Wow — folks are not letting public services go down the tubes without a fight. 'BUR reports:
“Several hundred people, many wearing neon “Support New Revenue” badges, packed a Revenue Committee hearing at the State House Tuesday.”
(I love it when folks wear their activist uniforms to hearings. Awesome.)
Now, of course there is resistance to raising taxes. On balance, that is probably a good thing. But let's just chalk this up as a very, very weak argument against new revenue streams:
Rep. Paul Kujawski, a Democrat from Webster, is taking a hard line against new taxes because he says his constituents are already living on the edge.
PAUL KUJAWSKI: I had a family call me the other day, they said they can't afford to pay for heat, put gas in the car and pay college tuition. They have a mortgage on top of that. He said, 'Please don't charge me any more, I am strapped. I don't know what I'm going to do.'
Mr. Kujawski, let's just use our noggins, and recognize that the public sector employees who are about to be laid off will have a very hard time indeed paying for heat, gas in the car, mortgage, and college tuition. I have to imagine that Mr. Kujawski holds teachers, cops, librarians and firemen in high esteem; do they somehow not have the same expenses as everyone else? And are we prepared to put kids in bigger and bigger classrooms, cut mental health services and pre-school, and leave our streets less safe?
And we've been banging this drum for a while … but does who really imagines that a 1% hotel or meals tax is going to toss grandpa out of the house? Taxing candy? I mean, that's grounds for hysteria? The governor was right on this when things were merely tight; now that they're near-catastrophic, it's just common sense.
No call for new revenues precludes the necessity of getting maximum efficiency for our public sector dollar. If mayors and muni employees are asking for new revenue, they ought to be willing to join the state GIC for their health insurance, for instance. They ought to be willing to accept pensions that are in line with the state's. And so on. Concessions should be made, particularly in order to bring salaries and benefits in line with commonly accepted standards. And even more givebacks in the short-term may be necessary in order to stave off bigger layoffs. Would that the Boston Teachers Union had been so wise.
The times are painful. But the whole point of taxation is that we take the responsibility and slice it up into (relatively) tiny little pieces, so no one has to feel it all at once. All the money-saving reforms should be on the table; but even those won't save the jobs and services that we need. Time to pull together.
Wow. This is something:
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p>You are appealing for higher taxes in order to keep public employees on payroll. But if you’re an unemployed, private-sector worker, well, you suck! You’ll just have to wait until the economy turns around before you can work again.
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p>Frankly, it doesn’t matter if you’re not working. Cough up some more dough to keep public employees on the job.
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p>Where’s it end? Will state government EVER fire ANYBODY? Is state employment guaranteed?
Must you really put words in Charlie’s mouth, especially such ugly words as those? Nothing in his post denigrated laid-off workers of any stripe. At last, have you no sense of shame?
it’s unlikely that you’ll be staying at a hotel*, and you should probably stay off the sugary snacks.
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p> * Where this gets ugly is the homeless staying at motels. I doubt that’s a big percentage of hotel guests or of the unemployed, but it is a legit concern.
You know, where all the rich people are – this STORY
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p>And again – MANY rural towns have CHEAPER rates than GIC – whill you force THEM to join?
but I’m not sure really how it’s related in a meaningful way. It’s a motel with long term residents… which finds itself in a strange situation having nothing to do with a local options tax on hotels.
not about keeping a public employee on the payroll while some unemployed private enterprise worker has to suffer until the economy turns around. It’s about finding a way to keep enough government staffers working to continue to provide those services that the public needs.
…the issue isn’t the GIC or not. The issue is giving the cities and towns the same power as the state on plan design. Then they can save money and design programs that meet people’s needs. As opposed to the GIC which does not offer proper programs for much of the state and will cost cities and towns more money.
Stoneham saved $600K this year by joining the GIC, and that’s after concessions made to the unions to convince them to join. We also ended up having more employees opt to take the town insurance because it was a better deal financially for them. Your situation may be different, but it turned out to be a good deal for us.
I’ve been kicking around the idea of a local options gas tax, and have raised the idea here before, with little traction. I shall try again:
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p>Cities and Towns shall have the option of assessing a 3 cent local options gasoline tax, which shall be physically collected from gasoline stations by the state. Of the three cents:
* 1 cent will be used for local roads projects
* 1 cent will be used for roads projects statewide
* 1 cent will be used for local or regional low impact transportation improvement
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p>My thinking, without having poured over the numbers, is that the first “1 cent” won’t accrue more than a city or town spends per year in local dollars on roads, so this ensures that the money collected is spent for transit infrastructure (as required by state law?) while allowing the community to put less property taxes into roads, allowing (a) property tax relief, or (b) avoiding staff cutbacks. The second “1 cent” will help with projects that help multiple communities. Bridges over rivers, highways, state routes, etc. The third “1 cent” is MBTA for those communities, other regional transit, or barring that, anything from pedestrian safety improvement projects to bike lanes/trails to solar powered electric car charging stations.
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p>I don’t think it can be more than 3 cents because it doesn’t make sense for two towns to have substantially different gas prices. A 3 cent difference per gallon is small enough to be “noise” for most folks; more than that and people start driving to other towns to fill up and that’s not a good outcome.
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p>Does anybody think this is workable?
Everything is on the table when municipal budgets are stretched so thin.
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p>But local option taxes are part of a pattern of trading fair progressive income taxes for regressive taxes. While the top tax rate has dropped almost 60%. Our property taxes, fees, tolls, tuition, fares, etc have skyrocketed while services and infrastructure are declining.
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p>In addition, to being regressive..A meals tax in Boston might be successful as you are collecting taxes from out of town visitors, but that is not true for most other cities and towns.
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p>It’s expensive to continue to add new local revenue streams. A new bureaucracy needs to be created and paid to collect and handle the new tax, and is therefore less effective revenue stream.
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p>It pits one community against another. This generally results in a race to the bottom.
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p>I’m troubled by the pattern, which consists of expensive bandaids to cover the cost of an unrealistically low income tax. Why not just raise the income tax to the level necessary to cover expenses and get rid of all other taxes..except mabe the sin taxes.
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p>Would gasoline be considered a sin tax?
In general, poorer people don’t stay in hotels very often
In general, poorer people don’t spend as much money eating out
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p>Is it perfectly linear? Of course not. There are data points all over the map. It gets particularly dicey when you look at (typically poor urban) neighborhoods which don’t actually have a fresh grocer. It gets dicey when you consider homeless living in motels. It ain’t perfect.
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p>But, the idea is that hotels and restaurants are luxuries. They’re not at all necessary for basic survival, and in fact are goods and services above and beyond the societal norm for day-to-day activity. In that sense, they’re entirely avoidable, which is why I struggle when they’re called regressive.
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p>The gas tax — that’s another ball of wax. If we plot gas tax paid vs. income, we get some really strange behavior. Lots of poor people and some middle income folks pay almost nothing in gas tax because they live in Boston metro and simply don’t drive. Some rich folks drive high mpg vehicles and live in close suburbs and also pay little. Some poor and many middle class folks pay a nice chunk of change in gas tax because they live in outer suburbs, work shifts which aren’t T accessible, live in Worcester or west, or just flat out refuse to take mass transit. Some middle class folks could pay substantially less in gas tax but they insist on driving their low mpg vehicle aggressively without maintaining it well.
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p>Ultimately, we all have some control over how much gas tax we pay in the short, medium, and long run. We could choose to not speed. We could choose a higher mpg car instead of one with some other desirable feature. We could choose a job closer to home, or even a home closer to the job. People have demonstrated the ability to make these choices over past time periods, including the last time gas was flirting with $4.00. It, too, ain’t perfect. My guess is that per dollar of income, lower-middle class folks pay the most in gas tax. But, we can all choose to pay less by changing our behavior and our decisions in the short, medium, and long term. And more to the point, we as a society must figure out how we as a society will consume less fuel, for the sake of the climate and our foreign policies. The only two ways to do it are changing the price or changing the quantity, and most Americans are outright opposed to any form of rationing, which leaves prices as the lever.
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p>Is gasoline a sin? Well, yes. Unlike smoking or booze which harm the consumer and possibly near neighbors (second hand smoke, DUI), consuming gasoline spreads the harm over a much larger population so it doesn’t seem quite so harmful. Plus, unlike smokes or alcohol, gasoline is used for actual production of goods and services which improve the lives of all Americans. So, the question is: can we use a gas tax to improve the transportation options for everyone, meaning those who drive have better choices and provide better choices for those looking to consume less gasoline? If we can do that, then increasing the gas tax makes sense to me. If we’re going to state that consuming gas is something we should try to reduce, we ought to provide more ways for people to reduce their consumption, via mass transit options, bicycling options, pedestrian improvements, heck, even things like expanding broadband accessibility so people can work from home some of the time.
Very Good!
But here’s back at you.
Sales and property taxes are obviously regressive. The executive, retired couple and single mom who just lost her job pay relatively the same tax.
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p>The majority of communities have no hotels and many have no or few restaurants. That leaves them relying on local sales and property taxes.
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p>You’ve convinced me that the homeless will not have their tax rate raised significantly.
But what about the wealthy broker who receives his $7 mil bonus and takes off for a 3 months of sunny vacation in the Bahamas, travels half the year and is happy to see a home cooked meal when home.
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p>Who pays a greater percentage of their income in local aid taxes, the broker or his kid’s teacher?
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p>Sales tax is obviously regressive. It’s not so obvious to me about property taxes. After all, the poorest (third?) don’t own land, and therefore aren’t paying property tax on a home. It’s true that once you get into home ownership people with twice the income rarely own twice the home value, but it’s also true that the interest is deductible up to the first $1,000,000 of loan, then it isn’t… so there’s a bit of progressivism there too.
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p>The majority of people in Massachusetts live in communities with hotels and restaurants.*
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p>How many of them are there in the entire state? The better question is the household making $500,000 – $2,000,000 a year. Do they spend money out of state? Sure. Of course, people do travel in to Massachusetts from elsewhere too, to Boston, down Cape, North Shore, and Western Mass. They stay at hotels and eat at restaurants too.
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p>Local taxes? If the teacher owns a home, the kids teacher. Otherwise the broker. State taxes? The broker if that $7M is income (IANATL)**. Federal? See state.
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p>* If you rank the communities by population, Everett and bigger is 3.1 million. Globe 2007 numbers
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p>** I Am Not A Tax Lawyer
Most Landlords are not in the subsidized housing business, they are there to make a profit. The tax is built into the rent, same as sales, cigarette and other taxes. Renters do pay property tax as do all end users of all taxed products and services.
Landlords own an asset. There’s a market rate for rental housing, which blends across muni lines and is a function of all sorts of things. If the rental market is hot, rent goes up faster than prop tax. If the rental market is slow, rent may actually fall despite rising property taxes.
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p>You get no money with no tenant. So, you charge as much as you can to fill the unit, no more, no less. Taxes are exogenous to that except as they impact the market for home ownership as a second order effect.
that in 1982 when Proposition 2 1/2 became law, it’s proponents argued that state aid, funded primarily through the personal income tax, was supposed to offset the cuts.
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p>The argument, at the time, was that we should be shifting the burden of local services — school, fire, police, etc. — to the less-regressive income tax. At least, that was the argument made by the more rational proponents. I admit there weren’t that many of them, as I recall. Sometime I’ll try and google Barbara Anderson’s contemporary comments.
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p>I wonder how other participants here react to the concept of a local income surtax — allow cities and towns to vote to set a rate (perhaps capped statewide) for a surtax on each individuals personal income tax, with the proceeds from the surtax going to the municipality?
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p>My recollection is that this is mechanism (substitute “county” for “city and town”) used in Maryland — resident pays a county income surtax, on top of the Maryland state income tax, and the bulk of local expenses are funded by that surtax. The property tax, at least in Rockville, MD., is very low in comparison to here. I am under the impression that it primarily pays for water, sewage, and refuse disposal.
are, depending on the muni, outside of the property tax. In Brookline for example, water & sewer is an enterprise fund meaning that it’s exactly 100% paid for by its users in a fee system; it doesn’t subsidize the rest of the budget and the rest of the budget doesn’t subsidize water & sewer. As for trash, Brookline has a trash fee which covers about 80% of the cost; that may increase to closer to 100% sooner or later in light of the tight budget.
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p>Prop 2.5 ensures that fee-based systems (trash, water, etc) can’t charge more than 100% of the cost of providing that service. Some towns are at that 100% (or close), others cross-subsidize those services with general property tax revenue.
All types of business take an occassional loss. If a business owner cannot make a profit they go out of business.
True, you can come up with exceptions to the rule. Landlords are in business to make a profit not provide subsidized housing. Generally in a downturn they make less of a profit or they sell.
In this economy, restaurants are holding on by their fingernails if they haven’t already imploded. Restaurant equipment is getting to be dirt cheap because of all of the liquidations.
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p>Why is it a good idea to tax one of the most hard hit sectors of the economy? We might as well tax the construction industry and real estate transactions while were at it.
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p>BiggER layoffs?
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p>At state government, employment is up since this time last February. Local government too. Here’s the data. Last line or 3.
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p>What’s the policy you’re advocating, raise taxes to prevent any state layoff whatsoever because so far that’s the policy?
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p>Is there a stealth “no layoff” policy in effect in the State government? Really, under some sort of share the pain mentality, the state seems to be clinging to all its benefits, all its jobs and asking for the folks who’ve felt the pain, to feel a little more…just a little until the next time, when they ask for just a little more….
If legislators only hear from the “No New Taxes” crowd, they are less likely to go forward with seeking new revenues. The time to speak up in this regard is NOW. And a constituent counts for 100 non constituents. You cannot pass the buck to the folks wearing neon labels who were able to take off work and go to that hearing.
Western Mass are ahead of the curve. Many receive their health and life insurance through The Hampshire Council Insurance Department. According to the Hampshire Council of Governments’ site,
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p>One of the Hampden County employers, if I’m not mistaken, includes the City of Springfield. Anyway, that’s 61 out of 351 communities who don’t need the GIC. Hampshire County’s program is equal to, if not cheaper than, the GIC.
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p>As far as the Boston teachers union goes, it job is to keep its members employed. There are teachers unions across the state are taking level funding and/or pay cuts. What they say in the papers may also represent a negotiating strategy. Negotiations are also two-way street. I wouldn’t put it past management to take advantage of a crisis to take advantage of teachers either.
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Springfield is part of the GIC, not the Hampshire County Insurance Department. That happened back in 2007, Springfield was the first city in the state to enroll in this state plan. The changeover seems to have gone relatively smoothly, a few initial complaints, but nothing big since then.
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p>The switch has supposedly saved the city a lot of money, it did result in some higher costs for employees, but the coverage was supposedly better too. However I don’t understand the intricacies of how the city’s health insurance works — I had heard that the city was essentially self-insured, and that the plan basically administered the expenses, deciding what got paid and how much the reimbursement was, etc., but the city ultimately paid the health bills.
I think it’s the “self-insurance” that’s through the Hampshire program. I almost completely sure that Springfield is one of the Hampden County municipalities involved.
is self-insured. You give that up when you join the GIC. This explains why many municipalities have turned down employee groups who asked to consider the GIC option.
tell unions what their function is:
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p>”As far as the Boston teachers union goes, it job is to keep its members employed.”
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p>unless it is true. The union’s job is to negotiate the “price” of a teacher. The number of teachers afterwards employed is the EXCLUSIVE right of management.
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p>A union asked for wage concessions has the right, therefore, to ask what guarantees there are with that concession.
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p>Please tell us what the guarantees being given the BTU are!
I didn’t realize I was telling unions what their job is. I was posting on BMG, not addressing you and the MTA leadership (of which, I know, you part of).
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p>Incidentally, I’m a teacher and an MTA member. Months ago, my union president asked me, “Would you rather get a raise or keep employees?” Of course, I opted for keeping employees. Our contract is almost complete. I don’t know the details yet, but we have a strong union, trust our leadership, and expect to vote to ratify it. If my union weren’t interested in keeping my colleagues employed, it’s likely I’d be making more money next year.
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p>The “price” of a teacher is practically related to the number of employees. Unions can’t add employees, but they certainly can affect the number employed. You sound like you’re quoting a labor-management textbook.
“didn’t realize I was telling unions what their job is. I was posting on BMG, not addressing you and the MTA leadership (of which, I know, you part of).
Incidentally, I’m a teacher and an MTA member. Months ago, my union president asked me, “Would you rather get a raise or keep employees?” Of course, I opted for keeping employees.”
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p>Why would you say something different in a different venue? I would not. Your local president is being disingenuous, I would say. You could give up a raise and lose employees; there is no either or because we don’t control staffing. By law we don’t control staffing. It is not just a textbook answer that management controls staffing, it’s the truth. Very few locals actually have class size language, and those that do have maximums, allowing for great flexibility. That is also true. Unless you get management willing to give up its right to control staffing, you can agree to wage concessions and still have layoffs. GM workers could work for peanuts and still be canned. Teachers could give up health insurance and still be reduced. We control that which we can control, a tautology which should be obvious to all but seems not to be.
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p>The price of the teacher comes before the number of employees. I don’t know of ANYone who calculates the number of employees first and then funds them. You calculate the amount you have and then staff according to that cost. If they did, then they could tell you exactly what a wage freeze, or concession would save in terms of jobs. Find one case where they do, and that will be the first I’ve ever heard of.
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p>I don’t see that as being quite true. Education unions not only negotiate the “price” of a teacher, but with things like maximum class sizes, they negotiate the number of teachers employed too.
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p>By doing that, they virtually guarantee that they are untouchable when layoffs come, because you can’t control the number of students in the system. You can’t cut pay, you can’t increase the kids in a class. All you can do is lay off more employees in other departments to make up the shortfall in the education budget. Foundation budgets also serve as a way to limit the amount of cuts made.
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p>As far as I can tell, the teachers union is the only union that has the power to set the service levels. The closest other thing I’ve seen is that there is apparently some law that says if you cut libraries by a certain amount, you lose state matching funds. It’s not absolute, but it’s a poison pill.
We are nickel-and-diming a problem that requires far more fundamental change.
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p>There are 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts. That’s 351 police chiefs and police departments, 351 fire chiefs and fire departments, 351 school superintendents and school boards, mayors, town managers, etc., etc., etc. That’s 351 finance committees, 351 planning boards, 351 zoning boards, 351 cable committees, and all the rest.
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p>Ok, maybe the number is less because of regional schools and cooperative agreements here and there, but it’s WAY more than, say — ten.
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p>While I appreciate the abundant opportunities all this presents for thousands of attorneys, consultants, PR firms, and so on — it is very expensive. Enormously expensive. Extravagantly expensive.
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p>Crushingly expensive to residents, taxpayers, and small business owners.
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p>We are attempting to perpetuate a political culture created centuries ago that evolved centuries ago to be responsive to the society and economy of centuries ago.
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p>Society, economy, culture, and technology have changed. Radically. The comet has struck, the dinosaurs are dying, and it is time to either be mammals or die ourselves.
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p>The piecemeal approach we are pursuing will not work. Ever. Today’s economy cannot support the staggering number of public employees and their private-sector support sectors.
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p>I think it’s time to look at ditching all of this. I think it’s time to have a far smaller number of far better (and far better compensated) executives — and a far smaller, far more effective, and far less expensive organization to support them.
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p>In transportation, I think we should look at ONE state transportation agency, with regional and local offices. ONE budget. One set of contracts. One set of contractors. One website, with everything on it.
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p>In education, I think we should look at ONE state education agency, with (perhaps) county departments and school administrations that report to the county. I think we should do the same with police, fire, public works and all the rest.
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p>A contractor plowing snow for Brookline should sign the same contract that a contractor plowing snow for Webster signs. Different rates, perhaps, but one contract. All the overhead — purchasing, invoicing, paying, supervising — should use the same systems.
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p>A transition like this will cost money — big money. It will also save big money. Agencies need to be dissolved. Contracts need to be voided and penalties paid.
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p>This ship is sinking, and drastic measures must be taken. There are crewman in the forward hold, and the watertight doors must be closed anyway. It is precisely because so much pain and suffering is going to happen whatever we do that we must strive to be beyond reproach in our own affairs.
idea, BrooklineTom. Well done.
France, Italy, and Japan are moving away from big-block, highly centralized education because they are seeing firsthand what a failure it is. I don’t understand the American desire to move toward a model discarded pretty much everywhere.
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p>So a guy with a doctorate who lives in Milton is going to tell me how and what to teach in my working class (to be generous) exurb? Oh, yeah, that’ll work out great, especially the part of eradicating local control of education and giving it to bureaucratic cousins of the geniuses currently running the MBTA into the ground.
In Tom’s plan a proposal for one state agency broken down into county departments and school administrations that report to the county—the latter, I’m assuming—as a sort of nod to any changes that need to be made to a curriculum because of regional differences or needs.
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p>And are the subjects students in your working class ex-burb need to learn radically different than the subjects students in Milton need to learn?
Has county school systems. Prince Georges County and the like. They are enormous. Look into their costs and see if they are saving money over the Massachusetts local-control system.
in 1970. It was part of the Montgomery County system, and there certainly were problems, then and now.
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p>That was nearly forty years ago. I don’t know what Massachusetts schools were like then, and I don’t know what Montgomery County schools are like now.
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p>Here’s what I do know:
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p>1. In junior high school and high school, I took and passed courses in college-level (AP) calculus, advanced algebra and trig, two years of algebra, a full year of geometry, AP physics, physical chemistry, and biology. Four years of Latin. I am familiar with Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Shakespeare, and host of other authors because of high school english classes. Over the course of my college and industry career, I use, virtually every day, the material I learned in seventh grade about linear systems and the commutative, associative, and distributive properties that characterize them.
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p>2. I graduated at a relatively undistinguished class rank, 221 of 602. I was not a academic star. I, nevertheless, had 1400+ SAT scores. I graduated with a BSEE from a reasonably prestigious private university (CMU, in Pittsburgh) and have had a reasonably successful career in industry. I got a very good public education.
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p>3. My three children, now attending public schools on the North Shore, cannot take the courses I took because they are not offered — there aren’t enough teachers. They are familiar with literature because they get it from home — they do not read Faulkner or the equivalent in school because it is not taught. The written communications I receive from their teachers and advisors are rife with spelling and grammatical errors that any of my english teachers would have red-lined and demanded that I correct.
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p>4. My children’s teachers do not correct their homework. They check that it was turned in — and that’s it. Some of them “review” the homework in class. My children haven’t learned, in school, basic research and study skills. They are not being taught how to identify a mistake they’ve made, find the relevant section in their text, and correct their own error.
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p>5. My children do not even have texts in many of their technical classes, like math and science. Instead, their teachers give them photocopies of selected pages from work-books. Why do you suppose that is?
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p>6. The children’s athletic and sports programs do continue unabated. Their middle school offers no foreign language courses, no theater electives — but has very nicely groomed soccer fields, a marvelous composition track to run on, and a rich variety of sports to choose from. The town won’t pass a school override, but has plenty of money for new lights and turf at the town baseball fields.
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p>7. I receive frequent solicitations from Kaplan’s — a private for-profit company that claims to “coach” my children in test-taking — forwarded from the school!
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p>8. My 6th grader with straight-A’s, including in math, couldn’t do simple fractions. None of my children have the faintest clue about what a logarithm is and why they are useful. They are, finally, learning to appreciate the wonders of the slide rule and their innate curiosity is leading them to ask why and how it works.
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p>In short — the education my children are receiving is a faint, pale shadow of the education I received. Their mother and I pay far far more in local taxes than my parents paid, no matter how you slice-and-dice the numbers. Public education in Massachusetts is badly broken.
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p>I am convinced that each of my children would benefit far more from a math teacher who has actually studied math, preferably at a graduate level, in a class size of 35 than be baby-sat by an under-paid hard-working 30 year old with no math training at all in a class of 25. How can we possibly expect our children to learn math or science when their teachers don’t know it?
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p>Providing a top-quality education for my children is the single most important investment I want to make. The current Massachusetts model has failed for my children.
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p>Fortunately, their mother and I are able to pick up the slack. Too many families are not so lucky.
I have a three year old and a five week old. When the time comes, I hope I can afford to send them to private school.
There is a difference between “big-block, highly centralized education” in France, Italy, and Japan and counties in Massachusetts.
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p>I’m not going to name names, because I still have children in the public schools. I will, however, tell you that “a guy with a doctorate who lives in Milton” — and is paid a generous compensation to match his or her talents, experience, and skills — will work out far better that the superintendents that I’ve worked with in working class neighborhoods of the North Shore and environs. FAR better.
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p>Oh, and please, who pray tell are the geniuses with doctorates who have been running the MBTA? Last time I checked, Mr. Grabauskas claims no academic credentials. Of the MBTA board of directors, Mrs. Shepard and Mr. Williams have Master’s degrees. None of the seven have doctorates. Mr. Aloisi has a Master’s degree — no doctorate.
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p>Perhaps if some of those doctorates that you seem to hold in such contempt were involved in managing the state’s transportation system, it wouldn’t be falling apart around our ears.
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p>Coming back to your original comment, it seems to me that the school personnel most important to our children are their (a) teachers and (b) school administration (principals, vice-principles, guidance counselors, etc.)
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p>Call me crazy, but I suggest that if were able to raise those salaries significantly (say to the $75-90K range for an experienced teacher with a Ph. D.), simultaneously save money on statewide school spending, and cut property taxes to nearly zero (because police, fire and schools comprise the bulk of virtually every local budget), then we’d have a big win for everybody.
First of all, I worked in a think tank for two years, the most prominent such outfit in Canada. I met enough doctoral fellow to realize that the main qualifications for such a degree were persistence and the ability to take out loans. This applies particularly to education: you can cut off two of my fingers, and I can count all the decent educations profs I ever had on one hand.
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p>I’ve had good and bad superintendents, yes, but at least they had some familiarity with their town. I don’t really want a superintendent making final decisions who needs a map to find my school, or my town.
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p>I just don’t see the savings. You’re rebaptizing our current administrators, and adding a layer or two on top of them. In addition to further shutting the community out of education, you’re mainly shuffling money upward from the town level, which seems to me not something that would result in significant across-the-board pay hikes, and significant savings.
First they came for the police chiefs
and fire chiefs, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a police chief or a fire chief.
Then they came for the police and firefighters,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a police man or fireman.
Then they came for the finance committee,
the cable committee, the school board,
and the selectboard,
and I couldn’t speak up,
because there was no one
left to listen to me.
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p>I’m only half-kidding. Tom, you may be exaggerating to make a point, but half the positions you name cost my town nothing. I believe in taking advantage of the economies of scale when cities and towns can work together. Small towns, for example, could share a town planner or perhaps purchase supplies and other services together.
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p>What you’re talking about, however, is the destruction of municipal democracy. Living in Brookline, that may the same thing to you that it does to me. I live in a small town, and I have a lot of reservations about eliminating opportunities for my fellow citizens to govern themselves. I also fear being subsumed by a more populous neighboring community. If you’ve ever witnessed a regional school committee trying to make a decision, you understand the difficulties of regionalization.
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p>From a financial point of view, municipalities may seem like arbitrary geographical constructions, but in reality, they are unique communities with their own identities.
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p>
I’ve lived in a small exurban Massachusetts town, I’ve lived in a larger Massachusetts town, my kids live on the North Shore. I’ve always been active in local government, I appreciate your perspective.
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p>The fly in the ointment is that the “municipal democracy” you describe has an associated cost. Perhaps half of the positions I listed cost nothing (though I doubt that even that is true if you consider all the costs). That means, though, that the other half must be paid for. When a town participates in a regional body, such as a regional school district (Groton-Dunstable comes to mind), the town pays a fee to participate. It isn’t free.
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p>Speaking of “municipal democracy”, I’d also like to point out that the quaint town meetings that we all hold so dear are among the least-workable mechanisms for effective decision making. Most towns have difficulty even getting a quorum, all of the real work is done before or after them, and every local politician knows the enormous variety of tricks that so easily circumvent or co-opt any claimed advantages. When was the last time you participated in a town meeting discussion about the town budget? How many participants had even seen the budget when the vote was taken, never mind in time to do any serious analysis?
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p>I think we all need to face, squarely, the fundamental question of how much we are willing to pay for the unique municipal democracies that we like. I suggest that we can’t have it both ways. I’m well aware of the enormous tension that creates, and I think we need to address that tension — and the very real issues that create it — squarely with our eyes wide open.
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p>By the way, you didn’t need to direct the half-kidding Hitler reference my way. I have and express strong opinions, and I also try hard to listen carefully — especially to those whose opinions differ from mine. Suggesting, even jokingly, that what I suggest is in any way comparable to the horrors you reference (particularly in today’s “security” climate) is not even halfway funny. We are, after all, still debating whether or not to prosecute an administration that ordered torture.
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p>Can we just talk in the future, please?
In fact, I wasn’t thinking of Hitler at all. What I was trying to get at was the slow chipping away of democracy your post seemed to imply. I have Niemoller’s saying on my classroom wall and see it everyday. Mea culpa, however, for my unintended connotations. My words, my bad.
no problem.
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p>I’m still new here, I just want to help folks better understand who I am and where I come from.
I think you both exaggerate both the costs of the existing system and the benefits of some sort of “regionalization.”
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p>Regionalizing zoning boards, planning boards… I don’t see much savings there. And why would I want someone from another town making a decision about my subdivision bylaw or business zone? Little, if any, savings, and what I’d call a serious blow to self-governance. Why not privatize the whole kit and kaboodle?
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p>Regionalizing schools? Not as simple as it seems. If the municipalities are close enough, it might save on buildings and personnel. Franklin County’s regional school systems are feeling a lot of stress, however, from the increasing cost of transportation. The population is sparse, the distances and terrain not inconsequential. Nonetheless, the Commonwealth has given seed money to some districts to explore regionalizing their schools. Hadley and Hatfield, for example.
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p>Out West, there’s been sharing going on. (I don’t know about the East). Franklin County, which has some of the smallest municipalities in the state, offers some shared financial services. Many of these towns lack police departments (state police respond) and rely on volunteer fire departments. Regionalizing would have no effect in these cases.
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p>If the choice is between a town meeting-selectboard or mayoral-city council setup(is there another choice?), I’ll stick with town meeting. It’s less the form of government than the quality of the government that causes problems. Town meeting isn’t necessarily better, but neither is a mayoral form of government. For every Brookline, there’s a Chicopee with its corrupt former mayor. A Springfield still reeling from years of corruption. I’m sure there are others, not Boston, of course, that have problems making good decisions..
about Brookline.
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p>Just because nothing has hit the papers doesn’t mean there isn’t corruption here. Take a look at the perfectly good sidewalks that were alongside Harvard Street five or years ago, the major contract to “improve” them — tear them up and replace them — and then take a look at what happened to them after just a year. They are a mess. Spalling concrete, poor drainage — somebody did somebody a perfectly legal favor.
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p>How about the much-touted “Beacon Street Redesign” — lots of money, lots of commotion, a huge disruption of neighborhood business — and because of an “unavoidable scheduling snafu”, the entire length of the brand-new pavement will be dug up again this year. That’s right. For new sewage pipes this time. It seems the contractors couldn’t get it straight. The fact that the town police will get twice as much overtime from construction details is just coincidental.
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p>
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p>Maybe not from another town. Maybe because a more professional planning board might not have a chairwoman who is married to the brother of the largest contractor in town. Check out the planning board of the town of Billerica, circa 1983. Maybe because a perfectly legal fifteen thousand dollar construction contract, placed with a brother-in-law, from the parent company of a planning board applicant might not seem like quite so much money to a better-compensated professional. Maybe because a local planning board chairwoman with a six-year term might still have significant influence over the outcome even if she recuses herself from a specific decision.
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p>Maybe having local attorneys appearing before local zoning boards to represent local contractors who are being offered hundred-thousand dollar contracts to build multimillion dollar developments in wetlands might not be the best way to protect those wetlands.
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p>Do you have any idea of what happened to value of open space in the town of Billerica between, say, 1980 and 1985? Do you have any idea of how over-matched the open-space proponents were when appearing before all those local zoning boards?
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p>I fear that you greatly exaggerate the benefits of local control, and even more greatly minimize the power of big business when it comes to influencing those local boards.
in effectiveness locally and farther up.
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p>Local control definitely has the potential for cronyism and corruption, but why is more distant control is better. Look no farther than our House Speaker or State Treasurer for conflicts of interest and cronyism.
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p>I think we agree that professionalism has its place in local government. My town hires are planning consultant because we can’t afford a paid position.
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p>The local planning board chair you speak of has conflict of interest issues that should be addressed with the state ethics commission. Recusal is not necessarily enough to avoid the conflict of interest. Complaints, incidentally, can be made anonymously.
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p>A better understanding of ethics law would go a long way in reining in such abuses. Still, that’s a quality of democracy issue, not a form of democracy issue.
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p>Yeah, these guys make big bucks, and they work many hours. I’m having a hard time seeing how there could be one chief for, say, Brookline-Newton-Waltham without having the current chiefs become Lt-chiefs or somesuch. You wouldn’t reduce management, you’d add to it by taking these management pyramids and putting them next to each other, the current chiefs forming the base for the new mega-chief.
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p>
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p>In Brookline: full of experts and work for free
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p>
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p>In Brookline: five selectmen with a combined salary of under $15,000.
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p>
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p>In Brookline: Rich Kelliher, salary over $100,00.
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p>
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p>In Brookline: 20ish members, and they work for free
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p>
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p>In Brookline: if I recall correctly, each member gets a stipend of like $25 per meeting or something. Certainly not a significant part of a $200 million budget.
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p>In Brookline: work for free, all those other committees and boards. The Transportation Board is full of experts, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee is full of experts, and down the line. And, they all do it for free.
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p>I’m not arguing that there isn’t a benefit to regional planning, but I don’t think that it replaces local department heads or local volunteers.
The fact that a planning board, zoning appeals board, or — for that matter, a building inspector — is uncompensated does not mean they are “free”. Sometimes — not always, but sometimes — one gets what you pay for.
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p>I don’t doubt that we can each choose individual points here and there that buttress our case.
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p>A different and perhaps more constructive approach might be too look at the question from a marginal cost/marginal benefit perspective. I wonder if we are, in fact, looking at a local optimum, where the perceived marginal cost/benefit of changing a fire chief here and planning board there is viewed as too small to be worth the hassle — and yet where, because of that small and localized effect, we are as a whole systematically driven away from a much more favorable global optimum.
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p>The “value proposition”, as I see it, is the assertion that taken in the large, the benefits of a larger number of lower paid locally selected public employees outweigh the benefits of a smaller number of higher paid (and presumably therefore better qualified) number public employees over which local residents have less control.
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p>Until, say, the 1980s — prop 2 1/2 in particular — I agree that the above value proposition swung in favor of the traditional highly-local approach. My own reading of the current situation, especially given the deep and structural damage done by 25 years of relentless tax-cutting, is that the outcome of the above value proposition may have now swung in the other direction.
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p>There are some tasks that we are better able to do ourselves. Lots of folks change their own oil and paint their own houses. I suggest that all of us have, collectively — Republicans and Democrats alike — done so little for so long that the not only does the roof leak, but the rafters are rotted, the joists and carrying beams are shot, the cellar masonry is collapsing, and the sills are sagging.
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p>The house is falling down, and I suggest that the house needs the investment of a significant amount of money and that the work needs to be done by skilled, highly-paid, and very experienced professionals.
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p>The problems we face are, in my opinion, far far beyond the capability of local governing bodies — at least any local governing body I’ve seen in my thirty five years of participation in Massachusetts local politics.
Your state income taxes at the higher rate this year?
Nope.
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p>Did you drive on roads this year? Benefit from police/fire protection? Kids go to school?
about the need to pay more taxes, and don’t pay their MA state income taxes at the higher rate, are hypocrites on the order of war hawks who “don’t feel the need” to join the military in a time of war. You have no credibility, and your point is a non-starter.
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p>
Your point is as moot as the “optional” higher rate. I am indeed willing and prepared to pay higher meals taxes in my locality, as well as those on booze and candy. That I haven’t gotten a “head start” with my state income tax is a stinky red herring.
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p>What’s your point again?
Honestly.
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p>In my short time here, I’ve noticed that you, more than anyone else, seem to advocate—strenuously—for the need to pay more taxes. And then when you get called out on it, you make the hand-wringing appeal about the poor, poor public sector employees, as if it’s the duty of MA taxpayers to ensure they never go hungry.
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p>If you’re really that concerned about the poor, poor public sector employees, Charley, you can help them out yourself by paying your income taxes at the higher rate. You have that option here in MA. But you don’t do it. You don’t put your money where your mouth is. None of you progressives do. If every one of you tax-loving progressives put your money where your mouths were, and paid extra, perhaps you’d be able to save all those poor, poor public sector employees that you’re so worried about.
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p>But you don’t. You love to talk about the need and the duty to pay more in taxes, but when you have a chance to do it, you don’t. You’re like the war hawk who’s too cowardly to put on a uniform and join the front lines. You’re like a preacher who acts all high and mighty in public but sins like a Hell’s Angel when the world’s not watching.
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p>So unless you’re willing to pony up extra without the world watching you—without the government sticking a gun in your face—it behooves you to clam up about higher taxes of any kind. Talking is one thing, doing is quite another.
Conserve energy because it’s a good idea; you don’t need a law for it to be a good idea.
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p>Support gun control; don’t buy a gun.
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p>Save the animals; don’t buy fur.
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p>We need more taxes; voluntarily pay more in tax…hey, no way dude! that’s real money.
Taxes are something that everyone needs to pay together. I’m not going to optionally pay higher taxes so that you can ride for free. I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes knowing that we are all in this together, everyone follows the same rules.
What a bunch of shit while so many proponent of getting more and more money from higher income earners while 50% of the public pays no income taxes. We are not in this together and the country would die on the vine if it were not for higher income earners. Please don’t espouse this togetherness bullshit while you ask for incredibly divergent amounts on taxes from each end of the income spectrum.
Because of those 50% of people not paying taxes, 75% make more than $250,00 annually.
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p>And I’ll show you the data to back up that statistic, if you show me the data that backs up yours.
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p>By the way if all you right-wingers really are so concerned about people paying there fair share in this state, I hope all of you supported the closure of the corporate tax loopholes that allowed multibillion dollar companies to get away with paying less than $1,000 in corporate taxes.
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p>And I definately have the figures to back THAT up…
You sure about that?
Lots of places to get the data but here’s some one… go read it.
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p>The top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006
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p> The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%.
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p>The top 50% paid 97.1%. So actually you were right in that the bottom 50% of Americans did pay about 3% of the US income tax collection. Thanks to all those millions of people for their measly contributions.
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p>These numbers will of course have to be corrected after Obama’s rebates and refunds and tax decreases… with even less taxes from the bottom 50%.
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p>And when you get a chance, could you come back from fairy tale land and show me the “data” showing 75% of Americans make more than $250K annually? WTF planet are you living on?
the top 20% pay a lower share of their income in combined state and local taxes than any other quintile.
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p>The issue isn’t what share of total taxes are paid by rich people. The top 1% has a much greater share of the country’s wealth and income than it used to have, so it makes sense that it pays a higher percentage of the total tax.
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p>The relevant comparision is percentage of income paid. And, at least here in Mass., the rich pay a lower share.
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So if the top 10% of MA income earners moved to NH would you be happy?
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p>The “relevant” number is how much money gets paid period. lt’s stop calling people who aren’t poor rich too. The “rich people” who pay for that huge majority of the services the poor people use everyday should be thanked and not denigrated. Thank God they are here.
I pay gas tax to drive on roads, I pay RE tax for Fire/Police and I pay a private school to educate my offspring (while still paying RE tax to educate the offspring of others). I pay and pay and pay.
local officials from Hampshire and Franklin County on Saturday. After being pressed by several people from Shutesbury (a sort of rural suburb of Amherst) for an increase in the income tax rate with an exemption to prevent it from being regressive.
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p>Murray said the state had cut the income tax several years ago and more recently came close to eliminating it; she didn’t think that voters would support an increase.
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p>When she polled the room, however, the vast majority of people supported an increased income tax. Of course, here in the Happy Valley, we’re a bit more liberal.
Calling this a weak argument means you are not living this scenario at this time in your life, and for that, I am happy for you, because it sucks when you are living it.
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p>
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p>This is not a weak argument, it is a valid argument. Of course, these people who are struggling can cut out the soda, candy, and alcohol, most likely they already have,
and they will probably not dine out or go on vacation anyway so the taxes being discussed are irrelevant to them. But in the argument against other taxes, such as the gas tax, it will directly impact these people, and does make a valid case against a gas tax.
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p>Using the “we care” approach as an argument for raising taxes is starting to wear really thin.
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p>The taxes on alcohol, candy, and soda are fine with me,but don’t gag me with the “we’re doing this because we care” approach. Really sickening and totally fed up with it.
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p>I am just waiting for the day that our government says I have to put a helmet on to walk out my front door, because I might trip and fall at some point during the day and crack my skull. If I refuse to wear a helmut, they will fine me when I file my tax returns. What do you think?
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p>At the rate we are going with creating taxes to stimulate behavior modification and to enhance personal safety, we can look at mandatory daily helmut safety in 2025. I’ll have to buy one in every color to match my wardrobe.
Not getting your point. Perhaps it’s a flaw of my juxtaposition, but I am certainly not denying that people feel economic pain, or that they have trouble making ends meet, or that taxation plays into that.
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p>The question is on whom and what does the pain fall. Sure, a gas tax is a bummer. But stuff doesn’t fund itself, and we seem to be utterly incapable in this state of having a tax system that falls more on the wealthy, thereby causing less actual, consequential deprivation — like not being able to pay the heating bill. Maybe a progressive income tax would be preferable, i.e. more progressive, to a gas tax. But it’s a political non-starter.
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p>So in the absence of that … Look, you can squeeze the balloon at one end, but it’s going to bulge on the other. That’s my point.
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p>As far as the helmets … you’ve really lost me.
Who can argue with who should pay more…when you compare
a 75,000/yr income to a 250,000/yr income. The definition of who is poor has changed. People earning 60-80,000 dollars a year are in reality poor, and struggle to pay their mortgage, car payment, heat, electric, real estate taxes, groceries, medical bills, insurance and more. I can’t imagine how people who make 30,000/yr survive, except that they are eligible for many government funded programs. A progressive tax would take the burden off the struggling middle class. But as you said, it is probably not going to happen.
The helmet thing is about personal freedom and how government is using taxes and fees to control people. If we let them, they will take it too far.
You said, “Please don’t tell unions what their job is?” I wasn’t addressing unions, I was merely posting on BMG.
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p>Yes, unions have no statutory control over jobs. So what? As far as my local goes, stick to something you know.
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p>Here’s from today’s Daily Hampshire Gazette [subscription required]:
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p>
.
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p>I guess Professor Weinbaum doesn’t know what she’s talking about.