CLT
UPDATE
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Threat to property taxpayers slinks
on as media sleeps
The state's largest teachers union yesterday delivered the second of a combination of punches aimed at boosting taxes to stave off cuts to schools.
With a $2 million television and radio ad blitz already under way, Massachusetts Teachers Association officials and teachers marched to the State House to unfurl the signatures of about 80,000 like-minded Bay State residents willing to pay more....
The petition asks the leaders to "support measures to increase revenues to help eliminate the current budget deficit." ...
"I think that legislators sense that the people in this state are taxed out," said
Chip Faulkner of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "But we're still very wary."
The Boston Herald
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Union lobbies for tax hike instead of cuts
"It's just not going to be fair to the children," Toomey said. "The children need the quality of education that we are expected to give them."
Catherine Boudreau, the union president, said the cuts would bring schools down to minimum "foundation budget" levels when they should be "reaching for the ceiling."
"It's not too late for the Legislature to prevent these devastating cuts, but there is only one alternative: raise revenues," she said.
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Teachers deliver 80,000 signatures,
press for higher taxes to avoid cuts
Under the plan, local leaders could hike meals taxes by 1 to 3 percentage points on top of the 5 percent state tax restaurant-goers already pay. And in case the override onslaught facing homeowners this spring leaves a few pennies in people's pockets, boards of selectmen and city councils could raise property taxes above Proposition 2½ limits, too....
The property tax increase would allow communities to exempt the set-aside for their tax abatement account, or overlay, from the Prop.
2½ limits. That would make a mockery of a valuable fiscal discipline. It will lead to taxpayer gouging through inflated assessments....
A recent Herald poll showed just 3 percent of the voters who support raising taxes want to see those increased taxes go to general local aid. The failure of the whining of local officials to sway the most liberal voting bloc is striking evidence that the Senate is out of touch.
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Taxing food, homes leaves a bad taste
The state has promised municipalities more than $11 billion, exceeding its bill for the "Big Dig" highway construction project. But many communities don't expect to see the money for years, and they fear their rates could be cut.
Some say the budget crunch has exposed SBA's flaws -- that it's not just a generosity the state can't afford, but one whose structural problems channel money to the wrong places and encourage inefficiency....
Akash Deep of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government calls SBA "by far" the most generous such program in the country. California, for instance, offers 50 percent reimbursement, while some other states simply offer indirect help by buying bonds issued by their cities and towns....
Some say it's no surprise that communities spending someone else's money build the nicest schools they can afford. An elementary school that opened two months ago in Waltham features big-screen TVs with DVD players in every classroom and a miniature climbing wall in the gym.
"It's become like free money," state Treasurer Tim Cahill said. "You build a project, basically you build a Taj
Mahal, and you get up to 90-percent reimbursement."
And when new schools are cheap, there's less incentive to take care of old ones.
Harvard's Deep said reimbursement rates will have to fall, and the state will have to learn how to stop promising checks without signing them.
"All the political bonus points are being earned without having to deliver anything right now," he said. "That's what makes it scary."
The Salem News
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Generous to a fault:
School building subsidies exceed state's ability to pay
The Senate is scheduled today to debate a proposal that would allow cities and towns to impose new taxes and fees without voters having a say.
The Senate apparently has forgotten what started the Boston Tea Party. It was called taxation without representation....
Residents want to make their own decisions about whether they should pay more taxes for school improvements or other local services. That's why Proposition
2½ is so popular....
If cities and towns feel the financial crunch makes it necessary to raise more money, that's a decision local voters should make - not city councils or boards of selectmen.
A Patriot Ledger editorial
Thursday, June 12, 2003
No taxation without representation
At least we can keep an eye on our legislators, and every tax hike and fee increase is well-documented. Local officials are another matter and we shudder to think of what would happen if 351 communities suddenly found themselves with the power to tax at will.
But that is what Senate Ways and Means Chairman Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, would like to see. Her top aide, Kevin O'Reilly, said local officials should not have to bother with the expense of holding referendums on tax hikes. Ah, to be a member of the ruling class....
Another group that must be salivating is the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which has been running a series of odious commercials demanding higher taxes. The tag line, "Raise the revenues. Don't destroy the dream" is as misleading as it is offensive. With [Brockton
Mayor] Yunits, the MTA and all the other Chicken Littles clamoring for a full-scale assault on taxpayers, one can hardly hear the books beginning to close on fiscal 2003 — balanced as always.
An Enterprise editorial
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Politicians will abuse their power to tax
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Even after a failed two million dollar media blitz
calling for "increased revenue," still the state teachers
union won't let up in its incessant demand for more, more, more.
Yesterday it was a silly dog-and-pony show of delivering an alleged
80,000 meaningless signatures to the State House calling for tax
increases. It was so much a dog-bites-man story that the Boston Globe
didn't even report on the stunt.
80,000 allegedly demanded higher taxes ... but only
1,200 took the voluntary tax check-off option on their income tax return
and voluntarily paid the higher old rate.
What a joke the Massachusetts Teachers Association
has become, a caricature of greed. It's pathetic that its members
continue allowing themselves to be so abused without complaint. Teachers
used to be admired, looked up to, respected ... until MTA union bosses
were allowed to assert their More Is Never Enough agenda of tax, tax,
tax.
The next time a good teachers wonders why he or she
has lost public respect, they need to look at their union, the public
face of the teaching profession. All the MTA has successfully
accomplished in recent years is extracting and squandering millions upon
millions of its members' dues ... and making teachers look endlessly
greedy and foolish.
If you need further proof of the destruction of
respect the MTA has wrought, just look at what a universal joke
it's become when anyone today hears the punch line "we're
doing it for the children."
*
*
*
We're still struggling to get attention focused on
the onerous threat from the Senate's Overlay Account exclusion from
Proposition 2½ but it's not easy. This serious assault is so subtle and
arcane that even the best reporters are having difficulty understanding
it and seem to run into a wall trying to explain it ... so they don't.
It's simple once you grasp the basic concept. It
allows municipalities to raise taxes more than the 2.5 percent limit
under Prop 2½ and stick the additional cash into the Overlay Account
allegedly to rebate over-assessments, where a built-up
"surplus" not abated to taxpayers can later be rolled into the
general fund. Raise the Overlay Account limit and eventually you
increase the city or town budget. It's just another slush fund for
future spending. It is a blatant end-run around and intentional
violation of Proposition 2½.
CLT has been pumping out memos, news releases and
news advisories warning of this proposal's potential impact, the serious
nature of this threat to taxpayers; Barbara has talked to countless
reporters and appeared on TV and radio talk-shows. We've heard a number
of times that it's just too difficult an issue to grasp and report.
We even added a new section to our website -- Proposition 2½ and the Overlay Account attack: A Primer for the uninitiated
-- to provide a one-stop source for reporters and others to help them
more easily understand Overlays and the threat to Proposition 2½.
We won't give up until recognition dawns of what a
drastic change this is, how big a new burden it will add to taxpayers.
I hope we don't have to later say "we told you
so" again.
|
|
|
Chip
Ford |
The Boston Herald
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Union lobbies for tax hike instead of cuts
by Elizabeth W. Crowley
The state's largest teachers union yesterday delivered the second of a combination of punches aimed at boosting taxes to stave off cuts to schools.
With a $2 million television and radio ad blitz already under way, Massachusetts Teachers Association officials and teachers marched to the State House to unfurl the signatures of about 80,000 like-minded Bay State residents willing to pay more.
The group, using a hand cart to deliver the petitions piled in large rolls, received a polite but brief reception from aides to Gov. Mitt Romney, Senate President Robert E. Travaglini and House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran. All three leaders have said they will not depend on higher taxes to fix a $3 billion deficit.
The petition asks the leaders to "support measures to increase revenues to help eliminate the current budget deficit."
Romney has staked considerable political capital on his no-new-taxes stand, but legislative leaders haven't ruled out revisiting the tax debate after the budget is done.
Union officials are counting on it. "The anti-tax sentiment isn't as strong as it used to be. There's been some slippage there," said MTA union President Catherine A. Boudreau.
"Once the budget is done and cities and towns begin to feel, begin to see that education is being severely cut and class sizes are increasing, then I think the Legislature will start re-evaluating everything," Boudreau said.
Anti-tax crusaders fear union officials may be right.
"I think that legislators sense that the people in this state are taxed out," said
Chip Faulkner of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "But we're still very wary."
Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman told the State House News Service, "Higher taxes kill jobs and hurt working families. Governor Romney will veto any effort to raise taxes. His approach to balancing our budget is a fundamental restructuring of state government and a reduction in spending, not more taxes."
Return to
top
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Teachers deliver 80,000 signatures,
press for higher taxes to avoid cuts
By Michael C. Levenson
Unionized teachers unloaded petitions signed by 80,000 residents at the doors of Beacon Hill's three most powerful leaders Wednesday, urging the Governor, House Speaker, and Senate President to back tax increases. The leaders offered no sign they would budge.
The petitions, bundled in fat rolls and stacked on a hand-truck, were the fruit of three weeks' work by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state's largest teacher's union, which says the budget shortfall and spending bill currently under negotiation will force teacher layoffs and lead to crowded classrooms.
The drop-off was scheduled to fall ahead of the June 15 deadline for notifying public school teachers of layoffs and one day before a Superior Court judge begins hearing arguments in Hancock vs. Driscoll, a potentially important case challenging the adequacy of school funding. The teachers association is also running TV ads warning voters about the threats public schools face without new tax revenues.
Bernadette Toomey, a fourth grade teacher at Wales Elementary School in Wales, Mass., said her school of 300 students has been forced to lay off its music, art, computer, and gym teachers, and move the school psychologist to a part-time schedule. She said she may have to take on half the fifth grade class next year, increasing her class from 24 students to 35.
"It's just not going to be fair to the children," Toomey said. "The children need the quality of education that we are expected to give them."
The petitions, gathered at book stores and shopping centers, ask Gov. Mitt Romney and House and Senate leaders to "support measures to increase revenues to help eliminate the current budget deficit." All three leaders have proposed budgets that close the shortfall - estimated at $3 billion - without tax hikes, opting instead for massive fee hikes, one-time revenue grabs and in many cases steep budget cuts.
The Senate budget cuts the state's share of public school funding by $120 million, $30 million less than the House. Catherine Boudreau, the union president, said the cuts would bring schools down to minimum "foundation budget" levels when they should be "reaching for the ceiling."
"It's not too late for the Legislature to prevent these devastating cuts, but there is only one alternative: raise revenues," she said.
Aides to Speaker Thomas Finneran, Gov. Mitt Romney, and President Robert Travaglini politely accepted the petitions but offered no indication any of the leaders would back new state taxes. The aides thanked the teachers in front of TV news cameras and returned to their offices.
"Higher taxes kill jobs and hurt working families," Romney's spokeswoman, Shawn Feddeman, said in an interview afterward. "Gov. Romney will veto any effort to raise taxes. His approach to balancing our budget is a fundamental restructuring of state government and a reduction in spending, not more taxes."
Return to
top
The Boston Herald
Thursday, June 12, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Taxing food, homes leaves a bad taste
You won't be able to afford to go out and you won't be able to afford to stay home either. That about sums up the destructive municipal relief measure scheduled for debate in the Massachusetts Senate today.
Under the plan, local leaders could hike meals taxes by 1 to 3 percentage points on top of the 5 percent state tax restaurant-goers already pay. And in case the override onslaught facing homeowners this spring leaves a few pennies in people's pockets, boards of selectmen and city councils could raise property taxes above Proposition
2½ limits, too.
Voters won't be asked to approve those new taxes, either. The lack of any such provision will draw the veto of Gov. Mitt Romney. But even if senators amend their plan to include voter approval, Romney and House Speaker Tom Finneran should work together to kill these local option taxes.
The property tax increase would allow communities to exempt the set-aside for their tax abatement account, or overlay, from the Prop.
2½ limits. That would make a mockery of a valuable fiscal discipline. It will lead to taxpayer gouging through inflated assessments.
And in a state where tourism is a key but struggling industry, imposing an 8 percent tax on a cup of chowder and a burger will just send visitors scurrying up the coast.
Like the House municipal relief plan, the Senate plan also would let communities partly off the hook for their mandatory pension plan contributions - giving legal sanction to fiscal irresponsibility.
Both the Senate and House fail to address fundamental reforms in public construction and civil service. The Senate would rather stick it to the taxpayers than stand up to the powerful unions who have squelched these reforms for years.
A recent Herald poll showed just 3 percent of the voters who support raising taxes want to see those increased taxes go to general local aid. The failure of the whining of local officials to sway the most liberal voting bloc is striking evidence that the Senate is out of touch.
Return to
top
The Salem News
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Generous to a fault:
School building subsidies exceed state's ability to pay
By Justin Pope -
AP Business
The Massachusetts School Building Assistance program has been very good to the city of Salem.
An elementary school construction project is already receiving SBA funding. Two others just cleared SBA's waiting list and should get their first reimbursement checks next year. Another elementary school should receive payments next year for 65 percent of its costs, and a new high school isn't far down the list.
Created in 1948 to help build schools for baby boomers, SBA is one of Beacon Hill's most popular programs, helping legislators deliver billions in state aid to their districts and giving Massachusetts arguably the best-built schools in America.
"This program has been phenomenal," said Bruce Guy, finance director in Salem, which like most communities would be hard-pressed to maintain schools on its own.
For the state, however, the SBA has become a phenomenal headache.
Over the past decade, building costs have skyrocketed to as much as $100 million for a new high school. So have SBA's reimbursement rates, now averaging 70 percent and climbing as high as 90 percent, depending on factors such as the community's wealth and how racially diverse its schools are.
The state has promised municipalities more than $11 billion, exceeding its bill for the "Big Dig" highway construction project. But many communities don't expect to see the money for years, and they fear their rates could be cut.
Some say the budget crunch has exposed SBA's flaws -- that it's not just a generosity the state can't afford, but one whose structural problems channel money to the wrong places and encourage inefficiency.
Most generous program in the country
Akash Deep of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government calls SBA "by far" the most generous such program in the country. California, for instance, offers 50 percent reimbursement, while some other states simply offer indirect help by buying bonds issued by their cities and towns.
For many, SBA's size shows the state's commitment to education.
"While it costs the state a significant amount of money, that's a sign of the vitality of the program, it's a sign of the need that's out there," said Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "Massachusetts has scores and scores of school districts that desperately need to improve and modernize their facilities."
But some say, with a $3 billion budget deficit looming, SBA can't afford such generosity.
Since 1993, annual SBA grants have grown from $150 million to $380 million. But the waiting list has grown even faster. In fiscal 2002, 19 projects "cleared" the waiting list, but 66 were added, bringing it to 328.
"We're appreciative of it, and the new schools around this commonwealth wouldn't be here without it, but they just didn't watch it," North Adams Mayor John Barrett said. "They thought the well would never run dry. They just kept approving and approving."
Jeff Wulfson, who administers SBA for the Department of Education, agreed "we haven't found a good way to say 'no' to some of these projects."
But Beacon Hill hasn't helped much. In February, when Education Commissioner David Driscoll tried to freeze the waiting list, legislators propped the window open through this month. Now, communities all over the state are rushing through votes to add their names to the list before it closes.
An amendment sponsored by Rep. Brad Jones, R-N. Reading, and Rep. Marie
Parente, D-Milford, would force SBA to add any project communities approve to the list -- including two in the sponsors' districts that Driscoll rejected.
Parente, chair of the House committee on long-term debt, said she knows the program needs restructuring. But she says students are learning in hallways and in windowless classrooms at the Milford school that Driscoll turned down.
"The emergency is now," she said.
For some, legislators' determination to stand up for local projects doesn't bode well for fixing the program.
"I don't think political will has crystalized to put a stop to it," Deep said.
Questionable practices
Some say it's no surprise that communities spending someone else's money build the nicest schools they can afford. An elementary school that opened two months ago in Waltham features big-screen TVs with DVD players in every classroom and a miniature climbing wall in the gym.
"It's become like free money," state Treasurer Tim Cahill said. "You build a project, basically you build a Taj
Mahal, and you get up to 90-percent reimbursement."
And when new schools are cheap, there's less incentive to take care of old ones.
"There are many instances where it was cheaper for a community to opt to pay 10-20 percent for a renovation or a new school rather than 100 percent of the maintenance costs," said
Wulfson, who said he is pushing for a separate maintenance reimbursement fund.
The SBA backlog has also intensified complaints the program doesn't channel money where it's needed most.
In working-class North Adams, Barrett is peeved that he's stuck in line behind tiny Williamstown, one town over. And why, he wonders, does Medford have three projects ahead of North Adams? Because SBA projects get funding in the order their applications are approved, not necessarily in order of need.
True, poorer communities generally get a higher reimbursement rate. But that's only after the money arrives.
As everyone waits, wealthier towns often issue their own bonds to start the projects. Wellesley has two elementary school projects ranked 73rd and 95th on the list, but borrowed $38 million to fund them.
Lawrence, meanwhile, is higher on the list at No. 24, but only recently got permission from the state's emergency finance board to issue $6 million in short-term bonds to start a desperately needed new high school.
Scott Jordan, Lawrence's budget and finance director, wonders why SBA doesn't work like the water pollution abatement trust, which decides each year which projects are needed most.
"In Lawrence High School, if a hole opened up tomorrow and swallowed it, it would still be No. 24 on this list," said Jordan, who worked in the administrations of Gov. Paul Cellucci and Lt. Gov. Jane Swift on SBA issues.
Expensive practices
Interest rates are at record lows, but many communities and the state aren't taking full advantage.
In interviews with more than 100 local officials awaiting funding for their projects, dozens told The Associated Press they want to issue long-term debt now and lock in low rates -- saving money down the road -- but delayed reimbursement means they can't afford principal payments.
"I've been around long enough to know I've never seen a better opportunity to borrow money right now, and we just can't do it," Barrett said.
Towns are like renters who want to buy a house but can't afford a mortgage. The missed savings add up.
Paying interest to roll over short-term debt costs Hull $702,000 annually, some of which comes straight out of the town's $29 million budget. The state has promised to eventually repay 60 percent of those interest costs, but the delay just increases the eventual bill for both Hull and the state.
The state could conceivably issue its own bonds and pass the money on to communities. That would also save cities and towns the millions they spend annually to hire underwriters and lawyers to issue their own bonds.
But Cahill, who oversees the state's debt, said that won't work, with Massachusetts already burdened by the country's highest per-capita debt load.
"In good times that would be definitely something we could do," he said. "In difficult times, raising the debt ceiling a significant amount would not be practical."
What now?
What will happen to SBA? Senate President Robert Travaglini has said reimbursement rates will have to be cut. Beckwith, of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said that won't be necessary if construction laws are changed.
An unusual state law that requires public-building projects to advertise contracts to subcontractors before hiring a general contractor, may add hundreds of millions of dollars annually to school construction costs, two 1999 Pioneer Institute reports argued.
Cahill said last week he would like to see the program work like the water pollution and sewer abatement trust, a revolving fund that makes low-interest loans to municipalities. Parente said she envisions something like the state finance authority that issues bonds for colleges and universities. Nicole St. Peter, a spokeswoman for Romney, said he has not made any proposals yet, but looks forward to working with the Legislature on a long-term solution once the budget is passed.
Harvard's Deep said reimbursement rates will have to fall, and the state will have to learn how to stop promising checks without signing them.
"All the political bonus points are being earned without having to deliver anything right now," he said. "That's what makes it scary."
Return to
top
The Patriot Ledger
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Editorial
No taxation without representation
The Senate is scheduled today to debate a proposal that would allow cities and towns to impose new taxes and fees without voters having a say.
The Senate apparently has forgotten what started the Boston Tea Party. It was called taxation without representation.
The proposal is one more response to the state's fiscal crisis. Legislators know Massachusetts voters are not ready for an increase in the state income or sales tax. Because insufficient money made it necessary to cut local aid, the Legislature wants to give municipalities the ability to raise more money at the local level.
The concept is laudable, but the practical application is onerous.
Residents want to make their own decisions about whether they should pay more taxes for school improvements or other local services. That's why Proposition
2½ is so popular.
The Senate plan - which is not mirrored in the House package - would allow localities to increase taxes on meals, fines for traffic violations, and local license fees. They could impose fees for using public parks, among other things. The state now collects a 5 percent meals tax; a local meals tax would be in addition.
Governor Romney has threatened to veto any local-option bill that doesn't include a provision for voter approval.
Voting across the South Shore this spring shows that communities have differing attitudes about whether they can afford to raise taxes to maintain service levels and programs. Override votes have passed in Holbrook, Halifax, Kingston, Scituate and Cohasset. They have failed in Abington, Plymouth, Hanson, Braintree and Randolph.
If cities and towns feel the financial crunch makes it necessary to raise more money, that's a decision local voters should make - not city councils or boards of selectmen.
Return to
top
The Brockton Enterprise
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Editorial
Politicians will abuse their power to tax
The Legislature is afraid to raise taxes, but it also has no desire to cut spending. So how does the budget get balanced? By passing the buck, of course.
The Senate plans to debate a plan today that would allow cities and towns to raise taxes on their own — without even asking voters. Many communities would act responsibly if granted this power, but many politicians — Brockton Mayor John T. Yunits Jr. among them — cannot be trusted.
At least we can keep an eye on our legislators, and every tax hike and fee increase is well-documented. Local officials are another matter and we shudder to think of what would happen if 351 communities suddenly found themselves with the power to tax at will.
But that is what Senate Ways and Means Chairman Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, would like to see. Her top aide, Kevin O'Reilly, said local officials should not have to bother with the expense of holding referendums on tax hikes. Ah, to be a member of the ruling class.
Fortunately, Gov. Mitt Romney said he would veto any measure that would let cities and towns raise taxes without voters having a say in the matter. It is bad enough that the Legislature plans to quadruple some driving fines and tamper with Proposition
2½. If it gives local politicians the power to raise basic tax rates without a referendum, you can be sure Yunits and his brethren will be hungrily eyeing the wallets of their constituents.
It was Yunits, after all, who led the charge for higher taxes this year, saying that raising the income tax rate to 5.3 or 5.6 percent wasn't enough — it had to be raised to 5.95 percent to avoid fiscal calamity. Now, isn't it odd that Brockton has come up with a balanced budget — with no layoffs — and without raising taxes?
Another group that must be salivating is the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which has been running a series of odious commercials demanding higher taxes. The tag line, "Raise the revenues. Don't destroy the dream" is as misleading as it is offensive. With
Yunits, the MTA and all the other Chicken Littles clamoring for a full-scale assault on taxpayers, one can hardly hear the books beginning to close on fiscal 2003 — balanced as always.
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
|