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CLT UPDATE
Sunday, April 22, 2018

Behind the curtains maneuvering on ballot questions


Sometime this spring, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will decide whether the so-called Fair Share Amendment can appear on the state ballot in November. The proposal would amend the Commonwealth’s constitution, which for more than 100 years has decreed that income may be taxed only at a uniform rate. If approved, the initiative would subject anyone with more than $1 million in income to a surtax 4 percentage points higher than the state’s regular income tax rate of 5.1 percent. The tax on million-dollar-plus incomes would thus rise to 9.1 percent — a prodigious 80 percent increase in the marginal tax rate.

Left-wing advocates have long resented the flat-rate income tax. They’ve repeatedly tried to get voters to approve an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution doing away with it. Five times they have sponsored ballot initiatives to open the door to graduated tax rates. Five times voters have said no.

The latest effort, spearheaded by a coalition of labor unions and progressive activists called Raise Up Massachusetts, comes with two twists....

Neither claim holds up to scrutiny....

The Fair Share amendment may be well intended, but it combines bad policy with bad constitutional drafting. If the SJC doesn’t spike this initiative, the voters certainly should.

The Boston Globe
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
SJC should spike proposed millionaires tax
By Jeff Jacoby


Democratic legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker are hoping to reach deals that would keep some prospective ballot questions from reaching voters in November, but they're running short on time and their bargaining clout appears limited.

One initiative petition filed by Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition that includes unions, community activists and clergy, would gradually raise the state's minimum wage from the current $11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022. It would also raise the hourly sub-minimum wage for tipped workers, such as restaurant workers, from $3.75 to $9 in that same period.

The same group has offered a second proposed ballot question that would require all workers in the state to have access to paid family and medical leave.

Backers say a $15 minimum wage and paid leave would help lift many of the state's workers out of poverty and assure they do not have to choose between their livelihoods or caring for their families.

Several business groups, including the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts and the National Federation of Independent Business, say the measures could put some small employers out of business or force them to raise prices for consumers.

Enter the Legislature, which could try to fashion a compromise and avoid an expensive campaign to woo voters. But there is no consensus on what such an agreement might entail.

Associated Press
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Middle ground sought on minimum wage, paid leave proposals


Unless lawmakers can work a small miracle, a referendum question on raising the minimum wage will be on ballots in November.

Beacon Hill has limited time to get an acceptable compromise solution through the normal legislative process and avoid an expensive and contentious campaign on the issue. And the proponents of the higher minimum have the prerogative to reject any half measure they believe falls short of their goals.

The big player in this initiative is called Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition that includes unions, community activists and clergy. Their petition would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage from the current $11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022. It would also raise the hourly sub­minimum wage for tipped worker, such as restaurant workers, from $3.75 to $9 in that same period....

As economist Milton Friedman said about them, “There are always in these cases two groups of sponsors — there are the well-meaning sponsors and there are the special interests who are using the well-meaning sponsors as front men.”

In this case, the well-meaning sponsors are the community activists and clergy and the special interests are the many powerful unions (19 listed on the Raise Up Massachusetts website) behind the measure. The Massachusetts Teachers Association alone contributed nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to the campaign.

Many union contracts are tied to the minimum wage so when it goes up so do their wages. Further, a minimum wage increase would also mean that nonunion labor would become more expensive, allowing union labor to stay competitive. Ultimately, this will cause more businesses to go under, but what do the unions care if the pie has shrunk as long as they have a bigger piece of it?

A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Wage hike a bad deal


The message from House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Harriette Chandler was clear: They wanted the business, labor, and progressive leaders they had called to the State House to solve a multi-pronged problem for them — a problem that could both blow a hole in the state’s budget and, some fear, hurt its business climate.

In short, the two legislative leaders tasked the group with hammering out a compromise that lawmakers could pass, thereby derailing three of the questions headed toward the November ballot. That trio: a measure to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022, another to require Massachusetts companies to offer 16 weeks of paid family leave and 26 weeks of medical leave, and a third to cut the state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 5 percent. Estimates of the lost revenue of the last are $1.2 to $1.3 billion.

All this plays out against the backdrop of another matter that may be on the ballot: a proposed constitutional amendment that would raise $1.9 billion or so by imposing a 4 percent income tax surtax on earnings above $1 million a year.

In the room last week: Deb Fastino and Lew Finfer, cochairs of Raise Up Massachusetts, the union-progressive-religious coalition behind the three ballot questions, and Tim Foley and Chris Condon from the Service Employees International Union, a crucial part of that coalition; Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts; John Regan, executive vice president for government affairs at the Associated Industries of Massachusetts; J.D. Chesloff, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable; and Christopher Carlozzi, Massachusetts director of the National Federation of Independent Business; plus a handful of legislators, including House majority leader Ron Mariano.

Several political realities will likely set the contours for the negotiations.

First, Hurst and his retailers have considerable leverage here, since it’s their sales-tax-cut question that spurred the two legislative leaders to set these negotiations in motion. Why? Because if that question passes, and the millionaires tax is knocked off the ballot by the legal challenge currently before the Supreme Judicial Court (or if it stays on the ballot but loses), state coffers would be $1.2 billion or so poorer.

Second, if the millionaires tax survives this court challenge, it’s politically easier for the Retailers Association of Massachusetts to push ahead with its sales tax cut. If both pass, state government would still see a net revenue gain of at least $600 million, while the association would achieve significant sales tax relief. Which means that if the SJC keeps the millionaires tax on the ballot, the retailers group could then demand more in return for abandoning its ballot question. Contrariwise, if the SJC smites the millionaires tax, the retailers, frustrated but responsible political players, would likely be more amenable to cutting a deal.

The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Behind the ballot-question scene on Beacon Hill
By Scot Lehigh


The downward spiral in state matching funds for communities that have agreed to local tax hikes to pay for Community Preservation Act investments has grown so severe that state lawmakers are now pushing for a deeds fee increase.

According to the Community Preservation Coalition, the base state match was 17.2 percent last year and the Department of Revenue is now projecting it will fall to 11.5 percent when the state distributes CPA Trust Fund revenues in November....

The dwindling state matching funds, even in the face of record state spending, have chipped away at the idea that the program is a partnership, with local voters in recent years shouldering the bulk of the program costs.

State House News Service
Friday, April 20, 2018
Support for deeds fee increase growing in House


House Session Thursday, April 19, 2018

The Massachusetts House on Thursday gave its initial approval for "Roadrunner," the Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers ode to driving on Route 128 with music blaring, to be the official rock song of the commonwealth. The push to enshrine the song about driving "faster miles an hour" as the official rock song of Massachusetts began with then-Rep. Marty Walsh. Despite fans turning out to State House hearings to push for the Modern Lovers song, lawmakers have never brought the bill to the floor of either branch for a vote.

The House also gave its initial approval Thursday to a bill that would make Bell's Seasoning a mix of rosemary, oregano, sage, ginger, marjoram, thyme and pepper produced by a Weymouth-based company the official seasoning of the commonwealth.

The House also advanced legislation of local importance to Abington, Ayer, Haverhill, Hopkinton and Westminster.

The House will meet next on Monday in a full formal session the start of House budget week.

State House News Service
Thursday, April 19, 2018
House Session


Chip Ford's CLT Commentary

There's not a whole lot going on in plain sight on Beacon Hill, but behind the curtains there's a lot of maneuvering over four big ballot questions with interlocking consequences.  The multiple win-lose potential scenarios are daunting, but if The Takers should prevail over The Providers of all government spending there won't be enough moving vans and U-Haul trucks available to handle the mass exodus out of this state.

That's not idle speculation or conjecture.  It is what is and has been happening in California as more and more of its beleaguered residents and businesses are bailing out as fast as they can:

The San Jose Mercury News
March 8, 2018

U-Haul prices reflect growing push to leave Silicon Valley
By Marisa Kendall


Highlighting the recent push to flee Silicon Valley, moving-truck rental company U-Haul charges much higher rates — in some cases more than 10 times higher — for travelers leaving the Bay Area, compared to those entering it.

It’s simple supply and demand, says Mark Perry, a finance and economics professor at the University of Michigan and scholar with the American Enterprise Institute think tank. As the Bay Area exodus continues, U-Haul is watching its trucks drive out of the region and not return — leaving the company with a shortage in the area, Perry wrote in a blog post. So the company is raising and lowering its prices accordingly.

“They’re almost paying people to get the trucks back into San Jose,” he said in an interview. That suggests “there’s a huge outflow, and a lot of outbound moves leaving the area, and very few moves coming in.”

Moving from San Jose to Las Vegas, Nevada? You’ll shell out $945 to rent a 10-foot U-Haul truck, and $1,990 to rent a 26-foot truck, for up to four days, according to the U-Haul website. But make the move in the other direction, and you’ll pay $119 for a 10-foot truck and $132 for a 26-foot truck....

Moving company North American Van Lines, which publishes an annual report on migration trends, last year found California was one of the top five states people left — a distinction the state has never had before.

What's causing the mass exodus from the once-known-as "Golden State"?  The motivation in large part is the cost of doing business and the overburden of taxation.

In May of 2014 the American Enterprise Institute reported ("The California exodus to Texas is reflected in market-based, one-way U-Haul truck rental prices," by Mark J. Perry):

“When you look at the whole package, it’s difficult to be a business here,” lamented Torrance (Calif.) Mayor Frank Scotto, whose community on the edge of the Pacific will suffer as the jobs migrate to Texas.

The Torrance mayor is right about the difficulty of being a business in California. According to Forbes, California ranks as the 12th worst state in the country for doing business, while Texas ranks as the 7th best state for business overall, and No. 1 for “economic climate.” The Tax Foundation ranks Texas No. 11 for state tax climate, while California ranks second-worst in the country at No. 49.

An interesting and revealing market-based measure of the relative attractiveness (and migration patterns) of the two states is to compare the cost of a one-way U-Haul truck going from California to Texas vs. the cost going in the other direction.

The cost of a one-way U-Haul truck leaving California for Texas is more than twice the cost to rent that same truck going from Texas to California, suggesting that there are twice as many trucks and people leaving California for Texas than vice-versa. Based on the huge difference in demand for one-way truck rentals, there is a premium of more than 100% for Californians to rent trucks going to Texas, and large discounts for trucks going in the opposite direction to California. U-Haul’s market-based pricing seems to confirm the California exodus to Texas of jobs, people and businesses like Toyota and Occidental.

This situation will soon be coming to our state if The Takers prevail in November and Massachusetts doesn't even have California's famous climate to fall back on.  Massachusetts — "The Pay State" — has been closing in on capturing California's long-held title as "The Land of Fruits and Nuts."  Passage of The Takers' troika of confiscatory ballot questions in November could well put this commonwealth over the top and beyond reclamation.

Even our state legislators — if you can believe it — can see the headlight of this speeding freight train bearing down the tracks at us.  But The Takers are bent on no compromise, no backing down, on irrevocably transforming Massachusetts.

"We're not interested in making a concession that hurts workers or leaves anyone behind on these issues," said Andrew Farnitano, a spokesman for The Takers coalition.

If The Takers and their multi-millions of special interest unions' campaign dollars prevail in November, when the working millionaires run for the borders, when large businesses relocate to elsewhere with more hospitable business climates, when mom-and-pop shops start shuttering their small businesses and adding to the unemployment rolls, when the rest of us must pay more when we shop locally, when we need to make up the taxes those banished victims are no longer paying but the state keeps spending at the rate of an additional billion dollars every year then we too may soon be looking for one of those expensive and rare moving vans to join the exodus.

We must make sure this never happens in Massachusetts.

Chip Ford
Executive Director


 
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, April 11, 2018

SJC should spike proposed millionaires tax
By Jeff Jacoby


Sometime this spring, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will decide whether the so-called Fair Share Amendment can appear on the state ballot in November. The proposal would amend the Commonwealth’s constitution, which for more than 100 years has decreed that income may be taxed only at a uniform rate. If approved, the initiative would subject anyone with more than $1 million in income to a surtax 4 percentage points higher than the state’s regular income tax rate of 5.1 percent. The tax on million-dollar-plus incomes would thus rise to 9.1 percent — a prodigious 80 percent increase in the marginal tax rate.

Left-wing advocates have long resented the flat-rate income tax. They’ve repeatedly tried to get voters to approve an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution doing away with it. Five times they have sponsored ballot initiatives to open the door to graduated tax rates. Five times voters have said no.

The latest effort, spearheaded by a coalition of labor unions and progressive activists called Raise Up Massachusetts, comes with two twists.

One is a lament about inequality. The coalition decries the fact that the richest Massachusetts households pay a smaller share of their income in state and local taxes than other households do. While Bay State tax filers in the top 1 percent expend less than 5 percent of their income on state and local taxes, those in the bottom quintile pay more than 10 percent. In the face of such an unfair and regressive tax system, argue the amendment’s drafters, boosting the income tax rate paid by the very wealthy is a matter of simple fairness.

The other twist is an assurance that Beacon Hill won’t have carte blanche when it comes to spending the annual $1.9 billion the new surtax is optimistically projected to raise. The Legislature will instead be restricted from using the funds for anything other than what Raise Up Massachusetts calls “much-needed investments in transportation and public education.”

Neither claim holds up to scrutiny.

For starters, the Massachusetts income tax is anything but regressive. Households making more than $1 million collect 19 percent of all the income in Massachusetts — but they fork over 29 percent of all the income tax paid to the state. Households making $75,000 or less, by contrast, account for 23 percent of all income earned in Massachusetts, but generate merely 7 percent of the income tax revenue. By any yardstick, that’s a highly progressive arrangement.

Without violating the constitutional requirement of a uniform tax rate, the Legislature has fashioned an income tax burden that falls much more steeply on the wealthy. Thanks to various deductions and credits, taxpayers in the lowest quintile pay an effective income tax rate of only 0.8 percent. Those in the highest quintile pay an effective rate of 4.2 percent — more than five times greater.

The regressive tax system that critics bewail is a function entirely of sales and property levies. If liberal activists want to lighten a tax bite that disproportionately affects those at the bottom of the economic ladder, those are the taxes they should be targeting. But skewing an already progressive income tax system even more sharply against the wealthy is the very opposite of a “Fair Share” reform.

Equally misleading is the suggestion that revenue from a millionaires tax will mean more funding for education and transportation. True, the proposed amendment declares that the money “shall be expended” only for those purposes. But Beacon Hill already expends far more on education and transportation than the $1.9 billion the surtax will supposedly raise. The MBTA budget alone is about $2 billion. In the most recent state budget, $7.1 billion goes for education.

If the amendment passes, the Legislature will be under no obligation to change anything. The measure doesn’t say that spending on education and transportation must be increased. It doesn’t say that spending may not be decreased. It says only that revenue from the surtax must not be used for any other purpose. Since dollars are fungible, lawmakers could effortlessly meet that obligation by affirming that $1.9 billion of the education or transportation budget had been funded through the new tax.

The Fair Share amendment may be well intended, but it combines bad policy with bad constitutional drafting. If the SJC doesn’t spike this initiative, the voters certainly should.
 

Associated Press
Saturday, April 14, 2018

Middle ground sought on minimum wage, paid leave proposals


BOSTON — Democratic legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker are hoping to reach deals that would keep some prospective ballot questions from reaching voters in November, but they're running short on time and their bargaining clout appears limited.

One initiative petition filed by Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition that includes unions, community activists and clergy, would gradually raise the state's minimum wage from the current $11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022. It would also raise the hourly sub-minimum wage for tipped workers, such as restaurant workers, from $3.75 to $9 in that same period.

The same group has offered a second proposed ballot question that would require all workers in the state to have access to paid family and medical leave.

Backers say a $15 minimum wage and paid leave would help lift many of the state's workers out of poverty and assure they do not have to choose between their livelihoods or caring for their families.

Several business groups, including the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts and the National Federation of Independent Business, say the measures could put some small employers out of business or force them to raise prices for consumers.

Enter the Legislature, which could try to fashion a compromise and avoid an expensive campaign to woo voters. But there is no consensus on what such an agreement might entail.

Lawmakers have only until the end of the month to act on the petitions, after which the sponsors may begin collecting the additional 10,792 signatures for each measure to secure a spot on the ballot. Negotiations could continue beyond May 1, but once the additional signatures are certified in early July there would be no legal means for removing the questions from the November ballot, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Both measures are currently before the Legislature's Labor and Workforce Development Committee. Members of both panels told a recent gathering of small business owners in Boston they were concerned about the economic ramifications of the proposed ballot questions and would prefer compromise.

"We are listening to you because we are concerned about the minimum wage going too high and the tipped minimum and what paid family and medical leave would do," said Democrat Jason Lewis, the Senate chair of the committee.

But lawmakers acknowledged they have little power to impose any middle ground, as Raise Up Massachusetts could simply reject any changes to the proposals.

"At the end of the day we don't hold the cards — they do," said Lewis. "And if it isn't an agreement they find acceptable they will go to the ballot."

Baker also told the small business owners that he hoped the minimum wage and paid leave issues would be settled "in the context of the legislative process," though the governor has yet to formally take a position on either proposal.

Raise Up Massachusetts said it hoped the Legislature would approve the proposals in their current form or with minor technical revisions but appeared reluctant to cut any deal resulting in substantial changes.

"We're not interested in making a concession that hurts workers or leaves anyone behind on these issues," said Andrew Farnitano, a spokesman for the coalition.

Retailers like Neil Abramson, chief financial officer of a company that operates several consignment stores in Leominster, called for lawmakers to find a "reasonable solution." Instead of helping workers, he feared the cost of increasing the minimum wage could force the company to trim hours or staff.

Douglas Bacon, president of Red Paint Hospitality Group, owners of several neighborhood bars and restaurants in Boston, said the proposed increase in the minimum wage for tipped employees would be "devastating" for small eateries.

"We will have to raise our prices dramatically to cover that 150 percent increase," he said.

But supporters of the minimum wage and family leave measures say the concerns of business owners are overstated. They also point to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a national group of employers that has supported efforts to raise wages for the lowest-paid workers in several states.


The Boston Herald
Wednesday, April 18, 2018

A Boston Herald editorial
Wage hike a bad deal


Unless lawmakers can work a small miracle, a referendum question on raising the minimum wage will be on ballots in November.

Beacon Hill has limited time to get an acceptable compromise solution through the normal legislative process and avoid an expensive and contentious campaign on the issue. And the proponents of the higher minimum have the prerogative to reject any half measure they believe falls short of their goals.

The big player in this initiative is called Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition that includes unions, community activists and clergy. Their petition would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage from the current $11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022. It would also raise the hourly sub­minimum wage for tipped worker, such as restaurant workers, from $3.75 to $9 in that same period.

On their website, they describe themselves as “committed to building an economy that works for all of us. An economy that invests in families, gives everyone the opportunity to succeed, and creates broadly shared prosperity.”

At a glance, a minimum wage hike seems like a compassionate measure.

For our example, fast food monolith ACME Burger Co. pays cashier Sheila a paltry $11 per hour to smile, take orders and maybe upsell us on cookies­. Sheila would technically be considered a low-skilled worker but she’s a solid cashier. Government comes in after being given a mandate from voters to create some “broadly shared prosperity” and ACME must now pay her $15 an hour.

Excellent. The economy is working for all now, right?

Wrong.

ACME Burger Co. will most likely pay for this wage hike by cutting back on Sheila’s hours or laying off one of her co-workers, and in the meantime, they will invest in the technology to replace as many workers as possible. This is not in the far-distant future. Some McDonald’s franchises and other big chains already feature self-service kiosks for ordering right here in Massachusetts, and Amazon, which now owns Whole Foods, is experimenting with entirely cashier­less grocery stores.

But of course, the neighborhood mom-and-pop shops won’t be able to afford that kind of infrastructure, so what will they do? They cannot just keep raising prices and hope that consumers will choose to absorb the costs rather than shopping at bigger competitors or online retailers. Many will probably face the choice of layoffs or closing their businesses altogether.

So while Raise Up Massachusetts says that they want to “make sure workers can earn a living wage of $15 an hour,” what they will really achieve is to make sure workers won’t be allowed to earn less than that. And once employers adjust or close up shop accordingly, quite a few workers may find that they are left out of the promised prosperity.

The compulsion to help someone like Sheila is laudable but raising the minimum wage is much more likely to result in Sheilas everywhere being shut out of the workforce.

The forces behind the minimum wage hike are powerful and it is helpful to know their motivations.

As economist Milton Friedman said about them, “There are always in these cases two groups of sponsors — there are the well-meaning sponsors and there are the special interests who are using the well-meaning sponsors as front men.”

In this case, the well-meaning sponsors are the community activists and clergy and the special interests are the many powerful unions (19 listed on the Raise Up Massachusetts website) behind the measure. The Massachusetts Teachers Association alone contributed nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to the campaign.

Many union contracts are tied to the minimum wage so when it goes up so do their wages. Further, a minimum wage increase would also mean that nonunion labor would become more expensive, allowing union labor to stay competitive. Ultimately, this will cause more businesses to go under, but what do the unions care if the pie has shrunk as long as they have a bigger piece of it?

Ultimately the endeavor is fruitless for the well-meaning, a temporary inconvenience for big corporations, unworkable for small businesses, bountiful for the unions, and terrible for Sheila.


The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 19, 2018

Behind the ballot-question scene on Beacon Hill
By Scot Lehigh


The message from House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Harriette Chandler was clear: They wanted the business, labor, and progressive leaders they had called to the State House to solve a multi-pronged problem for them — a problem that could both blow a hole in the state’s budget and, some fear, hurt its business climate.

In short, the two legislative leaders tasked the group with hammering out a compromise that lawmakers could pass, thereby derailing three of the questions headed toward the November ballot. That trio: a measure to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022, another to require Massachusetts companies to offer 16 weeks of paid family leave and 26 weeks of medical leave, and a third to cut the state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 5 percent. Estimates of the lost revenue of the last are $1.2 to $1.3 billion.

All this plays out against the backdrop of another matter that may be on the ballot: a proposed constitutional amendment that would raise $1.9 billion or so by imposing a 4 percent income tax surtax on earnings above $1 million a year.

In the room last week: Deb Fastino and Lew Finfer, cochairs of Raise Up Massachusetts, the union-progressive-religious coalition behind the three ballot questions, and Tim Foley and Chris Condon from the Service Employees International Union, a crucial part of that coalition; Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts; John Regan, executive vice president for government affairs at the Associated Industries of Massachusetts; J.D. Chesloff, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable; and Christopher Carlozzi, Massachusetts director of the National Federation of Independent Business; plus a handful of legislators, including House majority leader Ron Mariano.

Several political realities will likely set the contours for the negotiations.

First, Hurst and his retailers have considerable leverage here, since it’s their sales-tax-cut question that spurred the two legislative leaders to set these negotiations in motion. Why? Because if that question passes, and the millionaires tax is knocked off the ballot by the legal challenge currently before the Supreme Judicial Court (or if it stays on the ballot but loses), state coffers would be $1.2 billion or so poorer

Second, if the millionaires tax survives this court challenge, it’s politically easier for the Retailers Association of Massachusetts to push ahead with its sales tax cut. If both pass, state government would still see a net revenue gain of at least $600 million, while the association would achieve significant sales tax relief. Which means that if the SJC keeps the millionaires tax on the ballot, the retailers group could then demand more in return for abandoning its ballot question. Contrariwise, if the SJC smites the millionaires tax, the retailers, frustrated but responsible political players, would likely be more amenable to cutting a deal.

The retailers association’s ballot question has given it real clout — clout it isn’t likely to bargain away cheaply, particularly since Hurst thinks the retail sector’s concerns too often get short shrift on Beacon Hill. Indeed, he says the impetus for the ballot question came when, in the space of a few weeks in 2016, lawmakers exempted fulfillment centers (things like Amazon’s Fall River distribution warehouse) but not retailers from paying time and a half for Sunday and holiday work, and then spurned the association’s request to continue the sales-tax-free summer weekend that retailers have used to promote sales.

The retailers’ must-have conditions for a deal, Hurst says, are eliminating time and a half pay on Sunday and holidays — something in effect only here and in Rhode Island — and at least some sales tax relief. Labor is said to be adamant about the minimum wage hike, but open to a (time-limited) training wage and willing to negotiate on Sunday and holiday time and a half. Other business groups are more concerned about the costs of the paid leave ballot question than the prospect of another sizable minimum wage hike.

So the players are now at the table, preparing for a political poker game. It will begin in earnest as soon as the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling on the millionaires tax clarifies just what the stakes will be.


State House News Service
Friday, April 20, 2018

Support for deeds fee increase growing in House
By Michael P. Norton

The downward spiral in state matching funds for communities that have agreed to local tax hikes to pay for Community Preservation Act investments has grown so severe that state lawmakers are now pushing for a deeds fee increase.

According to the Community Preservation Coalition, the base state match was 17.2 percent last year and the Department of Revenue is now projecting it will fall to 11.5 percent when the state distributes CPA Trust Fund revenues in November.

With support from House Minority Leader Brad Jones, 70 House members have signed on to a budget amendment (#466) that Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Kate Hogan plan to offer during next week's House budget debate that would increase deed fees to make more state money available for the CPA. Other Republicans who have signed on to support the fee amendment are Reps. Angelo D'Emilia, Timothy Whelan, William Crocker Jr., and Matthew Moratore. Independents Susannah Whipps and Solomon Goldstein-Rose are also cosponsors.

Voters in Boston, Springfield, Pittsfield, Holyoke, Chelsea and Watertown recently adopted the CPA, agreeing to local tax increases in exchange for matching funds from the state to finance local housing, historic preservation and open space projects. The dwindling state matching funds, even in the face of record state spending, have chipped away at the idea that the program is a partnership, with local voters in recent years shouldering the bulk of the program costs.

 

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml


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