From the Globe:
Dozens of teaching jobs have been cut from public school districts in area communities, forcing school closings, reassignment of students, and larger class sizes this fall. “It’ll be a whole new ballgame,” said the Saugus school district’s superintendent, Keith Manville. “It has to be. We just don’t have the money we need.” Said Newburyport Superintendent Kevin Lyons, “Our budget was stripped out . . . The only place we could look to make up the [deficit] was the teachers.”
Newburyport cut 34 teaching jobs. Saugus is prepared to lay off 26 when the School Committee meets July 19. Other communities losing teachers include Haverhill, with 21 positions cut; Gloucester, 20; Hamilton-Wenham Regional, 17; Swampscott 15.3; and Amesbury, 12.4, according to local school districts.
A lack of state and local education funds, along with soaring special education, healthcare and labor costs, are cited as the primary causes for the millions of dollars in reduced spending in the budgets that took effect last Sunday, the start of the new fiscal year. Some fault the state’s funding formula to distribute education aid.
Ugh. Look, some will no doubt say that the munis could work harder to contain their own costs (over to you, gary), and perhaps that’s true. But I just don’t believe that’s the whole story. Overrides are failing in droves because people are sick of hiking their own property taxes beyond all reason, and the result is Stoneham eliminating athletics and scads of districts eliminating teachers. This is a death spiral, and it has got to stop.
Hey, wouldn’t it be great if someone started looking for creative ways for municipalities to bring in some more revenue? Oh, wait …
From the same Globe article:
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If voters in those towns don’t want to pay more for education, why should the state do it?
and don’t take votes out of context.
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In 1980, by popular referendum, the Commonwealth moved away from a system of funding local services such as education primarily with the property tax. The political judgment was that property taxes were too high.
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To its credit, the legislature honored this judgment with actions to make the new system of funding local government work: lots of state aid distributed though an equalizing formula, and more of it each year to span the gap between inflation and an arbitrary 2-1/2 percent cap.
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If that isn’t clear enough, in 1990 voters adopted another referendum calling for substantial state-local revenue sharing. This time the Governor and legislature were not responsive.
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The current crisis is caused by the cuts in aid relative to inflation, and to the gap between inflation and the 2-1/2%-per-year cap on the property tax.
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I add that government inflation is generally greater than CPI or PPI inflation, and that local governments also labor under ever-growing unfunded state and federal mandates. Our school budget has grown by about a million a year for the past five years, all of that and more spent on growth in special-ed and regional schools over which we have no control.
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In this context, it is perfectly credible for voters in a community to both reject an override and request more state aid. Indeed some voters may reject the override in part in response to government’s failure to fulfill its role and control the property tax with state aid.
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There are lots of good reasons to prefer the income tax to the property tax, which I will spare you. But I find the argument that “voters rejected it” to be a disingenuous way of shrugging off a fundamental responsibility–something that legislators seem to have learned from 20-years of free-lunch Republican governors. It’s time for them to unlearn it and be leaders again.
Over-reliance on property taxes as a way to fund education is a recipe for disaster. Among other things, it guarantees that less well-off communities continue to have lousy schools, while wealthier ones continue to build gold-plated soccer fields. IMHO, it’s not fair to use the voters’ rejection of continued property tax hikes to deny them decent schools. That’s part of the equation, but not the whole thing.
Characterizing Prop. 2 1/2 as a collective decision to, “move away from a system of funding local services such as education primarily with the property tax,” is a very debatable proposition. As I recall it, Prop. 2 1/2 was a statement by voters that they didn’t want to pay for government services, period. Not that they wanted to pay for the same services indirectly through state taxes. They wanted lower taxes, period. More generally, if your thesis was valid there wouldn’t be such resistance to increasing the income tax — people would accept that it was better than a property tax. But there is no such consensus: people just don’t want to pay taxes. I’m very sympathetic to the idea of increased funding for schools, but I don’t think we do anyone any favors by shifting responsibility away from where it belongs: with the voters.
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People like to know what their taxes are paying for and that they’re being used wisely and efficiently. Some people don’t want to pay taxes, period. However, I’d say that a majority of the people realize that taxes are a necessary responsibility. If you know of opinion polls that prove my essential thesis wrong, feel free to print them, but I don’t think there’s enough evidence to prove that people just aren’t willing to pay taxes, period. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be paying taxes.
I’m not saying people don’t want to pay taxes at all, abolish government, and live in caves. What I am saying is that the state-wide adoption of Prop. 2 1/2 and the failure of various efforts to get rid of it over the years, the votes in numerous municipalities not to raise their property taxes, and the lack of enthusiasm for additional taxes at the state level, collectively suggests that people in Massachusetts do not have a large appetite for additional taxes. If folks want to vote to increase taxes, as I said, great: I’m a democrat. I think, however, that we should be clear about where the reluctance for additional taxes is coming from: the voters.
We have a fiscal regime that voters actually voted for. Twice. It happens to entail state aid.
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I say “have” rather than “had” because the laws constraining municipal power are still in place, even if the legislature has walked away from its responsibility to fund the system.
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So when voters in any one community reject a contrary fiscal regime, one that is not based on state aid, you can legitimately draw many conclusions. But “Goody! The Commonwealth doesn’t have to fund the schools any more!” is not one of them.
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This would be the case even were your characterization of the Prop 2-1/2 vote correct.
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You might as well say, Well, voters in Mudville could have funded the schools through bake sales. But they did not–so why should the state?
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The argument might hold water if voters were being asked to raise taxes to pay for something that is both optional and new, like extending the school day or free public transit for seniors. The Commonwealth might well decline to rush in where local voters deigned to tread.
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But that is not the case today in the cities and towns. These votes are all about avoiding cuts to basic services (or whopping new fees for services that have been traditionally free, or both).
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So if the legislature truly wants to turn back the clock to 1978 and New Hampshire-ize local services, it can do so by repealing Prop. 2-1/2. Otherwise the Commonwealth is on the hook and spin about how the problem is in local town halls and not on Beacon Hill is so much blather.
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And blaming the people equals blaming the victim.
You know as well as I that property taxes in Massachusetts are out of control. For example, if Saugus could have their meals tax under the Governor’s Municipal Partnership Act, there’s no way they’d need to cut so many teachers. However, people are fed up with overrides – and who can blame them? Would I vote yes on one in Swampscott, if our finance committee gave us a choice? Yes. They’re laying off the state’s #1 teacher (literally, one of the Machon teachers won the best teacher in the state award… and all of the Machon teachers have been laid off as the school – one fo the state’s few Pilot Schools – was shut down).
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Overrides all around the state have been happening almost year after year after year and people are fed up. There needs to be something else other than overrides. Saugus’s easy fix is a modest restaurant tax, since they have literally dozens of restaurants. A restaurant tax would also be immensley helpful to Dartmouth, which from what I’ve heard has gutted their national-calibre music program. I don’t know what to do about the Stoneham, but Swampscott is going under because of the formula the state uses to dole out cash: towns like Wellseley receive more state aid per capita than Swampscott – and Wellseley’s median family income is tens of thousands more than Swampscott. Over all, health care expenses are the biggest problem, though. I’ve often tried to make the link between municipal struggles and health care – and it’s for a reason. They just can’t keep up with the rising costs of health care. They wouldn’t have to worry about it if we switched to single payer.
If people want to approve other kinds of taxes, fine. My point is that there is no basis for saying that people secretly want to increase spending when they consistently refuse to pay more taxes. The logical conclusion from failure by the voters to endorse higher taxes is that they don’t want additional spending.
Turnout in last month’s override in Stoneham was well under 40%. Override elections are a lot like primaries, the really committed vote and everybody else stays home. We found when we looked at the results that there is a large block of voters who only vote in override elections, not bothering to show up for other local, state, or national elections. In some ways its even worse in an override because unless you actually watch your local access channel on cable or read the local newspaper you don’t get a lot of reminders that the election is even taking place.
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Its also not fair to say that the people who voted no didn’t want to spend more money on education. Even some of the most vocal critics of the Stoneham override said that if the selectmen had asked for a smaller dollar figure that would have taken care of the critical needs at the schools they would have supported it. Only about 1/2 of the $3M was targeted to the schools, the rest was meant to prevent layoffs in the police and fire departments, and to keep the library from losing its certification.
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In the end, once the override failed the selectmen reinstituted the town trash fee, upped the amount to $200/household, and made sure that the school committee got enough of the proceeds that they were able to reinstate the sports program, thus ending our long national nightmare. Unfortunately, as a result there is almost no money left over to address other critical needs in the town.
Let me get this straight, the voters said they didn’t want higher taxes, so the selectmen increased their trash fee instead?
Yes, faced with an auditorium full of outraged, nearly rioting parents, the selectmen did what anybody who had been paying attention for the two months leading up to the override vote would have known they were going to do and reinstituted the trash fee. Many of the override opponents are actually OK with that. As one frequent poster on the Talking Stoneham blog said, “I can divorce a trash fee, I’m married to a property tax increase for life”.
East Bridgewater went through something similar this year. It’s been having, shall we say, brownish tap water for a while now. So an override was on ballot to spend money on a new greenwater system. It was voted down naturally (“dmn guvmint’s not gettin more money outta me!”), so the town just announced that water bills will be increasing an average of 130%.Which means that lots of elderly folks who live in rerirement villages with tiny homes, or rent, get hit a lot worse.
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I see this all the time at town meeting and overrides — people seem to think if they vote against spending money, the need to spend the money will just go away. I’m feeling more and more that what we need is representative town meeting.
high school yet? I was on their NEASC accreditation review, and boy oh boy, that school is a shithole. They’re gonna lose their accrediation, I’m sure, on the next go round if they haven’t done something about that facility.
“If voters in those towns don’t want to pay more for education, why should the state do it?”
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Taxation/budget stuff is way out of my knowledge base, but my question would be who represents the children? In theory, parents who have children in the system should advocate for the childrens best interest, but don’t most towns have more eligible voters who do not have school-aged children that who do? Even if it is even or the number of school parents excede the non-parents, there is still a significant portion of people who have no incentive to look out for the kids’ best interests.
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Even in family court/social work, don’t children have someone appointed to advocate for them? You could argue that teachers and the school department could advocate for the students, but they are not impartial because their income is dependent on the way the town votes.
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Going back to my < ahref=”http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/showDiary.do?diaryId=7853″>earlier post, the quality of our nation’s education systems effects the quality of life of all American citizens. I don’t have a solution to your question, but I don’t know how long we should sit on the sidelines and allow individual municipalities trample on the educations of voiceless, defenseless, and voteless students.
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Thomas Jefferson said, “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”
And I also personally favor an increase in spending for education. But the way to get that, in my opinion, is not to pretend that people want their taxes raised when they vote not to have them raised, or to slap extra fees on, “because things have to be paid for.” That just enrages people, as some of the comments here suggest, and it’s counter-productive: in the long run it produces backlashes that give us blunt instruments like Prop. 2 1/2, a victory for Ronald Reagan in Massachusetts, and Governors like “no new taxes” Romney. The state winds up like Seamus: tied to the roof and driven to the point of bowel failure. If towns want to spend more, they should raise local taxes or lobby for an increase in state taxes.
How about Stand for Children?
http://www.stand.org…
My personal theory on why overrides are failing: It’s the governor’s fault. Property taxes aren’t substantially higher than last year, yet, overrides are failing at record rates.
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The Governor was and is extremely vocal about how high property taxes are. Bully pulpit stuff–we read about it in the paper, and figure, hey, my property taxes must be high. I better vote NO.
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Thanks Governor! He brought property tax relief to the
townsthe citizens, by energizing the anti-override sentiment.Property taxes have risen substantially over the past fives years. Doesn’t there become a point when citizens have had enough. No?
It may have been that 2007 was the year that people got fed up. I can’t reject that.
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It may also have been that the Governor’s message hit home and energized the anti-override faction. Can you reject that?
But during the election property taxes wasn’t a Patrick creation, it was atop the list of issues by the people. I don’t think Patrick created it but instead he was the one who pointed out the Romney/Healey record and what he was going to do differently. Maybe there is a higher expectation that something will get done with Patrick in office.
What, should he have lied?
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Property taxes in Massachusetts are exceedingly high. Clearly, they aren’t working as a method of paying for educational expenses in cities and towns. Using property taxes as the primary method of funding education, on a town by town basis, leaves certain towns at a disadvantage – especially those without any core of businesses in their community, which are typically taxed at a higher rate. Other, poorer towns and cities have less money – and often these are the same cities and towns that have students who are more expensive and difficult to teach, such as immigrants. They’re communities that have to deal with childhood and family poverty, etc. The system, as a whole, has proven a failure and if we have to take one step back to get two steps forward, so be it.
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I don’t have an opinion what he did or should have done.
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But, what he did was vocally proclaim property taxes too high; ran on a platform of property tax relief. Media picked up on his message and overrides efforts are failing on a record pace.
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Deval, a closet conservative. Who knew?
Poor as defined by what?
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Many town who have little to no business or industry do so by their own choice to preserve their rural character.
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Immigrants—you mean illegal aliens, as in the Town of Marlborough whose selectmen estimate that over twenty percent of the town’s population are illegal aliens and are up to their ears in crime, vandalism, etc?
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This is what the esteemed nit wit in the White House has visited upon us.
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Should we make it a collective effort to penalize very community who has a home or property over 400K and take that money and give it to Holyoke, Chicopee, Springfield, Brockton etc so that they can more skillfully put it to good use.
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Please!
Why base local revenue primarily on property taxes? Why not base it on something else. How about a portion of the sales tax collected in the community? How about a portion of corporate taxes of companies located in or operating within the community? How about a portion of the income taxes? How about a portion of lottery tickets sold in the community, or a portion of the gasoline/liquor/cigarette taxes collected in that community? How about a tax on the number of cars sold at car dealerships? How about a little of all?
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If revenue streams were more diversified, then you wouldn’t be able to single out certain communities such as Holyoke, Chicopee, Springfield, and Brockton as “failed”, because those communities would likely come out very favorably under other revenue-raising scenarios.
I talked to a LOT of people during the Stoneham override campaign and didn’t run across a single individual who didn’t realize his property taxes were high before the Governor brought it up. The last override campaign in Stoneham before Governor Patrick went on the campaign trail lost 5000-2000. This time we lost less than 300 votes. Most of that difference came from folks who voted against the override last time but didn’t come out this time around. If anything, the anti-tax sentiment in Stoneham lost energy this time around.
I have been a tax payer in Massachusetts for fifty years. I pay every tax that has been ill conceived by local, and state representatives and legislators. Ultimately any local or state venture to initiate a new revenue stream by either strong arm or smoke and mirrors ultimately comes back to me, the bottom rung on the government trough.
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I am cognizant of the fact that veryone here is or should be aware of the profligate entitlements that our state legislators enjoy and their kith and kin as well. Folks here are also and I hope are aware of the waste and maladministration/spending of our tax dollars.
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I will not launch into nor will spend the next five hours attempting to document aforementioned allegation of fact, but take it from me, as a retired state employee, I have intimate knowledge of one secretariat that engages in outright larceny of millions. The fraud, waste, and abuse is unimagineable.
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I have a brother who is an employee of a well known and admired school system in eastern MA. He recently and has in the past approached the superintendent of schools regarding millions of dollars of waste and careless expenditures on ill conceived building of structures and infrastructure. He was told to mind his own business. My local community has recently occupied their own local new high school which can only be described as the Taj mahal of eastern MA. The school committee is now howling that they need hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions extra to keep this grotesque example of wanton waste of taxpayers dollars heated and illuminated as well as many ancillary expenses. Our local fire department wants more money for OT because there seems to be an unusual malady rife within the department necessitating frequent sick time by firefigters. The chief states that all his attempts at clamping down on sick leave is met by union complaints, grievances and thugry. He recently put in his papers and a union thug was made chief. What an excellent piece of work by our esteemed selectmen.We have our own local DPW that essentially does nothing. Again—-union issues.
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A local PD in the town next door went out and spent a lot of money on new police cruisers that are neither practical nor utilitarian unless your patrolling rte 495, (some kind of Chrysler hotrod). It goes on andon ad nauseum. Point being: taxpayers are sick of it.
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Years ago, taxpayers participated in government. The bottom line was closely scrutinized. Public employees worked hard for their money and were most often underpaid. All teachers worked two jobs. Cops and firemen worked several jobs and worked fifty hours a week or more. Now they hardly work at all in their primary occupation. A firefighter works two twenty four hour shifts. Local cops are pretty busy, state cops ride around trying to figure out how to screw the state for some OT or a contractor who hired him/her out of an hour or two of detail time. The state police alleged detectives don’t even do that, they go play golf.
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Our state legislators decided to fatten up the pork and fat in this years budget. The governor, scared witless bu DiMassi and Murray has retreated from his redling and veto.
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This state has more giveaway programs that the protestant church. Millions for this, and millions for that. Senator Wilkerson managed to recently steal (amongst her other recent thefts) several millions of dollars earmarked for industrial and manufacturing encouragement for the commonwealth generally. and re directed it for some undoubtedly crooked contractor erecting some edifice over Rte 90. I wonder what political hacke and thieves will reap the profits from this scheme. Even more interesting: Will Sen. Wilkerson pay the required taxes on her ill gotten gains? Our gonadless governor did what to stop this?
Stop it? The governor encouraged the sqandering of this money.
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You have doubts why the taxpayers are fed up. We re elect the same tired hacks to the same seats. We have a one party state. Government plots and colludes to steal ever increasing percentages of our paychecks.
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Even my volunteering for my local community has revealed the squandering of 26 million dollars of Homeland Security funding by a state organization with millions funnelled to a private consulting firm on Franklin Street, who just happen to be big supporters of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Kerry.
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We are getting deeper and deeper into the quagmire and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Not weeks later the local rag shouted out that the local slectmen were spending it like US Navy sailors on shore leave after six months at sea.
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You can bet it will be a cold day in hell that the Marshfield voters make that mistake again and that surrounding communities didn’t take notice. Well, Duxbury in their infinite wisdom decided at town meeting to inflict self injury to themselves to the tune of millions and it was all”for the children”. Of course the “little guy” in Duxbury is being driven out by the deluge of taxes on modest homes. The big ticket crowd are buying adjoining homes and parcels to tear them down for McMansions. Eventually the “little guys” will be all gone and the McMansion owners will cut spending drastically because their snotty kids go to Thayer Academy. Good ploy to gentrify a community. Beat them to death with taxes.
I think we’ve identified the peculiar “block of voters” who only show up to override votes that jcsinclair was talking about…:/
I haven’t missed any election in forty years. I will not vote for a tax over ride under any circumstance.
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Government is like a business. You spend what you can afford and not a penny more.
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I suppose you will now defend the profligate and unrestrained spending of our feferal government. Running deficits in the billions is always a good idea.
No, I won’t defend that. Perhaps, then, you’d like to praise the Clinton administration for balancing the budget, and pan the Bush administration for sliding us back into steep deficits unseen since Ronald Reagan!
All taxes are “ill conceived”
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MCRD lives in a town with a new high school located on rt 495.
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A new high school is from here on to be referred to as a “Taj Mahal”
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The state wastes massive sums of money, much criminally. We’ll just have to trust him on that one.
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If teachers, cops, or firefighters don’t need to work a second job, they’re paid too much.
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Legislators should be paid much worse than they are, which should help put more honest people in the government.
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MCRD was working for the state at the same time/before/after in the military and/or in the health care field.
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Unions are bad.
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The governor has something called a “redling”
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Anyone building anything on the Mass. Pike is “undoubtedly crooked”
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Volunteers like MCRD are regularly shown budgets well into the millions of dollars.
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Voters are fed up with the politicians in this state who they continually re-elect.
I have worked at three occupations simultaneously in my life. Often eighty hours a week and I attended school full time while I was doing it. People my age didn’t get the opportunity to sit on our fat asses and bellyache.
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Re the governor, my error. Line item veto—not to be construed with red lining.
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No doubt you are unable to draw a parallel between the Big Dig and corporate theft that is proposed by Sen Wilkerson. Of course Sen Wilkerson is just the kind of politician that Massachusetts typically elect. Corrupt.
Give Lisa Stone a call at the Department of Public health and ask her where the 26 million went for the Pandemic Flu training etc?
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No one else seems to know.
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You might spend some time doing something other than typing nonsense on a computer and confirming peoples suspicions.
Whenever there is any talk about revenue of municipalities, the anti-government types always trot out the “government waste and patronage” argument. Without fail.
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It goes like this: “since I can show you one instance of patronage or government waste, all governments rely on patronage and are wasteful”.
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This is no exception.
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But it’s a little like saying “Since that Black man robbed the gas station, all Black men must be criminals”.
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Bottom line: you’re peddling prejudice, not an actual substantiative argument.
…but I have. Twenty years ago, I was involved in a committee organized by the town (of Wellesley) selectment on the town’s insurance costs. We did a fairly thorough investigation and submitted to the selectpersona a number of proposals for savings. The town’s insurance broker stroked the town manager. The selectpersons dismissed us–with thanks, of course–but did not implement any of our suggestions.
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As a result, I am very cynical about town government.
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The town is run primarily by real estate agents (Roy “the toy boy” Switzler–real estate agent–was a selectman for a number of years), insurance brokers, and similar people.
I’m not going to bite and say that Towns ought to try to cut costs.
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If the money’s there, the typical inclination is to spend it. It’s not prejudicial to say governments waste money. It’s human nature, tragedies of the commons and all that….
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Of course there’s waste in government, moreso than in private industry. With no built in profit motive, all things being equal, in Government, there’s a bias for spending, not saving, particularly in good revenue times, which Mass has enjoyed for nearly 5 years.
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But, look what happens when an outside authority aims to control local costs. Case in point: Springfield.
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Before the Patrick administration rushes in to grab Springfield’s success as its own, take a look. Springfield is on the right track. Big turnaround in Springfield. How? Cost containment compelled by the control board, not gimmicks, not new revenue sources.
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For example:
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Springfield moved its pension money to the PRIT.
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Great idea, right? Under the Patrick proposal, towns are required to moved if they underperformed by 250 basis points and if 80% underfunded. It was a solid proposal, one first presented by Kerry Healey and backed by the Pioneer Institute.
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Then, the Legislature got ahold of it and reduced the funding requirement to 65%. Guess what? Natick is 66% funded, and is a Poster child for locally run pension patronage.
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Patronage and waste in Natick? You decide. Regardless, it’s “wasteful” to allow that Legislation to stand as is.
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GIC insurance available to City employees? Great idea. Springfield was compelled to do it and it’s a great idea. Oh yeah, but to have that great idea statewide requires Union approval. WFT?
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Is the Governor pandering to the Unions? You decide. Regardless, it’s “wasteful” to allow that Legislation to stand as is.
Let’s talk Springfield for a minute.
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I agree with you that the Romney-appointed FCB was good for the city I’ve supported it since day 1. But there’s one thing it did not do.
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It did not uncover mounds of money spent on waste, fraud, and patronage.
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So if a Republican, fiscally-responsible independent control board can’t find significant waste, fraud, and patronage in the 3rd largest city in the state, a city in serious fiscal trouble, why should I believe that a significant amount of waste, fraud, and patronage are to be found generally in government?
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Sure, operations in Springfield were improved, systems were modernized, and things are generally running pretty smoothly. And yes, many municipal employees are bleating like goats about things.
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But this mysterious waste, fraud, and patronage did not materialize.
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What are the major concrete things Springfield did to save money?
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1) Adopted Medicare B, so now the federal government pays for health insurance of retirees. That saved about $5-6 million per year.
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2) Moved to state pension plan.
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3) Moved employees to state insurance, and shifted a larger part of the cost to the employees.
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4) Privatized the street sweepers. That doesn’t seem to be going so well, the past two years the streets haven’t been swept in a timely manner, so that counts as a reduction in service.
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5) Privatized the nighttime school custodians. That was probably an even switch, because there were complaints before the privatization and complaints after it.
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6) Privatized the school cafeteria workers. I haven’t heard much on that one.
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7) Stopped budgeting at 100% of tax revenues collected, started budgeting at something like 88%. Also stepped up collection of said taxes, putting the thumb down on some notable scoflaws (including one bar owner showing up with a $100k check). That improved the free cash position.
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8) Negotiated union contracts with very small raises. While that sounds good up front, eventually that will be a problem, because a job market still exists, and any city or town paying substantially less than surrounding towns will eventually end up with inferior employees or high turnover.
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9) Instituted a $90/year trash fee, generating about $4m in additional revenue.
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Don’t get me wrong — I’m for an efficient government. But there are still a lot of services in Springfield that are not up to par with other communities.
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A big reason for that is that there are simply more needs in Springfield. For example, if you read the East Longmeadow crime logs, you’ll see that a resident can (and does) call the cops if there is a suspicious-looking car on their street.
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A call to the Springfield Police Department produces muffled giggles from the dispatcher. There’s no time to deal with that level of policing because they are dealing with a countless number of domestic incidents, and drug and gang-related crimes.
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Therefore the residents of Springfield do not get the same policing as much of the rest of the state.
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You can get examples of this in every department. Service levels are still poor in Springfield, from the parks department (broken playground equipment) to the public works department (potholes, unpaved streets) to the code enforcement department (takes months to get a problem property cleaned up) to the tree-trimming department (waiting list is 1.5 years to get a city tree tangled in power lines trimmed) to the sidewalk department (waiting list is 5+ years long to get the city to share the cost of fixing your sidewalk).
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And don’t even get me started on the schools.
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That tells me that Springfield does not have the money it needs to operate the way it should. Yes, it is now limping along more than it was, but it is trying to provide urban levels of service on suburban-level budgets. And as a result, most residents are in Springfield because they have to be here, not because they want to be here.
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Why doesn’t Springfield have enough money? Take your pick — either it isn’t raising enough from its residents based on Proposition 2.5 restrictions, or it doesn’t get enough aid from the state — or both.
You say the Republican administration didn’t uncover any waste, then you list 9 action I would say, would have been wasteful to have not done.
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I didn’t say that Springfield’s problems were over, but the link I provided certainly shows that because of cost containment, it’s better now than it was 5 years ago.
I would characterize those nine things as things that most cities and towns aren’t doing, several of which were only possible due to the authority given to the FCB.
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We’re now paying the price. We have about 4,000 negative salespeople (city employees) for the city, actively telling people to stay away. The amount of negativity and bad press spawning from them is absolutely intense. Honestly, that was an angle I never anticipated.
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Unusual circumstances created the FCB and allowed its waste eliminating decisions.
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That’s my point. Absent a crisis or financial problem, government can’t or is politically unable to take such measures as Springfield. That’s one reason Government is by its nature more wasteful and inefficient.
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To state so, as Eabo is, isn’t prejudicial, it’s just common sense.
Isn’t Springfield famous for the infamous crime family the Asselin’s? All local hacks shaking everyone in the city down. Now that’s efficient government.
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A police department where the cops have UNLIMITED sick time. The city council was right on top of that one. No wonder there aren’t any cops to answer a call.
The Asselin family stole HUD money, not city money. The city has no oversight over the Springfield Housing Authority.
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Cops having 60 sick days per year generally works out in the city’s favor, because the 60 sick days do not roll over from year to year as in other departments. It in essence combines short-term disability with sick time. It is a bad public relations issue though.
It’s also easier to cut costs when your mismanagement of the town results in a flight of experienced employees from all the town departments (imagine being managed by someone who regularly gets lots in the town — gives you confidence, eh?). Rookies who don’t know how to use the photocopier are cheaper than vets who know the system inside and out. Doesn’t make it a better plan.
A couple of days ago, we were talking to my parents, who own a house in an unincorporated area of Hamilton County, just north of the city of Cincinnati OH. We got to talking about taxes. It turns out that their property tax is about half of what our property tax is here in Wellesley. The irony is that the valuation of the property in Ohio is about 1/5 that of the valuation of our house here in Wellesley.
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And the voters there get to vote on virtually every aspect of the property tax, mill levies for this, that and the other: schools, fire department, park district, everything. Moreover, as I’ve mentioned here before, they can vote on county and city income taxes, as well as county and local sales taxes.
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The problem with property taxes in Massachusetts is not that the property tax rate is too high, the problem is that property valuations have been driven up. Our valuation has quadrupled since we moved here in 1983. If people are actually being driven out of the state because of the property taxes, one might believe that the valuations would drop. Maybe the valuations will drop because of the current crunch, but in the long term, I doubt it.
You may be making a mistaken assumption about how Proposition 2 1/2 works. If all the assessments in a community increase by 10%, the total property tax that the community can levy will still only be allowed to increase by 2.5%. The 2 1/2 cap is on the tax levy, not the tax rate.
raj wrote: “The problem with property taxes in Massachusetts is not that the property tax rate is too high, the problem is that property valuations have been driven up.”
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I believe this represents a common misunderstanding about property taxes in Mass. Think of it this way: assume your town has a budget of $1M. This budget is raised via property taxes on residences and businesses, as well as fees and fines, etc. Assuming for the moment that nothing else changes, your town’s budget will still be $1M even if the valuation on your particular house is reduced. In fact, the budget will remain the same even if the valuations on every house in your town are reduced (until people start leaving). The money for the budget has to come from somewhere.
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The way it works is that the valuation of your home is only used to calculate your pro-rated share of the town’s budget. If your valuation drops in relation to everyone else’s, then you will pay less, but others will pay more to make up the difference. If everybody’s valuation drops proportionately, then everybody still pays the same amount. On the other hand, if the town budget was reduced to $900K, everybody would get a roughly 10% cut in their property taxes.
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So, the problem with property taxes is not property valuations, it is the overall cost of living in Massachusetts. The price of homes, and their tax valuations, are all related to this of course. We should all ask: why does it cost so much to live in Massachusetts? What is so much more expensive in Mass. compared to Ohio, and why? The cost of homes is part of it, but we also spend more for health care, food, etc.
not that rising valuations caused tax hikes (a common misunderstanding of 2-1/2, as you note), but that skyrocketing property values are more likely to drive people away from Massachusetts than high property taxes.
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I don’t know about that either. “People leaving the state” is orthogonal to the problem of high property taxes as regressive compared to state aid from the income tax distributed according to an equalizing formula. Relying heavily on the property tax to fund basic services penalizes poor and old people and promotes social stratification by town.
The last teachers contract Westford approved paid out annual raises ranging from 2.4% to 9.2% resulting in a increase in the salary line item of 5.6% in year one and 3.4% in year two. The previous contract paid out an annual raises between 3.5% and 10.4%. See here if you need an explanation of how teacher salaries are commonly structured.
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My guess is that other municipalities have similar contracts with raises that outpace revenues. Union contracts provide protection for those with more seniority, regardless of peformance. The negotiation tactics are known as “eating your young” as salary increase lead to layoffs but those doing the negotiating know that they and those who elect them are safe.
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In the end, municipalities must be more effective at negotiations. Agreeing to payout more in raises than is projected to be raised in revenue will obviously lead to budget problems. There is no mystery here, just a lack of leadership and common sense.
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reach this point. In our town the School Committee years ago was very cocky when it came to getting over-rides and they presented unrealistic budgets. When an over-ride was voice voted out at Town meeting they came back with a more modest budgets–with little effect on the school function. When people voted for over-rides the increases were no longer earmarked for the school but rolled into the general funds the next year and they had to come back for more over-rides – meanwhile the property tax increase from the past year was stuck in place. My mom is 86 yr old and her property tax bill is roughly 9000/yr. Think what this would be for her if we couldnt help her and she was living entirely on her Social Security Check—untenable. As it is she puts in time at the town hall to cut down her bill
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Patrick got big support because people really are sick of the elderly and the young parents/teachers being pitted against each other at town meetings and street signage wars all over the state. This is terrible for neighborhoods and communities that should be helping each other out.
Before I address some of the comments that can be put under the heading of “who to blame” for the failure of appropriate school funding and it’s current devasting circumstances to the Commonwealth, I’d like to bring some real live data to the discussion. The concensus idea being voiced is that citizens are laboring under an undue tax burden. Yet, according to the non-partisan (although some might say anti-tax) national Tax Foundation, Massachusetts ranks 28th in the nation in state and local tax burden (see http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr153.pdf). Of all New England states, MA outranks only NH at number 49 in state and local tax burden. Yet we rank second only to CT ( number 8 in state and local tax burden) in average income of all New England states. It begs the question of whether our flat income tax, with it’s lack of progressivity shifts the burden of local services to a property tax. Not only Prop 2 1/2, but roll-backs in the state income tax have helped lower the tax burden since it’s apex in the ’70’s.
Yet the perception of “Taxachusetts” remains in voters minds. There are, of course other issues of tax equity such as the one cited by Cadmium; many states have addressed the property tax burden on the elderly and disabled with state funded property tax rebate programs. MA I know has one, but it seems to me inadequate.
Now, I do not purport to possess any special expertise in economics or tax policy, but if one were to look at who’s responsible for our current state of affairs, I go with the great philosopher, Pogo; “we have met the enemy, and he is us”.
Ever since Reagan,many of my fellow American’s have bought the idea that taxes are bad. In particular income taxes. People liked this. They voted for it. Over time, even our Democratic leaders started to sing this tune( remember Clinton’s “Triangulation”) Yet it seems clear after more than two decades of rolling back progressive federal and state income taxes, we have finally seen how trickle down works: the burden to pay for needed services has moved down the food chain to state income, sales and local property taxes.And down the income bracket as well. An example of this phenomonon: our schools regularly cite rising Special Ed costs as one reason for increases, yet the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has never in it’s nearly 35 year history been fully funded and any modest increaes in existing funding have not met the costs of providing what we all believe is a crucial service. So our school costs (along with other crucial services) go up and the only levy a citizen can vote on is the local town levy. Not the federal or state income tax, not the gas tax, not the sales tax, not telecommunications tax, not the cigarette or liquor tax…you get the point. And so, one week before Town Meeting with it’s 2 1/2 overide , signs pop up all over my town saying “Just Vote No”. And so they did. 350 or so people showed up, overwhelmingly voted no and two hundred and fifty or so promptly left.And we had to cut $500,000 out of a already bare bones school budget, eliminating school librarians, teachers, and raising athletic and activity fees.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us”
about underfunding from the Feds. It is the dysfunctional property tax reliance that I find troubling. I am ok with income tax as it was before the reductions in recent years.