termination, in the expectation that, in a subsequent election, enough people will vote for the tax increase. It happens every time, and everywhere.
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Extra-curricular activities in school are just that–extra-curricular. Not related to the curriculum. If the people want to participate and watch sports activities, they are fully capable of paying. The analogy with curricular activities such as music, art and the dreaded phys ed is ridiculous.
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BTW, we has a similar issue here in Wellesley in the last couple of years. We don’t have town trash pick-up (if one wants trash pick up, several private firms will do it for an exhorbitant fee, in addition to our already exhorbitant property tax). After the last (relatively rare) tax over-ride defeats, the town selectmen decided to reduce the hours that the town’s “dump” would remain open, eliminating the meager Sunday hours, and instituting half days Mon-Wed. Total savings? On the order of US$40K. Did the town re-institute the full schedule after a subsequent tax increase was approved? Of course not.
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In the mid 1980s I was involved in a Wellesley town committee involved in the town’s insurance costs, and I saw first hand the corruption taking place. BTW, at the time this was a town that was primarily governed by Republicans.
…then when he got into office he benchmarked Stoneham against 17 similar towns in the area and found we were down near the bottom of the list in almost every spending category. He became the override’s biggest supporter and was instrumental in crafting the five year plan. The interesting thing about the plan was that it put hard ceilings on the growth of departmental salary budgets for the next five years, giving the employees an incentive to identify redundant positions because elimination of those positions would be the key to making money available for future raises.
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The big drivers in our cost growth for the last several years have been employee health insurance (up 130% in five years) and special education (up over $1M in the same time period). This isn’t our first round of cuts. We’ve been chopping away every since Gov. Romney slashed our local aid budget by $2M because he had his own revenue problem to deal with. Sure, he ‘saved’ Massachusetts, but I’m betting most of us involved in local government aren’t feeling very ‘saved’ right now.