CLT
UPDATE
Monday, May 26, 2003
The misinformed, deceptive and greedy
New or increased fees and surcharges are critical to bridging the state's $3 billion spending gap in the competing budget plans put forward by Gov. Mitt Romney, the House and the Senate.
The Romney and House proposals call for raising about $350 million in revenue this way, while the Senate plan released last week raised the bar to $625 million -- almost 80 percent of the $800 million in new revenues the Senate is counting on to balance the budget.
But Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation is warning lawmakers: "Don't get reliant on these fees."
She said her group is combing the budget proposals for fees that may in fact be taxes under the law -- that is, charges aimed at a large group of people with the revenue going into the general fund, instead of toward supporting a specific state service.
CLT can challenge those "fees" in court, and it intends to, Anderson said.
"We've been looking for this for a while," she said. "We want to go to court to more clearly define fees."
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, agrees there's a legal problem with a least some of the new fees.
"We are certainly straining any definition of fees in many cases here," he said....
"Some of the fees may be justified, but with many of them, there's no connection between the service and the fee -- it's going into the general fund to close the budget deficit." ...
In an effort to raise $40 million, the Senate has proposed a 2.29 percent surcharge on the premiums of all new or renewed homeowners' and commercial insurance policies.
The revenues, according to the Senate measure, would go into a dedicated fund and, subject to appropriation, "shall support municipal police, fire, and emergency medical services."
And this, say Anderson and the CLT, violates the law because the surcharge provides no direct benefit to those who pay it beyond what they get for paying property taxes.
"As long as you pay for a service, they're real fees," she said. "But you have to ask, if you pay the fee, what will you get that nobody else gets? The answer in this case is nothing. Renters don't pay homeowners insurance, but they certainly have a firefighter rushing to their assistance in case of a fire." ...
The Taxpayers Foundation joined the CLT in opposing the insurance surcharge because, Widmer said, "they will give the proceeds to local government for basic services. This is just a replacement for local aid." ...
While the insurance surcharge has been getting much of the attention, there are others being considered that may not measure up as fees, said Anderson. In fact, she noted, if any of the proceeds of any new fee goes into the general fund, it should be considered a tax.
"The whole gun section is a clear violation," she said. "As soon as they say 50 percent goes to the general fund, that's a clear violation. They are putting it in the budget for legislative salaries or human services, which has nothing at all to do with the service. That's a tax, not a fee."
The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, May 25, 2003
State fee hikes face legal battles
While elected officials at both the state and local levels proclaim - except in case of successful overrides - that their budgets are balanced without new taxes they can make that claim only through semantic pirouettes. Rest assured, we will all pay more for reduced government services. It just won't be called a taxes....
Elected officials are employing the Orwellian technique of calling something by a different name in hopes that we will think it is more acceptable. That belies the message voters throughout the state are sending: cut the cost of government and the burden of paying for it.
Government officials should read this past week's cover story in Time magazine on the shrinking paychecks of Americans. People with declining real income cannot afford runaway government growth. They cannot afford more "revenues," "fees" or "surcharges" that come out of the exact same pocket that taxes do. They want government reform, not euphemisms for taxes.
An Eagle-Tribune editorial
Sunday, May 25, 2003
If it costs like a tax ...
Hewing to their belief that the electorate won't stand for new taxes, state officials instead are refining plans to bombard the public with a bevy of fees and fines like the blind people's ID, to help backfill a $3 billion budget hole. City officials have cooked up fees of their own....
Others also believe that some of the levies are merely taxes in fee's clothing, and will overburden the populace.
"You wouldn't mind the nickels and dimes if we weren't paying so much in dollar denominations," said
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation.
Labor leader Robert Haynes said it's pushing government by remuneration too far, for example, to make blind people pay for a T certificate; it's more equitable, he feels, to raise the income tax. In the current political climate of the princely state formerly known as Taxachusetts, though, he acknowledges that fees may be the only way, at least for now, to prevent the evisceration of public safety, education and human services.
"That's the price you pay for civilization," said Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, a statewide umbrella organization for labor unions.
The Boston Globe (City Edition)
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Nickeled and dimed
No new taxes, but plenty of higher fees
Remember when liberals understood that no means no? If they lost an election or a vote, they accepted the results, however grudgingly.
No longer. Nowadays, as soon as they are defeated, the hacks instantly demand a new vote. The voters were misinformed, they say, or the turnout was too low. Of course, if they win, it's the will of the people, and the results are sacrosanct.
This deplorable trend of ignoring election results began with the Legislature repealing voter-approved referendum questions - income-tax cuts, charitable deductions, Clean Elections, etc. Now the imperious disregard for the vox populi has spread into the municipalities.
In at least three towns, the tax-and-spenders have demanded new Prop 2½ override elections, sometimes just hours after losing at the ballot box....
Last Tuesday, the voters in Hopkinton nixed a $3.8 million override.
On Wednesday, the town hacks were asking, well, if you chumps won't go for $3.8 million, how about we vote on ... $1.6 million, or maybe $900,000?
"Someone has to explain to these people," says Chip Ford of Citizens for Limited
Taxation, "an override vote is an election, not negotiations."
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Tax-and-spenders fight dirty, lose sore
by Howie Carr
Gov. Mitt Romney issued his first veto message without any bells or whistles, and that's too bad. While the bill in question was a relatively small and entirely local matter, the governor's veto of it should speak volumes....
In rejecting the bill, Romney cited the fact that the voters of Webster have on five separate occasions gone to the polls and rejected the measure, most recently on May 6, 2002, when it was voted down 1,512 to 828.
Not content to take no for an answer, Webster Town Meeting members (and we all know how those sessions can be dominated and manipulated by special interests) voted to send the bill to the State House anyway....
So Romney sent the bill back to the Legislature with an amendment that would require yet another local referendum. But make no mistake, the message from the governor wasn't just for Webster - it's for every mayor and board of selectmen contemplating adding to the burdens of hard-pressed taxpayers.
A Boston Herald editorial
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Little veto, big message
Even as Gov. Mitt Romney calls for greater privatization of state services, records show Beacon Hill spent $11.35 billion on private vendors in fiscal 2002, underwriting lavish salaries and perks for non-profit health and human service providers and their paid lobbyists....
The $11.35 billion payout approached the entire $13 billion operating budget of a decade ago when former Gov. William F. Weld promoted privatization as a tool for "streamlining" state government....
In Massachusetts, Medicaid providers reaped by far the lion's share of state business at $4.25 billion, according to records from the office of the comptroller.
Non-medical social services garnered $1.38 billion. Medical social services were paid $833 million. Health and life insurance carriers for state workers received $777 million, and uncompensated care took in $365 million.
The Boston Herald
Monday, May 26, 2003
State pays billions to private vendors
The Romney administration pointed to just six new privatization contracts since 1996 when it launched an assault on the Pacheco Law in its proposed fiscal 2004 budget - an effort partially endorsed by House lawmakers.
But Sen. Marc R. Pacheco (D-Taunton), who wrote the law, claims outsourcing was curbed in recent years due to a lack of political will on the part of Republican former governors Paul Cellucci and Jane M. Swift.
"Public unions were instrumental in Bill Weld losing to John Kerry in the 1996 Senate race," Pacheco said. "After that the handwriting was on the wall."
But Pacheco says existing private contracts predating the 1993 law have burgeoned because of a lack of oversight.
The Boston Herald
Monday, May 26, 2003
Lawmakers call cost of outsourcing excessive
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Apparently ignorance is bliss. Yesterday
morning on "Talking Politics" (WLVI TV-56, Sunday at 8:30 am), host Jon Keller featured state Senators Steven Tolman and Steven
Panagiotakos, both members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
When queried about taxes disguised as "fees," Sen.
Panagiotakos (D-Lowell) went on a rant against CLT and falsely charged us with
attacking only Democrat fees while maintaining silence when Gov. Romney
proposed "fee" increases and creations.
Ignorance is surely bliss, for obviously the
misguided senator has never visited the CLT website, where on numerous occasions
we've charged the governor with increasing taxes under the guise of
"fees," and have even spoken with members of his
administration arguing that they were simply taxes in disguise.
Not visiting the CLT website is perhaps forgivable
for a busy legislator, but he apparently doesn't read his hometown
newspaper -- the Lowell Sun -- either, where Barbara's column runs
weekly and, on two separate occasions, took Gov. Romney to task over his
administration's proposed "fee" increases.
When a legislator can't legitimately defend himself
then the easiest dodge is to attack, in desperation even erroneously if
not falsely, attempting to maneuver himself off the hot seat.
This morning we emailed the good senator a letter charging him
with making false statements, which also went out to his local newspaper and other media sources across the state. A copy will be
hand-delivered to him at the State House on Tuesday, just so he doesn't
miss it.
In the last few days a growing interest among a
number of skeptical reporters is exposing the facts and educating their
readers about the growing trend of taxes disguised as fees, some
mentioning that CLT and the so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
both agree that some if not many fees are in fact taxes. Count on MTF to
agree with us when we stand on principle and our position benefits MTF's
core membership ... like big insurance companies in the case of the
proposed homeowners insurance "fee." Finally, a tax MTF
doesn't like!
*
*
*
"Compassion fatigue" was just ratcheted
up another notch today, liberal tax-and-spenders just took another
body blow with a Boston Herald exposé.
While all we've heard about over the past months is
the dire plight of "the most vulnerable among us," victims
of the current "fiscal crisis" and taxpayer greed, today we
learned that a few fat cat "human service providers" have
been stripping our taxpayer-funded services to "the most
vulnerable" right off their tables, snatching food right out
of their mouths.
"Vinfen Corp. received $53.5 million from the state in fiscal 2002. The firm paid CEO Gary Lamson a salary of $268,000 and benefits worth $27,789.
Vinfen, which serves disabled people, spent $138,195 on lobbyists in 2001 and 2002.
"May Institute was paid $37 million by the state. It paid CEO Walter Christian $245,000 plus $78,000 in benefits. The company, a non-profit specializing in behavioral health care, education and rehabilitation, has spent $121,500 on lobbyists since 1997.
"Greater Lynn Mental Health, with a $21.9 million state contract, paid executive director Paul Cote, Jr., $200,000 and spent $13,500 on lobbyists. Greater Lynn's expenses included $82,370 for a cleaning service and $30,523 for a landscaper."
Not only has the profiteering human services
industrial complex been depriving "the most vulnerable among
us" of their bought-and-paid-for services, but they've used our
money to pay lobbyist to lobby for more of our money!
"Beacon Hill spent $11.35 billion on private vendors in fiscal 2002, underwriting lavish salaries and perks for non-profit health and human service providers and their paid lobbyists."
State Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton) admitted,
" existing private contracts predating the 1993 law have burgeoned because of a lack of oversight."
I wonder whose job that is?
As we've been saying for so long, we don't have a
"fiscal crisis," we have a spending crisis. Are there
any doubters still out there?
|
|
|
Chip
Ford |
The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, May 25, 2003
State fee hikes face legal battles
By Bill Kirk, Staff Writer
New or increased fees and surcharges are critical to bridging the state's $3 billion spending gap in the competing budget plans put forward by Gov. Mitt Romney, the House and the Senate.
The Romney and House proposals call for raising about $350 million in revenue this way, while the Senate plan released last week raised the bar to $625 million -- almost 80 percent of the $800 million in new revenues the Senate is counting on to balance the budget.
But Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation is warning lawmakers: "Don't get reliant on these fees."
She said her group is combing the budget proposals for fees that may in fact be taxes under the law -- that is, charges aimed at a large group of people with the revenue going into the general fund, instead of toward supporting a specific state service.
CLT can challenge those "fees" in court, and it intends to, Anderson said.
"We've been looking for this for a while," she said. "We want to go to court to more clearly define fees."
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, agrees there's a legal problem with a least some of the new fees.
"We are certainly straining any definition of fees in many cases here," he said.
He added, "All three budgets rely very heavily on fees as an alternative to tax increases, because they realize they need additional revenues to close the budget gap.
"Some of the fees may be justified, but with many of them, there's no connection between the service and the fee -- it's going into the general fund to close the budget deficit."
Insurance surcharge
One fee in particular has caught the eye of CLT, the Taxpayers Foundation and other critics: the "first responder surcharge."
In an effort to raise $40 million, the Senate has proposed a 2.29 percent surcharge on the premiums of all new or renewed homeowners' and commercial insurance policies.
The revenues, according to the Senate measure, would go into a dedicated fund and, subject to appropriation, "shall support municipal police, fire, and emergency medical services."
And this, say Anderson and the CLT, violates the law because the surcharge provides no direct benefit to those who pay it beyond what they get for paying property taxes.
"As long as you pay for a service, they're real fees," she said. "But you have to ask, if you pay the fee, what will you get that nobody else gets? The answer in this case is nothing. Renters don't pay homeowners insurance, but they certainly have a firefighter rushing to their assistance in case of a fire."
Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry of Peabody argues that the insurance surcharge would pay for new services: public safety training to fight the war on terror.
"We're entering a new world in terms of homeland security," he said. "I think public safety will be changing rapidly over the next decade. We are in somewhat of a war. My vision was that we'll be training a lot of public safety units in different categories to respond to things we've never responded to before. When we were talking about it, that's why I thought it was creative and innovative."
But Gov. Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, said in a report published Friday that the governor is opposed to the insurance surcharge for the same reasons cited by CLT and may consider vetoing it.
The Taxpayers Foundation joined the CLT in opposing the insurance surcharge because, Widmer said, "they will give the proceeds to local government for basic services. This is just a replacement for local aid."
Insurance companies are also against it.
Jim Harrington, a lobbyist with the Massachusetts Insurance Federation, called the surcharge "outrageous."
He noted that there is already a 2.28 percent tax on property insurance premiums, and that the 2.29 percent surcharge would more than double it.
Further, he said, the surcharge would have "unintended consequences."
Insurance companies based in Massachusetts, such as Liberty Mutual or One Beacon Street Insurance, will be charged the property surcharge in other states, as well, because of what's known as the "retaliatory tax."
"This punishes companies for being domiciled in this state," he said.
Some of the companies, which employ thousands of people, would probably begin evaluating whether to even remain in the state if such a surcharge is placed on them.
"I'm sure some companies may be reviewing those alternatives," he said.
Other fees
While the insurance surcharge has been getting much of the attention, there are others being considered that may not measure up as fees, said Anderson. In fact, she noted, if any of the proceeds of any new fee goes into the general fund, it should be considered a tax.
"The whole gun section is a clear violation," she said. "As soon as they say 50 percent goes to the general fund, that's a clear violation. They are putting it in the budget for legislative salaries or human services, which has nothing at all to do with the service. That's a tax, not a fee."
Under the Senate plan, firearms dealers would pay $100 for a license to sell guns, $50 of which would go into the general fund, with $25 going to the licensing authority and $25 to the Firearms Fingerprint Identity Verification Trust Fund.
A similar arrangement is being made for stores selling ammunition.
But it's not just stores that will pay more, so will gun buyers.
They will pay $100 for a license to carry a firearm, $100 for a firearms identification card, $100 for a permit to buy a firearm, and another $100 if they are either a nonresident or resident alien.
In all, a gun buyer could end up paying $400 to $500 just to get approval to buy and own a gun -- more than the cost of actually purchasing a handgun.
Nicole St. Peter, a press secretary for Romney, said, "Generally, the offices that administer these licenses are funded through the general fund, so it's an appropriate use."
She added, "many of the state's fees haven't been raised in a decade or more, so we're trying to keep the fees in line with cost of providing the services."
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The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Editorial
If it costs like a tax ...
What's in a name?
When it comes to government taking your money, apparently quite a bit.
While elected officials at both the state and local levels proclaim - except in case of successful overrides - that their budgets are balanced without new taxes they can make that claim only through semantic pirouettes. Rest assured, we will all pay more for reduced government services. It just won't be called a taxes.
At the state level, the recently released Senate budget relies on $500 million in new "fees" to help close a budget gap said to be in the $3 billion range, even though actual spending from the current fiscal year to the next is projected to drop by only $300 million or less.
Among the most outrageous of these is a proposed tax to be added to your home or business insurance bill. This, the Senate says, will be a "surcharge."
But there are a host of other fees in the works. Perhaps few will complain about a move to increase fees for lobbyists from $150 to $1,000. But then, there are also new license "fees" proposed for stores that sell tobacco products, as if tobacco taxes were too low. Gov. Mitt Romney's proposed budget includes nearly 100 new or increased fees on everything from bottles and cans to motorcycle licenses.
At the local level, fees are also a convenient substitute for higher taxes - fees to ride the bus, fees to play school sports, fees for other extracurricular activities. North Andover wants to kick the fee for admission to Stevens Pond from $35 to $65. Some communities, like Rockport, want to add a local "surcharge" to the state sales tax already in place.
Elected officials are employing the Orwellian technique of calling something by a different name in hopes that we will think it is more acceptable. That belies the message voters throughout the state are sending: cut the cost of government and the burden of paying for it.
Government officials should read this past week's cover story in Time magazine on the shrinking paychecks of Americans. People with declining real income cannot afford runaway government growth. They cannot afford more "revenues," "fees" or "surcharges" that come out of the exact same pocket that taxes do. They want government reform, not euphemisms for taxes.
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The Boston Globe (City Edition)
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Nickeled and dimed
No new taxes, but plenty of higher fees
By Ric Kahn, Globe Staff
Already, Tim Cumings pays $20 a month for cabs when the T is useless: late nights out, or when he hauls his vacuum cleaner to the fix-it shop.
Tim Cumings cannot drive.
Plus, there's the $1,000 in auxiliary equipment to make his two-grand computer speak, and another $1,200 for a talking Palm-Pilot-like gizmo. Not to mention $30 for his red-and-white collaps ible walking cane, and another $30 for a spare.
Tim Cumings is blind.
Now, if state officials have their way, the price of being sight-impaired will be going up. They want to start charging blind people a $15 fee for a travel ID that would allow them to continue riding the T for free.
The ID currently costs nothing.
Taken alone, Cumings said, the $15 seems like no big deal. However, he said, "All the things do add up."
Hewing to their belief that the electorate won't stand for new taxes, state officials instead are refining plans to bombard the public with a bevy of fees and fines like the blind people's ID, to help backfill a $3 billion budget hole. City officials have cooked up fees of their own.
Bostonians say the painful effect of being slapped with a multitude of fees rather than one big tax hit is like being pelted with nickels and dimes rather than being crushed by a falling piano.
"People are going to look at all the fees and say, `We're not paying all those taxes,"' said Cumings, 40, of Brighton. "If they sat and added it all up, you're paying for stuff you didn't pay for before."
Governor Mitt Romney's '04 budget proposal included more than 80 new or increased fees expected to generate annual revenue of $59 million. That figure jumps to $349 million, if money from earlier fee hikes - such as increases this year at the Registry of Deeds - is included.
Thomas Finneran's House of Representatives would raise at least $30 million more with its own pay-as-you-go fee package, while including items like Romney's $15 travel ID for blind people, which is supposed to bring in $14,000. Also following Romney's lead, the Senate last week weighed in with a fee package pegged at $500 million, including the T travel ID fee for the blind.
"The governor ran on a platform that he would reform state government and devise a budget that's balanced without raising taxes and still provide the core mission of state government," said Nicole St. Peter, a spokeswoman for the governor. "Because most of the fees hadn't been raised for years, and we needed to ensure that we could pay for services, we needed to raise the fees."
Furthermore, said St. Peter, the fees are not directed at any one sector of the population, but at a spectrum; often contain hardship clauses like the one that exempts blind people on federal disability from paying the ID travel fee; and only charge those people seeking a certain service.
Cumings said, though, that while fees are supposed to be voluntary, he's got no choice but to ride the rails to get to his job in Westwood, where he answers phones for NStar.
"I think it is unfair," said Cumings, whose wife works for the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and is also sight-impaired. "Blind people have to take public transportation."
Others also believe that some of the levies are merely taxes in fee's clothing, and will overburden the populace.
"You wouldn't mind the nickels and dimes if we weren't paying so much in dollar denominations," said
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation.
Labor leader Robert Haynes said it's pushing government by remuneration too far, for example, to make blind people pay for a T certificate; it's more equitable, he feels, to raise the income tax. In the current political climate of the princely state formerly known as Taxachusetts, though, he acknowledges that fees may be the only way, at least for now, to prevent the evisceration of public safety, education and human services.
"That's the price you pay for civilization," said Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, a statewide umbrella organization for labor unions.
Among those who might be jacked up, according to the state, are: Exterminators (pest exam certification fees could rise from $25-$50 to $50-$100) and cremators (inspection fees could go from $50 to $75). Gun owners (registration fees could shoot from $25 to $75) and golfers (seasonal passes could lift from $100-$650 to $150-$800). Prisoners in the Big House for committing dirty deeds (inmate phone charges could drift from 86 cents to $2); already, homeowners recording clean deeds on their big houses have been bumped from $45 to $125. Horse-riding instructors (license fees could gallop from $2-$15 to $4-$30) and hockey players (MDC hourly rink rates could skate from $50-$160 to $65-$200).
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Tax-and-spenders fight dirty, lose sore
by Howie Carr
Remember when liberals understood that no means no? If they lost an election or a vote, they accepted the results, however grudgingly.
No longer. Nowadays, as soon as they are defeated, the hacks instantly demand a new vote. The voters were misinformed, they say, or the turnout was too low. Of course, if they win, it's the will of the people, and the results are sacrosanct.
This deplorable trend of ignoring election results began with the Legislature repealing voter-approved referendum questions - income-tax cuts, charitable deductions, Clean Elections, etc. Now the imperious disregard for the vox populi has spread into the municipalities.
In at least three towns, the tax-and-spenders have demanded new Prop 2½
override elections, sometimes just hours after losing at the ballot box. But before we get to that, let's talk about another endlessly recurring liberal obsession: mandatory seat belts.
After losing in the House the last two years, the insurance companies and their cash-'n'-carry state reps are trying again to ram through their favorite bill, to give cops carte blanche to stop your car if (they claim) you're not wearing a seat belt.
This is called primary enforcement, and it's something the cops swore for years they had no intention of ever imposing. They were lying.
"The forces of evil are on the march again," said Rep. Jim Fagan (D-Taunton), who leads the annual fight against primary enforcement. "A group of do-gooders who believe you are too stupid to make a decision on your own are trying once more to erode the freedoms of working Americans."
Last year the state reps lost on a rare tie vote. It was an upset win for liberty. It will be an even bigger upset if Fagan and his die-hard band can prevail next week.
No doubt you've heard the radio ads the seat belt Gestapo has been running all week for the "Click It or Ticket" campaign, with a "Trooper McNulty" ominously warning motorists to buckle up or else. Then a woman says, "Massachusetts is serious about safety."
It's also serious about surcharges, which is why the insurance industry is salivating to pass primary enforcement.
Meanwhile, on the Prop 2½ front, it seemed like an aberration when the teachers' front group in Plymouth demanded a second vote after losing an election. It turns out Plymouth was a harbinger of things to come.
Six days ago, the Town of Dunstable resoundingly voted down an override. By Thursday this headline appeared in the Lowell Sun: "Dunstable asked to revisit override."
Last Tuesday, the voters in Hopkinton nixed a $3.8 million override.
On Wednesday, the town hacks were asking, well, if you chumps won't go for $3.8 million, how about we vote on ... $1.6 million, or maybe $900,000?
"Someone has to explain to these people," says Chip Ford of Citizens for Limited
Taxation, "an override vote is an election, not negotiations."
But the unions still think they're entitled to beggar the taxpayers. They're even attempting another power grab. This time they're trying, yet again, to gut the MCAS, and they're doing it the old-fashioned way - behind closed doors, at the State House.
With this bold bunch, it's like they used to say about bargaining with the Mafia. What's theirs is theirs and what's yours is theirs. And that's the way it will be, until the hacks finally realize that no means no.
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-FM (95.1).
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 25, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Little veto, big message
Gov. Mitt Romney issued his first veto message without any bells or whistles, and that's too bad. While the bill in question was a relatively small and entirely local matter, the governor's veto of it should speak volumes.
The legislation would have required the Central Massachusetts town of Webster (population 16,000) to pay 50 percent of the health insurance costs for its public sector retirees - teachers mostly. The legislation would cost the community about $150,000 a year, according to Rep. Paul Kujawski (D-Webster), who supports the measure.
In rejecting the bill, Romney cited the fact that the voters of Webster have on five separate occasions gone to the polls and rejected the measure, most recently on May 6, 2002, when it was voted down 1,512 to 828.
Not content to take no for an answer, Webster Town Meeting members (and we all know how those sessions can be dominated and manipulated by special interests) voted to send the bill to the State House anyway.
"Just as I defend the will of the voters as expressed on state ballot questions, I hesitate to sanction circumvention of the local ballot results in Webster," Romney said in his veto message. "At a time when local communities, like the state, struggle to balance budgets, the voters of Webster are entitled to a voice on a matter with significant financial implications for the town."
So Romney sent the bill back to the Legislature with an amendment that would require yet another local referendum. But make no mistake, the message from the governor wasn't just for Webster - it's for every mayor and board of selectmen contemplating adding to the burdens of hard-pressed taxpayers.
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The Boston Herald
Monday, May 26, 2003
State pays billions to private vendors
by Steve Marantz and Ellen J. Silberman
Even as Gov. Mitt Romney calls for greater privatization of state services, records show Beacon Hill spent $11.35 billion on private vendors in fiscal 2002, underwriting lavish salaries and perks for non-profit health and human service providers and their paid lobbyists.
Consultants in information technology, health care, management and public relations also scored big, as did lawyers, program coordinators, insurance carriers and even clergy.
Among the private vendors:
l Vinfen Corp. received $53.5 million from the state in fiscal 2002. The firm paid CEO Gary Lamson a salary of $268,000 and benefits worth $27,789. Vinfen, which serves disabled people, spent $138,195 on lobbyists in 2001 and 2002.
l May Institute was paid $37 million by the state. It paid CEO Walter Christian $245,000 plus $78,000 in benefits. The company, a non-profit specializing in behavioral health care, education and rehabilitation, has spent $121,500 on lobbyists since 1997.
l Greater Lynn Mental Health, with a $21.9 million state contract, paid executive director Paul Cote, Jr., $200,000 and spent $13,500 on lobbyists. Greater Lynn's expenses included $82,370 for a cleaning service and $30,523 for a landscaper.
The $11.35 billion payout approached the entire $13 billion operating budget of a decade ago when former Gov. William F. Weld promoted privatization as a tool for "streamlining" state government.
It could increase if Romney's plan to send more business to the private sector succeeds. The House has agreed to greater outsourcing at University of Massachusetts dining halls and for state highway maintenance.
Romney's proposed budget argues that privatization is stunted, noting, "Massachusetts is the only state that virtually prohibits outsourcing of any functions currently performed by state employees."
Romney proposes weakening the Pacheco Law - the state law mandating that private bids compete against an estimate of public employees working in the "most cost-efficient manner" - claiming that managers will be free to "seek lower cost or higher quality alternatives and restore competition to the delivery of state services," thereby saving $50 million in 2004.
"It is the most rigid anti-privatization law in the country. It absolutely is preventing privatization," said Charles Chieppo, Romney's budget policy director.
But the state's 33-to-35 percent payout to private goods and services puts it in the middle range of privatization, according to a pro-privatization public policy group.
"I would have guessed Massachusetts would come in lower because of the Pacheco Law," said Adrian Moore of the California-based Reason Foundation.
In Massachusetts, Medicaid providers reaped by far the lion's share of state business at $4.25 billion, according to records from the office of the comptroller.
Non-medical social services garnered $1.38 billion. Medical social services were paid $833 million. Health and life insurance carriers for state workers received $777 million, and uncompensated care took in $365 million.
Privatization figures also include payments by the state to communities in the form of local aid, some of which goes to private vendors on a local level. Local government was paid $1.46 billion in fiscal 2002.
Clergy were paid $213,000 - averaging $20 an hour - to conduct services for Department of Mental Retardation residential clients. Federal law mandates access to religious services.
A state audit report last year cited the Registry of Motor Vehicles for spending up to $156,000 for a computer consultant while a state employee with a similar skill was making $86,428 in salary and fringe benefits.
"The hourly rates paid to the RMV's IT consultants were up to six times higher than the maximum hourly rates that may be paid to IT employees hired by the Commonwealth," the report states.
But RMV officials say consultants' skills are more sophisticated than those of state workers, and that top IT specialists won't work on staff at salaries paid by the state.
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The Boston Herald
Monday, May 26, 2003
Lawmakers call cost of outsourcing excessive
by Steve Marantz and Ellen J. Silberman
The Romney administration pointed to just six new privatization contracts since 1996 when it launched an assault on the Pacheco Law in its proposed fiscal 2004 budget - an effort partially endorsed by House lawmakers.
But Sen. Marc R. Pacheco (D-Taunton), who wrote the law, claims outsourcing was curbed in recent years due to a lack of political will on the part of Republican former governors Paul Cellucci and Jane M. Swift.
"Public unions were instrumental in Bill Weld losing to John Kerry in the 1996 Senate race," Pacheco said. "After that the handwriting was on the wall."
But Pacheco says existing private contracts predating the 1993 law have burgeoned because of a lack of oversight.
"It's a myth that somehow there is very little privatization in this state," he said.
Public employee unions are wary about private contractors who squeeze front-line workers while granting executives hefty compensation and spending thousands on lobbyists, said Rep. Marie J. Parente (D-Milford).
Parente claims not-for-profit health care executives pad their compensation while sending direct-care workers to Beacon Hill for benefits traditionally accorded state workers. Lawmakers granted them tuition reimbursement benefits last year.
"Privatization is sucking the blood out of us," Parente said.
But a top Romney administration official claims that its proposed "performance" contracts - with well-defined requirements - will tighten oversight to avoid excessive pay and perks.
"It would be difficult for a private company to be competitive if it's paying huge salaries to managers and officers," said Charles Chieppo, Romney's budget policy director. "The focus has to be on performance.
"That's not to say we don't need better controls on what we're outsourcing now, but 10 years ago the process was much less refined," he said.
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