CLT
UPDATE
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Taxpayers continue sending a
powerful message
Update on the underwhelming numbers of Massachusetts citizens opting to pay their state income taxes at the old, higher rate of 5.85 percent, rather than at the current 5.3 percent rate.
With 1.9 million state returns now processed, the Department of Revenue reports that exactly 955 filers have decided to pay at the higher rate. That works out to one-twentieth of 1 percent. Oddly, when the tax cut appeared on the ballot, 41 percent of the statewide electorate voted against it. Given an opportunity to put up or shut up, they shut up.
The extra money raised by the 955 liberal stalwarts: $115,488. Which means their average income was less than $25,000.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
The Buzz: Whine more, pay less
With local aid on the State House chopping block, cities and towns are hitting up residents for Proposition
2½ overrides in numbers not seen since the early 1990s economic meltdown.
The override outbreak leaves homeowners across the state with a whammy of a choice this spring: swallow big property tax hikes or see their schools, police stations and firehouses gutted by layoffs.
In several cases the proposed overrides would whack owners of average homes with more than $500 a year in new property taxes....
The Massachusetts Municipal Association is tracking property-tax increase plans in more than 65 communities and the number climbs weekly. By comparison, just 38 towns sought overrides during the entire year of fiscal 2001, state figures show.
"Obviously, communities are on the edge of a financial abyss and doing everything they can to keep from plummeting over the edge," MMA Executive Director Geoffrey Beckwith said.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Prop. 2½ override rampage:
Taxpayers face new run at wallet by town pols
The Mass. Teachers Association and the local hacks at every City and Town Hall must not have gotten the memo about tax increases.
The message is: People who work for a living are tapped out. There's nothing left. What part of the 45 percent vote last fall to abolish the state income tax did they not understand? ...
So what, say the hacks. We'll just jack up their property taxes. Let's have a vote to override Prop
2½! We'll tax the chumps back into the Stone Age and tell them it's ... for the children....
With several more override votes looming Tuesday, the payroll patriots are dusting off every trick in the book. Some towns now schedule the votes at previously unheard-of times, in order to depress the turnout.
On its Web site, the MTA refers to these stealth elections as "low-profile campaigns," and gives the helpful advice that when trying to sneak through a tax increase "you should refrain from issuing press releases or generating a lot of letters to the editor."
The MTA's commitment to democracy is touching, is it not?
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Tax overrides grow like weeds
by Howie Carr
The most politically charged of his Beacon Hill reforms up in smoke, Gov. Mitt Romney still might claim the public-relations victory in the battle to transform state government.
Though outflanked on his bid to oust University of Massachusetts President William M. Bulger, critics and supporters alike say the Republican's reform agenda has had an impact at the State House.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Gov vs. Beacon Hill: Advantage: Mitt
Undocumented aliens and their supporters demonstrated on City Hall Plaza yesterday for the same right to subsidized college educations that Americans and legal immigrants have....
The demonstration by about 100 people was held in support of U.S. House and Senate bills that would grant financial aid rights to illegal aliens who have lived here five years. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, a bill filed by Sen. Jarret Barrios (D-Cambridge) and Rep. Marie St. Fleur (D-Boston) would grant in-state tuition privileges.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Rally urges college aid for illegal immigrants
Senate Majority Leader Frederick E. Berry of Peabody, who represents the five communities whose leaders are calling for the tax hike, said new taxes won't come before the start of fiscal 2004, but they could surface later as a measure to reverse steep spending cuts to public safety, human services and other core services.
"I believe in my soul, that when people see that budget, with the cuts that will negatively impact families, police, fire and other core services, there may be support [for new taxes]," Berry said. "But not until then."
The Boston Globe (North)
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Making a plea for a reprieve
Communities beg state to raise taxes
Voters' rejection of a $46 million plan to build a third high school leaves school committee members scrambling for a solution to crowded classrooms and a deteriorating Plymouth North High School.
The Proposition 2½ override was defeated 3,910 to 2,832 in Saturday's town election. About 58 percent of the voters cast ballots against the override.
"I'm not surprised," school committee member Jane Freedman said. "Plymouth has a history of not supporting school building projects. I was hoping ... a concern for education would override people's concern for their economic condition, but that wasn't the case."
The Patriot Ledger
Monday, May 12, 2003
Plymouth voters reject override:
$46M plan to build 3rd high school
is rejected by 58% of balloters
It's difficult to determine whom legislators are more afraid of — their constituents or UMass President William Bulger.
The House, in a typical cowardly act last week, refused to go on record as to whether they supported the elimination of Bulger's office. Gov. Mitt Romney was trying to force the vote, saying the state could save $14 million by eliminating the president's office and its bloated staff. Legislators feared voting: If they supported Bulger, it would mean a vote for moral corruption. If they went against him, it would endanger their hack credentials.
A Brockton Enterprise editorial
Monday, May 12, 2003
Invertebrates serve in the Legislature
North of Boston residents voted convincingly for Republican Mitt Romney over Democrat Shannon O'Brien in last November's gubernatorial election (141,932 to 100,798 in Essex County). Furthermore, 44 percent of those casting ballots embraced Question 1, which called for elimination of the state income tax.
The message: Citizens of this region are sick and tired of business as usual on Beacon Hill. They want fundamental reform, and they want it now.
Waste, duplication, patronage and the Statehouse's byzantine array of special privileges may not account for all of the estimated $3 billion the state has to save in order to balance its budget in the fiscal year beginning July 1. But any waste and redundancy are too much as far as most taxpayers are concerned....
No one is talking higher taxes yet, but the underlying strategy on the House side appears to be, as one social services advocate put it to us recently, to "let people bleed" until the anti-tax sentiment abates or the economy improves.
A Lawrence Eagle-Tribune editorial
Monday, May 12, 2003
Reshape the government
Lawmakers are inching closer to allowing cities and towns to ratchet up a bevy of local taxes, after the rejection of efforts to hike taxes at the state level.
In a prelude to a debate slated for the end of this month, the Legislature's Taxation Committee yesterday aired a slew of bills to hike local levies on meals, off-street parking, entertainment events, billboards and telecommunication companies.
Lawmakers say they're scrambling for ways to help cities and towns as they struggle to absorb multiple rounds of local aid cuts and the looming possibility that school aid will be deeply slashed.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Legislature may give OK for local tax increases
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
For the overwhelming majority of the taxpaying
public, tax increases are dead on arrival. Even the 41 percent who voted
against our income tax rollback just two years ago have dramatically
changed their minds; all but 955 of the million-plus declined our
voluntary tax check-off option and instead have kept the tax savings
they once voted against.
45 percent voted just last year to outright abolish
the state income tax.
The tax-and-spenders are now desperately attempting
to hijack the language, daring not utter the "T" word,
replacing it with "revenue enhancements" and "revenue
increases." The current Massachusetts Teachers Association TV ad
blitz encourages viewers to contact their legislators and demand
"revenue increases" to "save our schools." You know
we're winning when our opponents are forced to blatantly revise their
vocabulary.
A week ago, Proposition 2½ overrides failed in
Saugus and Danvers. On Saturday Plymouth voters defeated a $46 million
override with 58 percent of the vote.
Yesterday, Braintree voters rejected two override
questions. Question One, a debt exclusion override, was defeated by 181
votes; Question Two, a general override, was rejected by over 1,000
votes. If both had passed, it would have added $252 to the average
resident's property tax bill.
In Randolph, voters yesterday rejected four overrides
by whopping margins, the biggest for $5.2 million by 78-22 percent. The
smallest for $2.5 million was defeated by 62 percent of the vote, coming
the closest to passing if you call that close.
"I believe in my soul, that when people see that budget, with the cuts that will negatively impact families, police, fire and other core services, there may be support [for new taxes],"
state Sen. Fred Berry (D-Peabody) proclaimed. As one tax-and-spend
advocate reportedly put it, "'let people bleed' until the anti-tax sentiment abates or the economy
improves."
I hope they and their ilk are paying attention, not
holding their collective breath. Nobody's buying their perennial
"the sky is falling" sob stories these days. We've heard it
all before and are tired of it, "compassion fatigue" has set
in heavily. This disgusting manipulation had its day but is now
recognized as a worn-out ploy. It's clearly not working this time.
Proposition 2½ empowers voters to decide just how
much of a tax burden they're willing to endure, how much government they
want to pay for again and again -- instead of having endless tax
increases imposed on them. Most citizens are sending a powerful message:
"Enough is enough! Find a way to manage with what you're already
taking from us!"
But it's not enough for some persistent tax-and-spend
liberal Democrats. They simply refuse to acknowledge the economic
reality and taxpayers' mandate. State Sen. Jarret Barrios (D-Cambridge) and Rep. Marie St. Fleur (D-Boston)
are even pushing a bill to provide higher education benefits for ...
illegal aliens!
The House is now considering "local option"
taxes so municipalities can unilaterally hike taxes regardless of the
public's "no new taxes" demand. It's eminently understandable
that legislators want to toss incessant tax hike demands of whining
municipal leaders back into their laps, let them make the unpopular
decisions. But the decision against higher taxes has been made, loudly
and clearly, by the citizenry. Elected "public servants" need
to recognize and accept it, not try to end-run their constituents'
mandate.
If adopted by the Legislature (which seems likely),
Governor Romney has threatened to veto these proposals unless they
include a mechanism for voter approval, which is better than nothing.
But how reluctant will local voters be to taxing others from outside
town who don't have a vote in the decision? If an additional meals or
other local option tax is adopted, out-of-towners' ultimate vote will be
whether they dine out or spend in a high-tax city or town. That decision
will only hurt or wipe out restaurants and other businesses in that
community, reducing its municipal tax base and eventually increasing a
homeowner's property tax.
The most serious threat however, is the Overlay exclusion. This was filed by several legislators as a possible tax increase, and may come up as part of the "municipal aid" package that is presently scheduled to be debated in the House on May
27.
The Overlay is the amount municipal assessors must set aside in the
event of abatements. It varies from community to community, from year to year, from less than
1 percent of the property tax levy to more than 5 percent. Eg., the statewide average in 1999 was 2.4 percent. If the Overlay account in that year had been excluded from Prop 2½, we would have had Prop
4.9 percent; the base levy increase would have almost doubled without an override.
The reason we're concerned about this is that excluding the Overlay was a pet project of Tom Finneran when he was Ways & Means Chairman. We defeated his attempt on the House floor in 1991, then Gov. Weld vetoed it when it finally did pass both branches, so Finneran gave up (for then). We'd not be surprised to see if resurface this month.
Government at all levels does not need additional
"revenue enhancement" in any guise. It already takes too much of our hard-earned income from far too many directions. It must
learn to live within its means like everyone else in the real world
does.
Government certainly doesn't need to expand even
further to provide for things like increased benefits for illegal
aliens. The next thing you know, some "compassionate"
legislator will propose subsidizing airfare to bring more illegals over!
Those incorrigible More Is Never Enough (MINE) socialist utopians will
never be satisfied until they have taken every cent we earn before we
ever see it.
|
|
|
Chip
Ford |
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Prop. 2½ override rampage:
Taxpayers face new run at wallet by town pols
by Thomas Caywood
With local aid on the State House chopping block, cities and towns are hitting up residents for Proposition 2½ overrides in numbers not seen since the early 1990s economic meltdown.
The override outbreak leaves homeowners across the state with a whammy of a choice this spring: swallow big property tax hikes or see their schools, police stations and firehouses gutted by layoffs.
In several cases the proposed overrides would whack owners of average homes with more than $500 a year in new property taxes.
"I don't know what I'm going to do. I have no idea," fretted 91-year-old Dorothy Luke of Melrose, where a $5.3 million override is on the table.
"If the tax goes up, it's going to kill a lot of us," Luke said. "Where do you go?"
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Bay State teachers, police officers, firefighters and other municipal workers might be asking the same question if recession-weary voters balk at the polls this spring.
The Massachusetts Municipal Association is tracking property-tax increase plans in more than 65 communities and the number climbs weekly. By comparison, just 38 towns sought overrides during the entire year of fiscal 2001, state figures show.
"Obviously, communities are on the edge of a financial abyss and doing everything they can to keep from plummeting over the edge," MMA Executive Director Geoffrey Beckwith said.
For many cities and towns, that means asking residents to reach deeper into their pockets. Proposition
2½ caps annual property-tax increases unless voters agree to pay more either through an override, which permanently raises taxes, or through a debt exclusion, which raises taxes for a set period to fund a specific project.
This year's override and debt-exclusion explosion was touched off by a roughly $230 million local-aid cut in the state spending plans floated by the House of Representatives and Gov. Mitt Romney, who has pledged not to raise taxes.
That pledge may offer little comfort, however, in communities facing stiff property-tax hikes.
"The governor's position is not one of no new taxes," said state Rep. Michael Festa (D-Melrose). "It is a straightforward shifting of the tax burden onto the property owners in these communities."
Romney spokeswoman Nicole St. Peter said the governor's proposed municipal-relief package would ease the pain of local-aid cuts, which she said were unavoidable given the gaping $3 billion state-budget shortfall.
"The voters in each community have a decision to make. They can vote up or down," St. Peter added. "They don't have that power to control state taxes."
Overrides and debt exclusions already have been shot down this year by voters in Cohasset, Stoughton, Wayland, Wellesley, Winchester and Westport, according to MMA.
Braintree residents, who have never OK'd an override, go to the polls Tuesday to vote on a pair of tax hikes that together would saddle the owner of an average home there with an extra $252 in property taxes next year.
"I would have to take it from my Social Security or my pension and be that much short each year," said Tony Mollica, an 83-year-old former Braintree selectman who said he already shells out about $4,000 a year in property tax.
Staggered by what's shaping up as a roughly $2 million cut in state money, Braintree will have to slash some jobs even with the tax hikes, Executive Secretary Terri Ackerman said. But defeat of both measures would unleash a torrent of pink slips for 97 school employees, 14 firefighters and nine cops.
Reading voters, who shot down overrides in 2000 and 2001, last month agreed to kick in an extra $4.5 million a year in taxes.
The alternative?
"I blocked it out," Town Manager Pete Hechenbleikner quipped.
But the prospect of whacking 30 jobs at Town Hall and another 70 in the schools is hard to forget.
"Police, firefighters, dispatchers, public works employees, clerks, the assistant treasurer-collector, teachers, teacher's aides," he said.
To head off that carnage, Reading voters agreed to have their property taxes jacked up by an average of $562 a year.
"It's big. It's a lot of money," Hechenbleikner conceded.
Final local aid figures for the fiscal year that begins July 1 are still up in the air, but communities aren't betting on a reprieve.
The owner of an average Melrose home would take a $596-a-year hit in the wallet if the override passes June 3.
"We know that it's going to be very ugly," said Andrew Gallup, a Melrose resident leading the effort to pass a $5.3 million override.
If the proposed property tax hike fails, Melrose Fire Chief Kevin Walsh will have to lay off nine jakes, nearly an entire shift, from a department already short eight people. Lopping off the bottom fifth of his department's seniority list also would boost the average age of his firefighters to 45.
"It's a real doomsday situation, to tell you the truth," Walsh said. "Those are the young kids that I have to throw into the fight. I call them my Marines."
Return to
top
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Tax overrides grow like weeds
by Howie Carr
The Mass. Teachers Association and the local hacks at every City and Town Hall must not have gotten the memo about tax increases.
The message is: People who work for a living are tapped out. There's nothing left. What part of the 45 percent vote last fall to abolish the state income tax did they not understand? The proposed statewide tax increases were voted down in the Legislature by an average margin of 111-37.
So what, say the hacks. We'll just jack up their property taxes. Let's have a vote to override Prop
2½! We'll tax the chumps back into the Stone Age and tell them it's ... for the children.
These local override votes are sprouting up this spring like fiddleheads. Unfortunately for the layabouts, nothing concentrates one's mind like an empty checking account, and the annual tax-hike season has not gotten off to a promising start.
It's hard to get statistics - the Mass. Municipal Association did not return a call - but in recent days, voters in both Danvers and Saugus have voted down overrides. That old for-the-children mantra just ain't working like it used to.
With several more override votes looming Tuesday, the payroll patriots are dusting off every trick in the book. Some towns now schedule the votes at previously unheard-of times, in order to depress the turnout.
On its Web site, the MTA refers to these stealth elections as "low-profile campaigns," and gives the helpful advice that when trying to sneak through a tax increase "you should refrain from issuing press releases or generating a lot of letters to the editor."
The MTA's commitment to democracy is touching, is it not?
One town where the hacks were able to push through a tax increase was Auburn, and apparently their success on April 29 led to a round of public-employee partying that didn't end until 2:38 a.m. last Sunday. That was when the Auburn school superintendent was, as the local paper reported, "arrested after failing a field sobriety test in the parking lot of Centerfolds 2000, a strip club on Route 20."
The Oxford police say Superintendent John F. Bourgoin "may have given one of the exotic dancers a hard time."
Whatever the superintendent was up to at that strip joint, he was surely doing it ... for the children.
The town where I live is about to hold its second Prop 2½ override vote of the year. The fact that the first one went down by a 56-44 margin has not deterred them one bit. There are no double-jeopardy clauses to protect taxpayers from avaricious town hacks.
So I've again got a VOTE NO sign up in the front yard, and in my mailbox this week, I found an unsigned handwritten note slamming me and my sign.
"OK, maybe you don't want to pay teachers," the hack scrawled. "But the override pays the salaries of firefighters who risk their lives everyday for you and are paid a pitance (sic) in comparison to your income."
Note the the traditional ruse of using the public-safety employees as hostages. I suspect the note was penned by a member of a teachers' union - the misspelling of a simple word like "pittance" is the giveaway.
"Shame on the ... families," it continues, "who won't pay an extra $300 a year to support the services from which they benefit."
Er, I believe I am paying for those "services." My tax bill is through the roof. But maybe the illiterate hack is right. Maybe I should vote for the override.
We do need higher property taxes, if not for the children, then at least for the lap-dancers at the Centerfolds 2000 strip club in Oxford.
Howie Carr's radio show can be heard every weekday afternoon on WRKO AM 680, WHYN AM 560, WGAN AM 560, WEIM AM 1280, and WXTK 95.1 FM.
Return to
top
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Gov vs. Beacon Hill: Advantage: Mitt
Analysis/by Elizabeth W. Crowley
The most politically charged of his Beacon Hill reforms up in smoke, Gov. Mitt Romney still might claim the public-relations victory in the battle to transform state government.
Though outflanked on his bid to oust University of Massachusetts President William M. Bulger, critics and supporters alike say the Republican's reform agenda has had an impact at the State House.
"The House budget was basically a reflection of the agenda Gov. Romney has," said House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones (R-North Reading). "It has no new taxes and there is no borrowing in it. That's a big change from last year."
In office for a little more than four months, Romney has managed to sell lawmakers on more of his ideas than his three Republican predecessors combined, State House observers said.
An unusual amount of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans has been obscured by the very public battle over Bulger, said Noah Berger of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
"The House is embracing reform and the Senate has clearly stated it will work toward even more," Berger said.
After the weeklong House budget debate, it was clear Romney had his wins and losses.
He took a drubbing on the Bulger proposal, the most high-profile of the reforms he offered.
But the House agreed to eliminate the patronage-plagued Metropolitan District Commission, a reform long sought by Romney's Republican predecessors.
The House also adopted almost all of the administration's ideas on Medicaid reform and restructuring of the Health and Human Services sector.
The budget gives conditional approval to Romney's request for two new cabinet secretariats - education and commonwealth development - tweaks the anti-privatization Pacheco law and boosts the amount state employees will pay for their health coverage.
But House lawmakers ignored other work-force reforms Romney wants and rejected his higher education consolidations.
Romney's plan for court reform, which would close courthouses and strip Boston Municipal Court of its special status, also was ignored. Instead, the House extended the BMC's reach and kept a firm legislative grip on judicial spending.
Lawmakers also flouted Romney's move to merge the Turnpike Authority with the Massachusetts Highway Department by increasing the Pike's jobs rather than shrinking them.
Romney immediately began using the House's Bulger dodge on the campaign trail, calling it an example of politics as usual and a reason to send more Republicans to the State House.
But, off the stump, Romney sidled up to the same Democratic lawmakers he had just finished chastising, praising the House for including many of his reforms.
"Many, many of those reforms have been adopted and a lot were tough, and I appreciate the work of the House of Representatives on accepting so many of them," Romney said Friday.
Still, Romney has infuriated Democratic leaders by portraying them as obstacles to reform.
"The governor has just never gotten off the campaign trail," said state Rep. Peter J. Larkin (D-Pittsfield).
Regardless, Jones, the House minority leader, said Romney has had an impressive string of successes.
"A lot of what the House adopted isn't exactly what the governor proposed but no governor is going to get that," he said.
Elisabeth J. Beardsley contributed to this report.
Return to
top
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Rally urges college aid for illegal immigrants
by Jules Crittenden
Undocumented aliens and their supporters demonstrated on City Hall Plaza yesterday for the same right to subsidized college educations that Americans and legal immigrants have.
A statement from a Boston High School junior identified only as "Miguel" told of his disappointment that he might not be able to go to college. As the child of illegal aliens from Colombia, he is not eligible for in-state tuition or federal financial aid.
"My family came seeking freedom and a better life," Miguel's statement said. "When we arrived, we knew nothing would be easy. My parents work hard just to earn enough to support the family."
He said he is an honor student who wants to study graphic arts.
"I have a lot of dreams," he said. "If only I could go to college, it would be the pride of my family."
The demonstration by about 100 people was held in support of U.S. House and Senate bills that would grant financial aid rights to illegal aliens who have lived here five years. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, a bill filed by Sen. Jarret Barrios (D-Cambridge) and Rep. Marie St. Fleur (D-Boston) would grant in-state tuition privileges.
In a letter of support, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) quoted his brother the late Robert F. Kennedy, saying, "Our attitude toward immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal."
Caprice Taylor, a native of Guatemala, said she was given a chance for education when an immigration amnesty in the mid-1980s gave her legal status.
"I had that luck. I was given that chance," Taylor said. She told undocumented students, "Hang on in there. Don't give up your dreams ... hopefully they will understand you are future doctors, future teachers, and what you are looking for is not charity but a chance."
Return to
top
The Boston Globe (North)
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Making a plea for a reprieve
Communities beg state to raise taxes
By Kathy McCabe, Globe Staff Correspondent
Municipal leaders from five North Shore communities last week called on Governor Mitt Romney and the Legislature to increase the state income tax to 5.95 percent, saying it's the fairest way to solve the state's $3 billion budget deficit.
Leaders from Beverly, Salem, Peabody, Danvers, and Topsfield also accused Romney and the Legislature of not doing enough to prevent steep cuts in local aid projected for fiscal 2004, which starts July 1. Many cities and towns are bracing for the worst layoffs in a decade in police, fire, schools, and other essential municipal services, they said.
"The Legislature and the governor are not getting down to business," said Peabody Mayor Michael Bonfanti. "Now is the time for them to get down to business."
"We cannot cut our way out of this problem," said Salem Mayor Stanley J. Usovicz Jr. "The Legislature must act, and soon.... Increasing the income tax to 5.95 percent is the best resolution to this existing problem."
"These are real cuts," said Beverly Mayor Thomas Crean, who hosted the joint press conference at Beverly City Hall. "These are real people [who will be laid off].... Increasing the income tax is the best, and most expedient, way to [solve] the financial crisis."
The call for new taxes drew a sharp rebuke from Beacon Hill. Romney, of Belmont, and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, who lives in Beverly, have pledged not to raise taxes. The Legislature last month voted overwhelmingly against hiking the 5.3 percent income tax or borrowing money to solve the budget problem.
"In these tough fiscal times, the last thing we want to do is raise taxes," said Nicole St. Peter, a Romney spokeswoman. "It will only hurt working families and small businesses that pay personal income taxes."
And state Representative Theodore Speliotis, a Danvers Democrat who also represents West Peabody and Topsfield, said: "I understand people are screaming for help, that they feel caught in a vice between raising property taxes and cuts in local aid ... but screaming for increased taxes isn't the way to solve this problem."
But Representative Joyce Spiliotis, a Peabody Democrat, voted for the tax hike last month.. "If we don't do this, and the city has to raise property taxes, that's going to be devastating to people on fixed incomes," she said.
Senate Majority Leader Frederick E. Berry of Peabody, who represents the five communities whose leaders are calling for the tax hike, said new taxes won't come before the start of fiscal 2004, but they could surface later as a measure to reverse steep spending cuts to public safety, human services and other core services.
"I believe in my soul, that when people see that budget, with the cuts that will negatively impact families, police, fire and other core services, there may be support [for new taxes]," Berry said. "But not until then."
However, Representative J. Michael Ruane of Salem, vice chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the Legislature won't raise taxes, because the state can't afford it. "I'm the guy who sits with Wall Street [bond rating companies] and they told us, 'You raise taxes this year, your bond rating will go down."'
Ruane said Ways and Means later this month will unveil a municipal aid package to help communities recover from cuts. The details, and financing are still being worked on, he said. "We're working on it. We hope it would be able to throw a little bit of money to local communities. We understand these cuts are very hard on people," he said.
Local leaders last week tried to put a human face on the looming cuts, which are projected to be $3.6 million each in Salem and Beverly, $3.2 million in Peabody, $1.6 million in Danvers, and $500,000 for Topsfield. To show the impact, a parade of school superintendents, police and fire chiefs and municipal finance directors warned of major cuts in core services and risk to public safety, unless local aid is increased.
"Any reduction to our [$1 million] budget will be devastating," said Topsfield Police Chief Dan O'Shea. " I am not going to put one officer on one shift... Topsfield is not Mayberry R.F.D."
Peabody School Superintendent James Gaylord said his school district faces a $7 million budget deficit next year and a possible cut of 158 jobs in fiscal 2004. "These [cuts] are serious.... They will take us beyond the bone."
Although small towns like Topsfield and larger ones like Danvers may not see local aid cuts as dramatic as those projected for cities, the cuts will proportionately affect the delivery of services and the quality of life, they said.
"Topsfield is a stepchild to larger cities," said Roberta Knight, executive secretary to the Topsfield Board of Selectmen. "But we are a residential community, with no commercial tax base.... We really need some relief from the state."
Danvers Town Manager Wayne Marquis said local communities know they must do their part to reduce spending. That's why many have hiked fees and started to negotiate with public employee unions to reduce health care costs and delay salary increases. Fee hikes for everything from dog tags to building permits are also proposed in several communities.
Return to
top
The Patriot Ledger
Monday, May 12, 2003
Plymouth voters reject override:
$46M plan to build 3rd high school is rejected by 58% of balloters
By Tamara Race
Voters' rejection of a $46 million plan to build a third high school leaves school committee members scrambling for a solution to crowded classrooms and a deteriorating Plymouth North High School.
The Proposition 2½ override was defeated 3,910 to 2,832 in Saturday's town election. About 58 percent of the voters cast ballots against the override.
"I'm not surprised," school committee member Jane Freedman said. "Plymouth has a history of not supporting school building projects. I was hoping ... a concern for education would override people's concern for their economic condition, but that wasn't the case."
Dr. John Kilbourne, co-chairman of Support Plymouth's Future, a group pushing for the new school, said, "It makes me very sad to think that I live in a town that doesn't value education like I think they should. Our group worked really, really hard on this and parents just didn't get out to vote. I was at Plymouth South Elementary School most of the day and saw parents coming and going from the athletic fields all day without stopping in to vote."
Besides low parent turnout, Kilbourne said, misleading information by the opposition and lack of support from Selectmen Chairman Kenneth Tavares contributed to the defeat.
Kilbourne said Tavares should have taken "more of a leadership role," adding, "He never urged support for the school or made education a high priority."
Tavares, for his part, said school officials failed to convince voters of the need for a third high school.
"I kept hearing comments on ‘why another high school,"' Tavares said. "No matter how much we spend on consultants' reports or are committed to a particular course of action, if the townspeople can't understand it, you have to expect defeat. You have to sell the community. If they aren't sold, they speak loud and clear."
The school committee had originally proposed building a new high school and a new elementary school, as well as renovating Plymouth North High. The committee scaled back those plans to pursue just the high school.
Plymouth is 11th on the state's School Building Assistance Program list. It would have received at least 58 percent reimbursement.
"The town is always tripping over dollars to collect nickels and dimes," said the other co-chairman of Support Plymouth's Future,John White. "We just threw $29 million in reimbursement out the window."
The school committee's Freedman said she would pursue the possibility of moving forward with a new elementary school or renovations to Plymouth North in hopes of preserving Plymouth's potential state reimbursement and its place on the school building assistance list.
"The final plans don't have to be in until August," she said. "That may be enough time to call for a special town meeting to appropriate less money for either of the other two projects and call for a special election."
School committee Chairman James Sorensen said Freedman's idea is unlikely to gain approval, but that the committee may discuss it.
Return to
top
The Brockton Enterprise
Monday, May 12, 2003
Editorial
Invertebrates serve in the Legislature
It's difficult to determine whom legislators are more afraid of — their constituents or UMass President William Bulger.
The House, in a typical cowardly act last week, refused to go on record as to whether they supported the elimination of Bulger's office. Gov. Mitt Romney was trying to force the vote, saying the state could save $14 million by eliminating the president's office and its bloated staff. Legislators feared voting: If they supported Bulger, it would mean a vote for moral corruption. If they went against him, it would endanger their hack credentials.
In the end, they did what all good politicians do — they ducked the issue. Instead of a straight up or down vote on Bulger, which House Speaker Thomas Finneran said he would allow, the legislators used a few slick maneuvers to avoid a direct vote, deciding to "study" the issue. That means the matter is dead.
What is wrong with these people? Why are they afraid of a discredited politician who hasn't been in the Legislature for seven years? Do they think Bulger (or his gangster brother Whitey) will get them if they don't support him?
Nothing is too far-fetched when it comes to the Legislature and Bulger in particular. We think, though, that the overwhelming mechanism at work here is fealty to the political system. The politicians are just taking care of one of their own because when their turn at the retirement trough comes, they also want to be taken care of.
That is why you see loyalty to a range of retired hacks — dozens of former representatives and senators who have been stashed in no-heavy-lifting jobs at taxpayer expense. Bulger is just the highest-profile former politician by dint of his notoriety, prominence and exorbitant paycheck.
Don't expect your legislators to grown backbones any time soon. They are congenital invertebrates. The coddling of Bulger is no aberration; it is business as usual. Next time it will be some other former House or Senate mate. And it crosses party lines. They will just as soon take care of Republican Peter Forman as they will take care of Democrat Gus Serra. Over time, the names change, but the cost to taxpayers grows with depressing consistency.
Return to
top
The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Monday, May 12, 2003
Editorial
Reshape the government
North of Boston residents voted convincingly for Republican Mitt Romney over Democrat Shannon O'Brien in last November's gubernatorial election (141,932 to 100,798 in Essex County). Furthermore, 44 percent of those casting ballots embraced Question 1, which called for elimination of the state income tax.
The message: Citizens of this region are sick and tired of business as usual on Beacon Hill. They want fundamental reform, and they want it now.
Waste, duplication, patronage and the Statehouse's byzantine array of special privileges may not account for all of the estimated $3 billion the state has to save in order to balance its budget in the fiscal year beginning July 1. But any waste and redundancy are too much as far as most taxpayers are concerned.
In its budget released two weeks ago, the Democratic House leadership failed to heed Governor Romney's -- and the voters' -- call for major restructuring of state government. To date, much of the effort in the Legislature has focused on saving the jobs of the favored few -- from UMass President William Bulger to the legion of clerks staffing the Boston Municipal Court.
Senate leaders promise the budget they release will include major reorganization proposals. They appear to have heard the message voters sought to convey last fall, even if their House counterparts did not.
The proof will be in the details. And in the action the Senate takes. It too is dominated by Democrats and that has come to mean change disguised as more spending rather than transformation to a simpler, less-expensive state government.
During the rest of this week, we will spell out on these pages where savings can be found in such areas as public safety, transportation, health policy and the operation of the courts. What's needed is a willingness by the Legislature to reshape the standard operating procedures that have been in place for generations.
It will require a new blueprint. "All politics is local," said Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., former Speaker of the U.S. House and a product of the Massachusetts political system. For too long that credo has been interpreted to mean that success in politics entitles one to take care of his own with cushy jobs, generous salaries, special privileges. The result is bloated government, unnecessary spending.
And it's this perception of a government that operates for the benefit of a favored few that has spawned the voter anger of today.
No one is talking higher taxes yet, but the underlying strategy on the House side appears to be, as one social services advocate put it to us recently, to "let people bleed" until the anti-tax sentiment abates or the economy improves.
Clearly, this is the tactic of the unconvinced. They are certain the people of Massachusetts don't want reduced government.
You, the voters, should let your state representatives and senators know you will not tolerate inefficiency and squandering. Government profligacy should not be any more acceptable in good times than it is when revenues are down.
Return to
top
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Legislature may give OK for local tax increases
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Lawmakers are inching closer to allowing cities and towns to ratchet up a bevy of local taxes, after the rejection of efforts to hike taxes at the state level.
In a prelude to a debate slated for the end of this month, the Legislature's Taxation Committee yesterday aired a slew of bills to hike local levies on meals, off-street parking, entertainment events, billboards and telecommunication companies.
Lawmakers say they're scrambling for ways to help cities and towns as they struggle to absorb multiple rounds of local aid cuts and the looming possibility that school aid will be deeply slashed.
"One way would be for them to raise some local taxes," Senate Taxation Chairwoman Cynthia S. Creem (D-Newton) said. "There seems to be some appetite (in the Legislature) to do that."
At the outset of House budget debate two weeks ago, House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran pulled dozens of amendments relating to local taxes, saying the proposals would be debated alongside a municipal relief package House leaders will release May 27.
Gov. Mitt Romney is gearing up to veto any local option tax - unless it comes with a referendum of approval from local voters.
Rep. Philip D. Travis (D-Rehoboth), seeking a compromise with Romney, yesterday tacked a mandatory referendum provision onto his bill allowing a meals tax increase of up to 3 percent.
Momentum seems to be gathering behind a meals tax hike, with four separate bills filed and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino leading the charge after narrowly losing a bid for the tax increase last year.
Boston City Council President Michael Flaherty said the meals tax, which he described as "fairly benign," would allow communities to tack an extra 1 percent onto the existing 5 percent levy, which would raise $17 million a year for Boston alone. But the restaurant industry protested, saying the state shouldn't embark down a "slippery slope" at a time when business is suffering because of the sluggish economy.
Return to
top
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
|