CLT
UPDATE
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Rampant hypocrisy exposed after
Romney's budget vetoes
Nearly final results are in on the grand experiment of allowing taxpayers to pay higher state-income taxes, should they choose to.
The bottom line is, they chose not to.
Under a law passed last year, every state income-tax filer had the option of paying at either the current 5.3 percent rate or the old 5.85 percent rate.
Here's the running tally:
Total returns so far: 2,473,413.
Those who elected to pay at the lower rate: 2,471,216.
Those who elected to pay at the higher rate: 1,197.
That means that fewer than one-20th of 1 percent of the filers decided to pay more than their fair share - for the children, not to mention the most vulnerable members of society, etc.
Those 1,197 liberals, by the way, are not terribly well-to-do.
Their total extra payments totalled $137,523, which means their average taxable income was just a bit over $20,000.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, June 29, 2003
The Buzz [Excerpt]
Thanks, but no thanks
Nurses, students, union groups and human service activists bellowed through the State House halls shortly after Gov. Mitt Romney released details of the state’s budget, continuing the fight for "new and fair revenue generation" to save services lost in the fiscal 2004 budget.
With a budget already endorsed by the governor, the group, led by several Boston city councilors (including Chuck Turner, center right) is hoping for future legislation that raises revenues and "protects the people," said Felix Arroyo, Boston councilor-at-large.
Citing a recent University of Massachusetts poll that resulted in 47 percent of the people saying they support raising taxes to close the budget gap, speakers said although there may not be an appetite among legislators to raise taxes, it may be the right thing to do.
"You don’t balance the budget on the backs of the people," Arroyo said, sparking thunderous applause. "The people are not going to go away."
State House News Service
Monday, June 30, 2003
[Excerpt] Protestors rock the State House
While Bulger's office escaped the veto pen, Romney wiped out $1.7 million for the UMass Commonwealth College honors school, and all $50,000 for the McCormack Institute, the university's think tank.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
[Excerpt] Bulger's office survives flurry of Romney vetoes
Governor Mitt Romney yesterday vetoed $201 million in spending approved by the Legislature, slicing another $57.1 million in aid to already battered cities and towns, $10 million in legal aid for poor residents, and $9 million in welfare grants....
Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said the governor should have deferred deeper cuts until he saw whether the Legislature's budget was truly out of balance.
"We would rather [have] had him wait, see what tax revenues are, before seeing $200 million more in cuts," Widmer said.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Romney vetoes $201m in spending
Local aid, welfare funds affected
The economy has continued soft, and Romney and the Legislature have refused to consider raising taxes....
One of the worst Romney vetoes was one he didn't make. The Clean Elections campaign reform law, approved by the voters in 1998, was killed in this budget after a repeal rider was added by the Senate on a voice vote, with the House spared any vote at all. While Romney personally opposes public funding of campaigns, his veto would have required the legislators to be recorded. By approving the repeal, he is an accessory to the killing of a publicly mandated reform.
A Boston Globe editorial
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Romney's deep cuts
As the state starts the fiscal year today with the rarity of a signed budget, Gov. Mitt Romney and the Legislature have turned a page on the fiscal crisis. By delivering a budget acceding to public opposition to new broad-based taxes while preserving core services, Romney and legislative leaders have also proven they can govern in bad as well as good times.
It is a skill they will continue to need. According to the Massachusetts Taxpayers' Foundation, the nearly $23 billion spending blueprint represents the third lowest spending increase - about 1.3 percent - of the past 25 years. Still, the foundation predicts a fiscal 2005 budget gap between $1.5 billion and $2 billion....
There are difficult days to come. The Legislature can smooth the way by sustaining Romney's vetoes and turning its attention to the reform work still ahead.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Fiscal job well done, more work to do
The House Republican leader [Bradley H. Jones, R-North Reading] has defected from Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's push for a controversial pay raise - jeopardizing Finneran's drive to seize control of lawmakers' compensation from Gov. Mitt Romney....
A "significant portion" of the other 12 House Republicans who voted to strip Romney of the right to sign off on legislative pay have also returned to the GOP fold, Jones said....
Still, Finneran is furiously canvassing lawmakers and using the upcoming round of budget veto overrides as a threat to sway lawmakers who have pet projects on the line, sources said.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
GOP leader now backs gov, opposes lawmakers' $ hike
For all the importance of the $23 billion budget Gov. Mitt Romney signed yesterday - and the veto gauntlet he threw down on several issues - it was Romney's rejection of a legislative pay raise last Friday that really had legislators buzzing yesterday....
[State Rep. Michael Festa, D-Melrose] said, "There's a full-court press on by the leadership to switch some (Democratic) votes" and thus make it easier to override Romney's veto, even if he can persuade the 13 Republicans who voted for the bill to instead sustain him now.
"Nothing untoward" was going on, Festa said. Just an intense exchange of views on an issue. Except a lot of committee chairmen were calling a lot of rank-and-file members and telling them, "This is a big vote. We really need you on this one." Uh-oh, "really need you" often translates in Speaker Tom Finneran's House to "You better toe the line on this one." ...
GOP leader Jones suspects that the speaker won't bring this veto to the floor for a vote unless "he expects he has the votes to override it."
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Romney's veto is right on the money
by Wayne Woodlief
Since 2001, when Massachusetts entered its second-worst recession since the end of World War II, about 1 in 4 of the Commonwealth's 351 cities and towns have voted to override the state law that limits annual property tax increases, according to an analysis by the Globe....
The number of permanent property tax increases proposed across the state surged to 122 this year, the most since fiscal year 1996, according to the Globe's analysis, which incorporated data from the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the state Department of Revenue.
The analysis only looked at proposals to permanently override Proposition
2½....
About 51 percent of the tax increases were approved for fiscal 2004, according to the most recent available data. That's higher than the average approval rate of 49 percent recorded by all communities since fiscal year 1994, but considerably lower than the rates for fiscal 2003 (62 percent) and fiscal 2002 (74 percent).
"I think there's a tension in voters' minds," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-funded watchdog group. While many voters are struggling to make ends meet and can ill-afford higher property taxes, he said, they recognize that an override defeat will have "real and serious consequences to my city and town." ...
Voters to date have considered 281 questions for fiscal 2002 through 2004, compared with 645 from fiscal 1994 through 1996. But a much higher percentage of overrides passed in the most recent three-year period (60 percent) than in the earlier one (36 percent)....
Barbara Anderson, a Marblehead resident and executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, which championed Proposition 2½ two decades ago, said the tax increase cap does sometimes create hardships. But cities and towns are making tough budgetary choices and no disasters have resulted.
Override proponents "always say it's the end of the world -- disaster, destruction, devastation," said Anderson. "And then, when they don't pass, they find some way to deal with it. All of the communities that have lost overrides aren't in bankruptcy or receivership."
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Cities, towns keep turning to property tax overrides
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
"Citing a recent University of Massachusetts poll that resulted in 47 percent of the people saying they support raising taxes to close the budget
gap," the Gimme Lobby yesterday demanded "new and fair revenue generation"
-- tax hikes -- as reported by the State House News Service yesterday.
"Romney wiped out ... all $50,000 for the McCormack Institute, the university's think
tank," the Boston Herald today reported.
UMass "think tank" the McCormack Institute
generated the poll cited by the Gimme Lobby.
Looks to me like that was a real good place to veto!
There goes the Boston Globe again, decrying that taxes weren't increased in its ongoing crusade to overturn our tax
rollback overwhelmingly approved by the voters in 2000. But then its
editorial elite accuse the governor of being "an accessory to the killing of a publicly mandated
reform" because he didn't veto the Legislature's repeal of the
Clean Elections law. Besides the tax rollback, how many similar
"publicly mandated reforms" opposed by the bow-tie crowd on
Morrissey Boulevard has it inflamed the lynch mob to murder in the
cradle? Offhand, term limits for one comes to mind.
The governor vetoed $201 million yesterday, and
that's got Michael Widmer, president of the so-called Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation, and the rest of the Gimme Lobby up in arms. Some
were even carried out in handcuffs from the State House yesterday ...
though "Mickey W" unfortunately was not among them.
"We would rather [have] had him wait, see what tax revenues are, before seeing $200 million more in cuts,"
MTF president Michael Widmer said yesterday in response to the
Governor's vetoes.
But a bulletin issued by the fraudulently-named
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation less than a month ago asserted:
"Because both legislative budgets, like the Governor's, rely so heavily on one-time revenues, the final 2004 budget will almost certainly be structurally imbalanced, necessitating further spending cuts or additional revenues in 2005. And without an extraordinary effort by the conference committee to hold down 2004 appropriations in the final budgetary compromise -- ideally to the lower House total of $23.2 billion -- the structural gap could rise even higher, adding to the risk that the fiscal crisis will extend into 2006 and perhaps beyond."
How many ways would "Mickey W" like
to have it: budget reductions or budget increases? Oh right,
Widmer and MTF fat-cat bankers call endlessly for "reforms"
that never occur, while they advocate for more borrowing to fund more
spending and bigger budgets that would require tax hikes on average
taxpayers.
Gov. Romney vetoed the resurrected tax on
prescription drugs. It'll be fun now to watch whether this veto is
overridden, after even a Superior Court judge tossed the last one out.
While we're looking at the mistreatment of pharmacies, The Boston Herald
today editorialized, "but in a triumph of politics over wisdom Romney amended an anti-business pharmacy discount plan
rather than vetoing it outright."
On September 6 of last year, the MetroWest Daily News
reported [Slashing of drug reimbursement put on hold]:
"State Rep. Daniel Bosley, D-North Adams, said lawmakers should have thoroughly debated the rate cut instead of passing it as a so-called
'budget rider.' And he claimed many lawmakers didn't fully understand what they were approving."
Do you suppose they had any better comprehension of
what they were approving in another "budget rider," just one
of some 775 of them, this year?
I doubt it very much.
The Finneran Pay-Raise Power-Grab is teetering. Help
give it a nudge over the edge by contacting your state rep and senator.
You know The Emperor and his capos are busy at the work of arm-twisting,
and Caligula has the powerful leverage of budget overrides that he's
reportedly exerting. But you have the power of constituent
service ... while it still lasts.
Use it ... or lose it.
Hey, imagine this: a total of 1,197 tax filers
took advantage of our voluntary tax check-off, chose the option of
paying the old income tax rate of 5.85 percent. We do have to wonder
what ever happened to the remaining 1,053,984 who voted against our
Question 4 on the ballot in 2000, the income tax rollback that has
reduced the rate to 5.3 percent but was "frozen" there last
year by the Legislature.
All those voters apparently have since changed their
minds, seen the error of their ways, grabbed the money.
2,595,755 are now in favor of Question 4 as
demonstrated by their tax returns, while only 1,197 still oppose the
lower rate. Talk about "landslides."
"No new taxes" is virtually unanimous now
by the only poll that counts: actions. Gov. Romney easily saved
taxpayers' money simply by defunding UMass pollsters who couldn't have
been more wrong.
|
|
|
Chip
Ford |
Your rep and senator need to know you
oppose the Finneran pay-raise power-grab and will not forget how they vote.
This is a critical turning point in
Massachusetts history, a point that will define our very form of government.
Don't let it pass by without voicing
your opinion. Find
your rep and senator now, and let him or her know where you stand: for
democracy or for a "Finneran Rules" autocracy.
When you call, just tell whoever
answers the phone that you're a constituent and would like the representative or
senator to sustain the governor's veto on the Finneran Power-Grab. If there's a
question, refer them to the CLT
memo that was delivered to their offices on June 25.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Romney vetoes $201m in spending
Local aid, welfare funds affected
By Rick Klein and Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff & Correspondent
Governor Mitt Romney yesterday vetoed $201 million in spending approved by the Legislature, slicing another $57.1 million in aid to already battered cities and towns, $10 million in legal aid for poor residents, and $9 million in welfare grants.
The governor's vetoes come on top of hundreds of millions of dollars in spending reductions included in the budget completed by the lawmakers two weeks ago. The deep cuts prompted about 200 protesters to swarm the State House yesterday, calling for Romney and legislative leaders to reconsider their no-new-taxes stance this year.
"It's all horrendous," said Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, who led the crowd in chants of "No More Cuts" outside the House chamber, as protesters held up red-lettered signs reading "SHAME."
"We are angry that Governor Romney and [the] Democratically-controlled Legislature are about to pass a budget for fiscal 2004 that is going to wreak havoc on the people of this state," Turner said.
The hooting crowd flowed up the main staircase of the State House and attempted to make its way into the House chamber, but was barred by state troopers. About 20 of the demonstrators, including Turner, were arrested at 6 p.m. when they refused to leave the closed building.
Romney blamed House and Senate members for the additional cuts, saying they would not have been necessary if lawmakers had adopted more of his reforms and approved a balanced budget. Legislative leaders sharply dispute the accusation, saying the $23.14 billion spending plan they sent to Romney was in balance.
The Legislature will vote late this week or early next week on which vetoes to overturn. The strong Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate mean virtually all gubernatorial vetoes can be overridden. Budget overrides must originate in the House, so House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran has near-complete authority over which vetoes to let stand.
Finneran and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini issued a brief joint statement yesterday, saying many of the governor's vetoes "needlessly make a painful budget more painful." They noted the Legislature has adopted many of the reforms Romney suggested.
Finneran and members of his leadership team also picked up their lobbying efforts on behalf of a bill that would grant legislative leaders nearly complete authority to set the pay of their deputies. Romney vetoed that bill Friday, and the speaker is aggressively seeking to find the votes to override it.
Romney signed off on the Legislature's plan to control prescription drug costs by purchasing drugs in bulk. That move, which echoes an effort by Maine that has been tied up in courts, has been fiercely opposed by drug companies and the biotechnology industry. Romney wants 12 months to implement the plan, instead of the six months the Legislature provided, and wants his administration to have more flexibility in negotiating discounts.
He also vetoed $7.6 million for the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, eliminating the entire state contribution and half the overall funding for free legal services to low-income residents. Lonnie Powers, the group's executive director, said the cuts mean that 33,000 poor residents seeking help with evictions, foreclosures, or ending abusive relationships would be turned away next year.
Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said the governor's vetoes would have cities and towns receive $330 million less than they did in fiscal 2003, when added to the cuts in the Legislature's budget.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino blasted Romney for delivering more bad budget news to Boston without any warning. Romney's vetoes would cut $10 million more in aid to the city beyond the $57 million cut by the Legislature, he said.
"It just gets more frustrating every time you're dealing with the administration. There's no communication about what's happening on the budget," said Menino, adding more layoffs in public safety and public works will be necessary if the Legislature doesn't reverse the vetoes. The city's budget year also starts today, so those cuts will have to be accounted for soon if they aren't overturned.
Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said the governor should have deferred deeper cuts until he saw whether the Legislature's budget was truly out of balance.
"We would rather [have] had him wait, see what tax revenues are, before seeing $200 million more in cuts," Widmer said.
Elsewhere in the Legislature's budget, the governor:
l Signed off on the repeal of the voter-approved Clean Elections Law, which provides public assistance to candidates for state office who abide by strict spending and fund-raising limits. Romney said he views the law as an unwise use of taxpayer money and said he is working on an alternative system without using tax dollars.
l Vetoed a move to expand the authority of managers at the Boston Municipal Court that would give them oversight of the Boston-based district courts as well. Romney also vetoed most of the funding for eight underutilized courthouses around the state and is again calling on House and Senate members to shut those courts down.
l Cut more than half the funding for the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, which Romney says is full of patronage jobs, despite support for the commission by industry leaders.
l Turned back an effort to expand the purview of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority by giving it control of several major highways, in addition to Interstate 90. The governor has proposed merging the authority with the state Highway Department, but lawmakers have thus far rejected such a plan.
l Avoided either endorsing or rejecting Quinn Bill reforms passed by the Legislature. Romney sent it back to lawmakers with proposed amendments to allow police officers who are more than half-way to their degrees, or who served in the military, to qualify for benefits under the current system. The program provides percentage increases to officers' salaries, not flat stipends.
l Blocked a plan to keep the Fernald Center in Waltham open past June 2004. The center houses 303 of the most profoundly retarded people in the state.
l Vetoed a $1.30 tax on every prescription filled in Massachusetts, a levy introduced by the Legislature last year to generate about $66 million annually for budget needs.
l Cut the entire state appropriation, $1.7 million, to Commonwealth College, the honors program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The program has been a hallmark of UMass president William M. Bulger's administration.
Globe correspondent Brendan McCarthy and Ralph Ranalli, Marcella
Bombardieri, and Emily Sweeney of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
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The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
A Boston Globe editorial
Romney's deep cuts
All of the plaudits to the Legislature and Governor Romney for approving a balanced budget on time should not obscure the fact that the new fiscal year dawns today with bleak prospects for students who rely on a healthful school breakfast, teachers hoping to avoid layoff, rape victims in need of crisis services and counseling, and many others dependent on services that will shrink this year or disappear altogether. The overriding reasons for the budget crunch are clear enough: The economy has continued soft, and Romney and the Legislature have refused to consider raising taxes. The result is equally clear: Romney promised not to cut the core mission of state government, and his first budget fails that test badly.
As Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation put it yesterday after reviewing Romney's budget vetoes: "We are way beyond cutting out the fluff. We are deep into the essential services of state government."
Some of Romney's vetoes make sense. Fudging the MCAS graduation requirement for students with special needs would undermine the foundations of education reform and not help the students in the long run.
But several other vetoes were wrong and should be overridden by the Legislature.
One is a proposal to allow two-way bilingual programs as an alternative to the restrictive English immersion approach for non-English-speaking students approved by voters last fall.
Another proposal would allow parents of young children to substitute education and training for the work requirement under welfare reform. Romney also vetoed $7.5 million in civil legal aid to poor families.
Particularly egregious was Romney's veto of $23 million in direct local aid, plus an additional $34 million in programs -- mostly in schools and libraries -- that affect local budgets. These cuts will hit hardest in older cities such as Somerville, Quincy, and Boston.
Mayor Menino said late yesterday that he had no warning Romney was planning a veto that would cut funds to Boston by more than $10 million -- the third cut in state aid in a year. Menino scoffed at Romney's rhetorical embrace of education. "You can't continue to make statements and not back them up with funds," he said.
One of the worst Romney vetoes was one he didn't make. The Clean Elections campaign reform law, approved by the voters in 1998, was killed in this budget after a repeal rider was added by the Senate on a voice vote, with the House spared any vote at all. While Romney personally opposes public funding of campaigns, his veto would have required the legislators to be recorded. By approving the repeal, he is an accessory to the killing of a publicly mandated reform.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Fiscal job well done, more work to do
As the state starts the fiscal year today with the rarity of a signed budget, Gov. Mitt Romney and the Legislature have turned a page on the fiscal crisis. By delivering a budget acceding to public opposition to new broad-based taxes while preserving core services, Romney and legislative leaders have also proven they can govern in bad as well as good times.
It is a skill they will continue to need. According to the Massachusetts Taxpayers' Foundation, the nearly $23 billion spending blueprint represents the third lowest spending increase - about 1.3 percent - of the past 25 years. Still, the foundation predicts a fiscal 2005 budget gap between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. Massachusetts is not out of the woods yet.
Romney's veto of an additional $201 million in spending is the first salvo in the next fiscal war. Legislators, who up to now have faced the revenue shortfall squarely, should let those spending vetoes stand.
Likewise, the Legislature should support the governor's vetoes of several ill-advised law changes.
Romney vetoed measures to water down the new English immersion law and MCAS standards for special education students.
Romney was able to strengthen welfare reform by including families with children between the ages of 2 and 5, while vetoing the gutting of the work requirement.
The Boston Municipal Court will have to make do with $1.5 million less. Romney vetoed an expansion of its jurisdiction and reduced the court's appropriation to about the same level of Springfield District Court, which has a similar caseload.
And Romney threw down the gauntlet on the closure of eight other district courts by vetoing three-fourths of their budgets and resubmitting an amendment to shutter them.
A welcome final nail was driven into the coffin of clean elections and the prescription drug tax, but in a triumph of politics over wisdom Romney amended an anti-business pharmacy discount plan rather than vetoing it outright.
Another peculiar Romney move will have the effect of retaining the current Quinn bill unless proposed exemptions from the already modest changes in the budget are supported by the Legislature.
Romney rightly heaped praise on the Legislature for adopting many of his reform proposals. Yesterday's budget signing will allow the elimination of the Metropolitan District Commission, a more manageable human services bureaucracy and a fairer burden of health care costs borne by state employees.
There are difficult days to come. The Legislature can smooth the way by sustaining Romney's vetoes and turning its attention to the reform work still ahead.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
GOP leader now backs gov, opposes lawmakers' $ hike
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
The House Republican leader has defected from Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's push for a controversial pay raise - jeopardizing Finneran's drive to seize control of lawmakers' compensation from Gov. Mitt Romney.
After voting with Finneran originally, House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones told the Herald he will throw his support behind Romney's veto of the bill because Democratic leaders rejected Romney's bid to make the power to dole out extra pay temporary.
"I thought that was a reasonable, fair request," Jones (R-North Reading) said. "They weren't willing to do that."
A "significant portion" of the other 12 House Republicans who voted to strip Romney of the right to sign off on legislative pay have also returned to the GOP fold, Jones said.
Without the Republican votes, Finneran's bill is probably doomed, after lawmakers passed it on a vote of 100-50 - an exact two-thirds split, the same threshold needed to override a veto.
Still, Finneran is furiously canvassing lawmakers and using the upcoming round of budget veto overrides as a threat to sway lawmakers who have pet projects on the line, sources said.
A spokesman for Finneran declined comment last night.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Romney's veto is right on the money
by Wayne Woodlief
For all the importance of the $23 billion budget Gov. Mitt Romney signed yesterday - and the veto gauntlet he threw down on several issues - it was Romney's rejection of a legislative pay raise last Friday that really had legislators buzzing yesterday.
"The pay raise veto was the focus of attention, the most compelling issue, up here today," said Rep. Michael Festa (D-Melrose), a leader of a moderate group of House members, who oppose the raise, approved on a 100-50 vote in the House.
Festa said, "There's a full-court press on by the leadership to switch some (Democratic) votes" and thus make it easier to override Romney's veto, even if he can persuade the 13 Republicans who voted for the bill to instead sustain him now.
"Nothing untoward" was going on, Festa said. Just an intense exchange of views on an issue. Except a lot of committee chairmen were calling a lot of rank-and-file members and telling them, "This is a big vote. We really need you on this one." Uh-oh, "really need you" often translates in Speaker Tom Finneran's House to "You better toe the line on this one."
See, we're talking money out of their own pockets; a threat that those new committees and pay raises for committee leaders of both parties (ranging from $7,500 to a tidy $35,000, according to Romney's veto message) might never come to pass.
It was a smelly kettle of fish the Legislature handed Romney. Under the bill, for the first time since the 1800s, governors would have no review at all over such high-handed handouts to favorites of the House speaker or Senate president. The Senate and House would set the pay through their own rules that are not subject to veto, rather than by statute, which is.
Romney quite rightly vetoed the bill. "It (would take) away forever the say of future governors and the public to participate in matters dealing with legislative compensation," he said. "That is unacceptable to me."
And also most likely unacceptable to Massachusetts' masses. Which gives the governor a decent chance to sustain this veto and - finally - score a victory for the reform he has championed, so far futilely, on Beacon Hill.
It takes only one-third plus one of either house - not both - to sustain a veto. If everybody in the 160-member House votes, 54 votes would uphold a veto.
The math is on Romney's side. Of the 23 GOP House members (yep, just 23), only 10 voted against the raise, most of the remaining 13 voted for it. (Hey, a lot of them could be pulling in an extra $7,000 here, $15,000 there.) But the governor, with his powers and patronage, should be able to swing most of the 13 to back him on a must vote.
And if there's not much slippage among the 40 Democrats who found the leadership bill too much to stomach, Romney should be able to gain 54 votes and guarantee that no override occurs.
House Minority Leader Bradley Jones (R-North Reading) said, "I voted for the bill. But I told Speaker Finneran today that I will vote to sustain the governor's veto. My expectation is that most members of the Republican caucus will stick with the governor."
There are two other swing blocs at play: the anti-Finneran reform forces, led by Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Boston) and the newly-formed House Democratic Council, to which Festa belongs.
"We believe in working with leadership and with the progressives," Festa said. "But this was the kind of vote that hurts the image of the institution. And every individual should be allowed to vote his or her conscience and not be judged as `against leadership.' "
He said, "This is the wrong time" for big leadership raises "at a time when we are telling deserving people, `There's no money for you.' "
Festa is exactly right. And, though the Legislature should be able to organize its own committees, it ought to do so in a rational, planned way that would delete unnecessary committees as others - like the new Homeland Security Committee - are created.
Add-on government can look pretty seedy, like a lean-to tacked onto a mansion, if it's done just to reward leadership pets and perhaps lure dissidents into the fold.
GOP leader Jones suspects that the speaker won't bring this veto to the floor for a vote unless "he expects he has the votes to override it." Of course, if Finneran never brings it up before this session ends, the veto would prevail. Not the kind of spotlight victory Romney would like. But he has the bully pulpit to trumpet his win for the people, anyway.
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The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Cities, towns keep turning to property tax overrides
By Jonathan Saltzman and Brenda J. Buote, Globe Staff
Sara Mattes has been on the Lincoln Board of Selectmen only three years, but she has already had to ask town voters four times to permanently increase their taxes.
"Somebody's got to pay the piper," said Mattes, whose constituents recently raised an extra $350,000 for the fiscal year that starts today. "Either you have to make lots of cuts at the local level, or you have to increase your revenue stream."
Since 2001, when Massachusetts entered its second-worst recession since the end of World War II, about 1 in 4 of the Commonwealth's 351 cities and towns have voted to override the state law that limits annual property tax increases, according to an analysis by the Globe.
At a time when lawmakers on Beacon Hill and the governor have shown little taste for higher taxes (their budget for the upcoming fiscal year slashes aid to cities and towns, but avoids new taxes) local elected officials have found themselves returning to the property tax well again and again.
Lincoln is among 27 communities that voted for a tax increase more than once during the past three years. The analysis also showed that when municipalities asked for a permanent increase during that period, voters said yes in most cases.
"It's clear that there are more [tax increase proposals] out there, and that's almost entirely related to the slash in local aid," said David
Baier, legislative director for the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "Ultimately, people like their local services, such as education, police, fire -- the whole gamut. And there are very, very thin margins in municipal budgets. So when there are disruptions in local aid, the alternative is to cut services or ask voters to increase property taxes."
The number of permanent property tax increases proposed across the state surged to 122 this year, the most since fiscal year 1996, according to the Globe's analysis, which incorporated data from the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the state Department of Revenue.
The analysis only looked at proposals to permanently override Proposition 2½. Adopted in 1980 during a wave of taxpayer revolts across the country, the state law caps annual property tax increases at 2.5 percent, plus new growth, unless voters approve a higher amount. Excluded from the analysis were votes on debt exclusions, which temporarily increase the tax levy to fund projects such as a school renovation, and ballot questions on capital expenditures that would increase the tax rate for a limited period.
But while Lincoln was receptive to tax increases, voters in such places as Merrimac rejected three attempts to permanently increase the levy. Together, the three overrides would have raised an additional $735,284 for for such budgets as the Pentucket Regional School District and the police department.
"I think the community is suffering from override exhaustion," said Janet Bruno, chairwoman of the Merrimac Board of Selectmen. "Year after year, voters have been asked to approve overrides. This year, they said enough is enough."
This year's 122 permanent override proposals across the state, which sought tax increases as high as $5.3 million in the case of one that failed in Melrose, represent a 42 percent jump over last year's total of 86. Most of the overrides would have increased a homeowner's average annual tax bill by $200 to $500.
About 51 percent of the tax increases were approved for fiscal 2004, according to the most recent available data. That's higher than the average approval rate of 49 percent recorded by all communities since fiscal year 1994, but considerably lower than the rates for fiscal 2003 (62 percent) and fiscal 2002 (74 percent).
"I think there's a tension in voters' minds," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-funded watchdog group. While many voters are struggling to make ends meet and can ill-afford higher property taxes, he said, they recognize that an override defeat will have "real and serious consequences to my city and town."
Many local officials and residents have accused Governor Mitt Romney and legislators of shifting the burden for funding schools and other government programs from the state income tax to local property taxes, which are regarded by many as more regressive. Critics also noted that the state income tax rate was lowered in 1999, from 5.95 percent to 5.6 percent, and again in 2001, to 5.3 percent. The reductions, they said, came at the worst possible time -- just when the economy began to weaken.
"The state is not at all fulfilling its obligation to the cities and towns, yet they're mandating more and more things we need to do, more and more things we need to accomplish -- and without funds," said Betsy
Bilodeau, chairwoman of the School Committee in Concord, where voters recently approved five override measures totaling $2.2 million.
A spokeswoman for Romney, who was elected in November after pledging not to increase taxes, said revenue to the state from the income tax and other taxes fell steeply in the recession, while property taxes continued to grow.
"Governor Romney believes that raising taxes at the state level kills jobs and hurts working families," Shawn Feddeman said. "He believes that if cities and towns decide they need more revenue, they can ask the individuals who live there for it in the form of a Proposition
2½ override. The people in the individual community are in the best position to determine whether their city or town is well-managed enough to receive more revenue from them."
Charles Rasmussen, a spokesman for House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, said the Legislature "fought to continue to level-fund" cities and towns in fiscal 2002 and 2003, but this year, "we had no choice but to make some cuts." It was obvious that the public had no appetite for higher state taxes, he added, given Romney's election and the strong support -- 45 percent -- for last year's ballot question to wipe out the state's income tax altogether.
The number of overrides typically rises during bad times and falls during good times. In 1993, when a recession gripped New England, voters considered 304 overrides for the 1994 fiscal year, according to the state revenue department. But for fiscal year 1999, voters weighed only 33.
Although the number of override questions has risen during the current economic downturn, the total is still well below what it was during the recession in the early- to mid-1990s. Voters to date have considered 281 questions for fiscal 2002 through 2004, compared with 645 from fiscal 1994 through 1996. But a much higher percentage of overrides passed in the most recent three-year period (60 percent) than in the earlier one (36 percent).
John Robertson, deputy legislative director for the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said communities have gotten more sophisticated about requesting overrides. Instead of placing a menu of a half-dozen questions on the ballot, cities and towns are more selective. "Any year that you're getting more than 40 percent [approval] -- and that looks like the trend so far [this year] -- that's a good year," he said.
Still, it's not an easy sell -- even in well-to-do communities that are typically more receptive to override requests.
Lexington, where the median income of $96,825 is the 16th-highest in the state, rejected a $4.97 million override on June 2 after a rancorous debate. The town had approved seven straight override questions since 1990.
Barbara Anderson, a Marblehead resident and executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, which championed Proposition 2½ two decades ago, said the tax increase cap does sometimes create hardships. But cities and towns are making tough budgetary choices and no disasters have resulted.
Override proponents "always say it's the end of the world -- disaster, destruction, devastation," said Anderson. "And then, when they don't pass, they find some way to deal with it. All of the communities that have lost overrides aren't in bankruptcy or receivership."
Sometimes an override win can still be a loss, as in Wenham, where voters approved an override Friday for the school district they share with Hamilton. Because Hamilton voters said no, the tax increase won't go forward, and the district will lay off the equivalent of 54 full-time positions.
Asked how long it would take the school to rebuild from the cuts, regional School Committee vice chairwoman Elaine Carey said, "I can't imagine. The state doesn't have any money, either."
Globe correspondents Alison Stierli, Renee Wright, Jared Stearns, and Peter DeMarco contributed to this report.
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