CLT
UPDATE
Thursday, July 7, 2005
State's high-paid teachers still
looking for more
"We fight to limit
taxes – but we start with the assumption that we have private property
to be taxed."
Barbara Anderson --
CLT News Release
June 24, 2005
The U.S. Supreme Court is finding scant support on either
side of the aisle for its decision in a New London case allowing the taking of
homes in that Connecticut city for a private development. Citizens for
Limited Taxation, for instance, is calling on Massachusetts lawmakers to
pass an "Our home is our castle" resolution, forbidding any taking of homes that
"will be given to any private sector entity for any reason."
The Salem News
Friday, July 1, 2005
Weekly political column by Nelson Benton, editor
[Excerpt]
Hundreds of people - some from as far away as Texas - rallied
Tuesday on the steps of [New London, Connecticut] city hall to oppose the U.S.
Supreme Court decision affirming government's right to take private property for
economic development purposes.
The outcry follows a national vein of opposition to the 5-4 decision two weeks
ago siding with city officials who plan to use their eminent domain power to
take 15 homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, making way for a private
waterfront development.
At the state Capitol, support is also building for a bill proposed late last
week that would forbid the use of eminent domain power for economic development
projects....
After a five-year battle against the project, Fort Trumbull homeowner Susette
Kelo, the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case, said Tuesday she hopes
the city council will listen to the appeals.
"People in the U.S. are angry," she said. "I'm sad, but really pleased with the
crowd."
The Hartford Courant
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
In Defense Of Private Property
Hundreds In New London Oppose Seizure Of Homes For Development
Most conservatives hoped that, in the most important case the
court was to decide this term, judicial activism would put a leash on popularly
elected local governments and would pull courts more deeply into American
governance to protect the rights of individuals. Yesterday conservatives were
disappointed.
The case came from New London, Conn., where the city government, like all
governments, wants more revenue and has empowered a private entity, New London
Development Corp., to exercise the awesome power of eminent domain....
The question answered yesterday was: Can government profit by seizing the
property of people of modest means and giving it to wealthy people who can pay
more taxes than can be extracted from the original owners? The court answered
yes....
Liberalism triumphed yesterday. Government became radically unlimited in seizing
the very kinds of private property that should guarantee individuals a sphere of
autonomy against government....
The Washington Post
Friday, June 24, 2005
Damaging 'Deference'
By George F. Will
The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled the end of private
property rights in America by expanding the government's land-taking authority
for economic development. Elected officials, from the state to the federal
level, should respond by moving to restore those rights in a hurry....
But now the Supreme Court has ruled that property can be taken from one private
owner and given to another private owner simply because the new use may create
jobs or pay more in taxes. This amounts to saying the government can take your
home and give it to a private developer with grand plans for stimulating the
economy....
The majority of justices who perpetrated this outrage are good at gilding such
things with high-sounding rhetoric about public benefits....
The Fifth Amendment language that allows government to take private property for
public use so long as "just compensation" is paid in return, was never meant to
also extend to a private use that generates more jobs and pays higher taxes.
That's confusing public benefit with public use — two very different things.
Under the court's new definition, as columnist George Will put it, "You can take
from A and give to B if B pays more taxes." ...
Indeed, it is a supreme irony that the majority in this case was made up of the
liberal wing of the court, supposedly the defender of the "little guy" against
the power of government. Instead, they have made government even more powerful,
while diminishing the rights of the average citizen.
A Salem News editorial
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Public takings for private gain
The concept of the public good is all but lost at a time when
the wants of the few regularly outweigh the needs of the many. The Supreme
Court's wise ruling will make it easier for elected officials to act for the
public good in restoring their communities to economic health.
A Lowell Sun editorial
Thursday, June 20, 2005
Wise ruling on eminent domain
Supreme Court Justice David Souter is a man of simple needs
and unpretentious ways - his Weare, N.H., home assessed at little more than
$100,000.
But Souter was also in the high court's majority on a recent decision vastly
expanding the rights of municipalities to take by eminent domain private
property that could be used to better economic benefit for a community.
So now a California gadfly, Logan Darrow Clements,
has
decided to make his point by proposing to replace Souter's modest home with
the "Lost Liberty Hotel" and the "Just Desserts Cafe." We truly admire Clements'
chutzpah - and his creativity.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, July 1, 2005
Seeking justice in Weare
Top judges and clerk magistrates yesterday told a key
legislative committee that judges need a 30 percent salary increase, after going
without a pay raise for five years....
In a phone interview, Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation, questioned the need for a salary increase for judges.
Legislators should comply with a ballot question approved in 2000 that calls for
cutting the state income tax rate to 5 percent, Anderson said.
During the fiscal crisis in state government, legislators in 2002 voted to
freeze the income tax rate at 5.3 percent. Anderson said there are plenty of
applicants for judicial openings. "Is there some kind of shortage of judges,
that if you don't raise the pay, you won't have anybody applying for the job?"
she said.
The Springfield Republican
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Judges, magistrates push for pay hikes
Five members of an obscure do-nothing state commission
supposedly responsible for overseeing federal homeland security grants are
demanding an unprecedented $7,500-a-year stipend although they can't point to a
single accomplishment, the Herald has learned.
The commission includes politically connected insiders with no clear terrorism
expertise, including former Massport lobbyist David McCool, who was aboard the
infamous Massport "booze cruise" in August 1999. At the time he told the Herald:
"When I get a chance to go hog wild, I do."
"I feel like this has been imposed on us so a group of people can just collect
some money and take the rest of the year off," grumbled Public Safety Secretary
Edward Flynn, who said the commission is a waste of taxpayer dollars at best and
at worst could interfere with homeland security funding.
The first order of business at the commission's inaugural meeting in October was
for members to vote themselves a $7,500-a-year stipend each, according to
meeting minutes....
"We have yet to receive any evidence from the commission of what they have been
doing," [Flynn's spokeswoman Katie Ford] said.
The Boston Herald
Friday, July 1, 2005
Terror hacks do nothing:
'Amateurs’ produce zip, demand $7,500 for their 'work’
Gov. Mitt Romney signed a $23.8 billion state budget into law
yesterday, and vetoed $110 million in spending on items he called wasteful,
ineffective or unnecessary, adding that fiscal year 2005 will end with a
"sizable surplus."
After praising the Legislature for creating what he called a largely
responsible, timely and balanced budget, he quickly assailed lawmakers' decision
not to roll back the state income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent.
"The tax story isn't over, of course," Romney said, noting that the $225 million
difference between his spending proposal and the Legislature's budget equaled
the amount the cut would have saved taxpayers. "In the months and years to come
I'll continue to fight for the will of the people being carried out."
The Boston Herald
Friday, July 1, 2005
Romney axes elderly, kids budget funds
The average salary for Massachusetts teachers has been rising
faster than the national average, setting off concerns that local school
committees have given in too easily to teacher unions' demands and squandered
limited money on salary increases.
Footing the bill for hefty salary increases already has depleted some local
school systems' budgets and led to layoffs of the newest, and lowest-paid,
teachers. The pay increases also have sparked finger-pointing between some town
and school officials over whether they raised salaries too quickly. State
officials say they are also upset that unions and school districts have made no
move to link teacher pay to performance.
"It makes no sense to give raises and then turn around and lay off teachers,"
Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said....
Average teacher pay in Massachusetts jumped 37 percent during the last decade,
to $53,529 last year, according to a Globe analysis of state education records.
Average pay for teachers nationally climbed 31 percent during the same period to
$46,752, according to the National Education Association....
School systems, in part, ratcheted up teacher pay over the past decade because
they received billions of dollars in state aid as part of the 1993 Education
Reform Act....
The Boston Globe
Sunday, July 3, 2005
Teacher raises surpass US rate
Localities cite budget strains
The head of the country's largest education union has pledged
to renew his fight to get higher pay for starting teachers, veteran instructors
and classroom aides - policies likely to require hundreds of millions of
dollars.
National Education Association president Reg Weaver, speaking to reporters at
the union's annual meeting, said yesterday his officers will work with their
state and local chapters to lobby state leaders and school boards.
"The issue is where the money is going to come from," Weaver said. "And to
respond to that, my answer is I don't care. I don't care where the money comes
from...."
The Associated Press
Monday, July 4, 2005
Teachers union leader pledges to raise salaries
for starting teachers, veterans and aides
The Legislature, with the backing of Gov. Mitt Romney, is
poised to declare another sales tax holiday on a summer Saturday, building on
last year's experiment which some have likened to Christmas Eve in August....
Overall, consumers pocketed an estimated $10.1 million in tax savings last Aug.
14, the state's inaugural sales tax holiday. And it was a huge boost to
retailers, generating $400 million in one-day sales and increasing business by
some 500 percent.
Given the success, our only quibble with the plan, which seems to be on the fast
track, is why not do two? Or, better yet, follow other states' leads and give
taxpayers an extended holiday.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Tax holiday merits another round
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
Fallout over the assault on private property by the
nation's highest court continues across the country, and the protest
centered at ground zero -- New London, Connecticut -- on Tuesday.
Hundreds of angry citizens from across the nation rallied in the city
whose elected officials fought all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court
to overturn hundreds of years of property rights so they can take
private property then hand it over to developers.
Now ironic that Connecticut, nicknamed
"The Constitution State" in 1959 by its legislature, is now the
epicenter of this historic assault on that founding document.
Does that name,
Maryanne Lewis, mean anything to you? She was one of
Finneran's loyal lieutenants who CLT worked hard to successfully defeat
in her 2002 campaign for reelection.
In the CLT Update of Sep. 19, 2002 ("Anatomy"
of Rep. Maryanne Lewis' defeat) I wrote:
Ordinarily it wouldn't be long before the
announcement is made that former-Rep. Maryanne Lewis has been
appointed to a comfortable patronage job in a Finneran Fiefdom, paying
even more than the $60,000 she made as one of Finneran's Flock. As a
CLT member wrote to me yesterday, if you're a Finneran Favorite, even
when you lose, you'll win in the end.
When her husband, Brian J. Kearney, was then handed
the job of clerk-magistrate of Natick District Court, a more than
$20,000 raise over the $68,281 a year he was making at the Boston
Municipal Court, in the CLT Update of Oct. 17, 2002 ("Mister
Rep. Lewis lands plum court job") , I wrote:
Okay, I got it wrong: outgoing state Rep. Maryanne
Lewis did not receive her going-away kiss from her boss, Tom Finneran,
her golden parachute, her consolation prize ... yet.
Instead her husband was taken care of first, provided a job like I
expected Finneran's faithful and departing sheepherder would land, and
probably still will in due time.
Now we find out what Maryanne Lewis's "going-away
kiss ... her consolation prize" turned out to be: an appointment
to a do-nothing state commission that's now looking for salaries for its
do-nothing members!
And they still wonder how we ever got so cynical!
The simple fact is that politics and patronage are so predictable in
Massachusetts, like the sun rising in the east each morning.
The Boston Globe reported: "The average salary for
Massachusetts teachers has been rising faster than the national average,
setting off concerns that local school committees have given in too
easily to teacher unions' demands and squandered limited money on salary
increases."
For those who read these CLT Updates, this is a
ho-hum dog-bites man story. While that report is a good wake-up
call for the rest of the citizenry, it failed to include the other
taxpayer-funded benefits, as have been covered elsewhere. (See the
CLT Update for May 1, 2005,
"Hit
a pothole, thank a teacher")
But More Is Never Enough (MINE), as the Associated
Press reported: "The head of the country's largest education union
has pledged to renew his fight to get higher pay for starting teachers,
veteran instructors and classroom aides - policies likely to require
hundreds of millions of dollars."
Where will this additional money come from? The
president of the national teachers union answered, "I don't care. I
don't care where the money comes from...."
That concern dovetails nicely with the quote from
Albert Shanker, late president of the American Federation of Teachers.
He reportedly said, "When school children start paying union dues,
that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
Nothing new here either. The rapacious teachers
unions have never cared how much they hurt taxpayers, other
public services, or even "the children"?
If you've got any big purchases coming up, save them
for next month. There's going to be another sales tax holiday for
purchases up to $2,500 excluding cars and boats; a one-day suspension of
the 5 percent state sales tax. Parking lots in New Hampshire bordertown
malls will be empty on that day, traffic light.
 |
|
Chip Ford |
The Hartford Courant
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
In Defense Of Private Property
Hundreds In New London Oppose Seizure Of Homes For Development
By Lauren Phillips, Staff Writer
NEW LONDON -- Hundreds of people - some from as far away as Texas -
rallied Tuesday on the steps of city hall to oppose the U.S. Supreme
Court decision affirming government's right to take private property for
economic development purposes.
The outcry follows a national vein of opposition to the 5-4 decision two
weeks ago siding with city officials who plan to use their eminent
domain power to take 15 homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, making
way for a private waterfront development.
At the state Capitol, support is also building for a bill proposed late
last week that would forbid the use of eminent domain power for economic
development projects.
"Wow," said Michael Cristofaro, beginning a short speech during the
rally. His father owns one of the condemned properties. "It really does
our hearts well to see our nation stand beside us."
Mitchell Martin of Houston said he borrowed frequent flier miles from a
friend to make the trip from Texas to Tuesday's rally.
"I heard the Supreme Court made this ruling against private property,
and it hit something deep inside of me," Martin said. "It offended me as
an American."
Other protesters came from New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York and towns
around Connecticut.
Dissenting justices and critics have said the Supreme Court ruling
leaves practically every property owner vulnerable to condemnation
proceedings.
The New London Development Corp., the designated development agent for
the city, intends to build a riverfront project that the city has said
will benefit the public through increased tax revenue and employment.
After a five-year battle against the project, Fort Trumbull homeowner
Susette Kelo, the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case, said
Tuesday she hopes the city council will listen to the appeals.
"People in the U.S. are angry," she said. "I'm sad, but really pleased
with the crowd."
With stickers and signs denouncing eminent domain and chants of "Let
them stay," those in opposition to the decision listened to appeals that
the city council amend the project to allow the homeowners to remain in
their homes amid the new development.
"They've never been against the development," said Scott Bullock, a
lawyer with the private civil liberties law firm Institute for Justice
in Washington, D.C., which represents the Fort Trumbull homeowners.
"They just want to be a part of it."
Bullock said the institute is examining all options for a next step in
litigation, including a possible motion to reconsider, or evaluating
similar cases currently at the state level that could rise to the
Supreme Court level.
He said the firm is also working with legislators and hopes to work with
the council.
"Hopefully this sent a message to the city council that they don't need
that property to develop there," Bullock said.
He said the homes make up about 1.5 acres of a 90-acre project area.
Tuesday's was the first city council meeting since the landmark
decision.
Eminent domain was not an item on Tuesday's meeting agenda, but several
people from the rally went into the meeting to speak during the public
comment time.
Council member Margaret Curtin said the city is working with developers
to start the development project.
"It didn't affect anyone," she said of the rally. "It wasn't on the
agenda."
Meanwhile, state House Minority Leader Robert Ward, R-North Branford,
told the crowd that support is building for a proposed bill he
circulated to the legislature that would end the right of municipalities
to take private property for economic development purposes. He has
gathered support from Republicans and some Democrats, he said.
A vote on the legislation could come during a summer session planned for
the coming weeks to consider bills vetoed by the governor.
State Rep. Steven Mikutel, D-Griswold, also attended the rally, telling
the protesters that his family lost land to the government through
eminent domain. He is among the Democrats in support of amending the
state's eminent domain law.
Richard Brown, New London town manager, said city hall and surrounding
buildings were evacuated earlier Tuesday after a "suspicious package" -
later discovered to contain exercise equipment - was found at about 1:30
p.m. between the hall and Harris Place, where the offices of New London
Development Corp. are located. The state police bomb squad responded
and, after determining the nature of the package, allowed the buildings
to be re-entered at about 4 p.m.
Brown said the city has received a number of threatening messages in
recent weeks.
The homeowners said they have recently experienced an outpouring of
support in the form of letters, e-mail and telephone calls.
Kelo, who had tears in her eyes after the rally because of the show of
support, said she has yet to hear when she will have to leave her home.
She said the U.S. Supreme Court decision has not hampered her resolve to
change the city's mind.
"I hope the city council will realize that we are good people and want
to keep our homes," Kelo said.
Return to top
The Washington Post
Friday, June 24, 2005
Damaging 'Deference'
By George F. Will
The country is bracing for a bruising battle over filling a Supreme
Court vacancy, a battle in which conservatives will praise "judicial
restraint" and "deference" to popularly elected branches of government
and liberals will praise judicial activism in defense of individual
rights. But consider what the court did yesterday.
Most conservatives hoped that, in the most important case the court was
to decide this term, judicial activism would put a leash on popularly
elected local governments and would pull courts more deeply into
American governance to protect the rights of individuals. Yesterday
conservatives were disappointed.
The case came from New London, Conn., where the city government, like
all governments, wants more revenue and has empowered a private entity,
New London Development Corp., to exercise the awesome power of eminent
domain. It has done so to condemn an unblighted working-class
neighborhood in order to give the space to private developers whose
condominiums, luxury hotel and private offices would pay more taxes than
do the owners of the condemned homes and businesses.
The question answered yesterday was: Can government profit by seizing
the property of people of modest means and giving it to wealthy people
who can pay more taxes than can be extracted from the original owners?
The court answered yes.
The Fifth Amendment says, among other things, "nor shall private
property be taken for public use , without just compensation" (emphasis
added). All state constitutions echo the Constitution's Framers by
stipulating that takings must be for "public use." The Framers, who
weighed their words, clearly intended the adjective "public" to
circumscribe government's power: Government should take private property
only to create things -- roads, bridges, parks, public buildings --
directly owned or primarily used by the general public.
Fighting eviction from homes one of them had lived in all her life, the
New London owners appealed to Connecticut's Supreme Court, which ruled 4
to 3 against them. Yesterday they lost again. The U.S. Supreme Court
issued a 5 to 4 ruling that drains the phrase "public use" of its
clearly intended function of denying to government an untrammeled power
to dispossess individuals of their most precious property: their homes
and businesses.
During oral arguments in February, Justice Antonin Scalia distilled the
essence of New London's brazen claim: "You can take from A and give to B
if B pays more taxes?" Yesterday the court said that the modifier
"public" in the phrase "public use" does not modify government power at
all. That is the logic of the opinion written by Justice John Paul
Stevens and joined by justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
In a tart dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice
William Rehnquist, Justice Clarence Thomas and Scalia, noted that the
consequences of this decision "will not be random." She says it is
"likely" -- a considerable understatement -- that the beneficiaries of
the decision will be people "with disproportionate influence and power
in the political process, including large corporations and development
firms."
Those on the receiving end of the life-shattering power that the court
has validated will almost always be individuals of modest means. So this
liberal decision -- it augments government power to aggrandize itself by
bulldozing individuals' interests -- favors muscular economic battalions
at the expense of society's little platoons, such as homeowners and the
neighborhoods they comprise.
Dissenting separately, Thomas noted the common-law origins and clearly
restrictive purpose of the Framers' "public use" requirement. And
responding to the majority's dictum that the court should not
"second-guess" the New London city government's "considered judgment"
about what constitutes seizing property for "public use," he said: A
court owes "no deference" to a legislature's or city government's
self-interested reinterpretation of the phrase "public use," a notably
explicit clause of the Bill of Rights, any more than a court owes
deference to a legislature's determination of what constitutes a
"reasonable" search of a home.
Liberalism triumphed yesterday. Government became radically unlimited in
seizing the very kinds of private property that should guarantee
individuals a sphere of autonomy against government.
Conservatives should be reminded to be careful what they wish for. Their
often-reflexive rhetoric praises "judicial restraint" and deference to
-- it sometimes seems -- almost unleashable powers of the elected
branches of governments. However, in the debate about the proper role of
the judiciary in American democracy, conservatives who dogmatically
preach a populist creed of deference to majoritarianism will thereby
abandon, or at least radically restrict, the judiciary's indispensable
role in limiting government.
Return to top
The Salem News
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
A Salem News editorial
Public takings for private gain
The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled the end of private property rights
in America by expanding the government's land-taking authority for
economic development. Elected officials, from the state to the federal
level, should respond by moving to restore those rights in a hurry.
The government has for years used its eminent-domain powers inherent in
the Fifth Amendment to seize private property in the way of highways,
railroads, schools and other public-use projects. This is considered OK
because these facilities obviously benefit society as a whole.
But now the Supreme Court has ruled that property can be taken from one
private owner and given to another private owner simply because the new
use may create jobs or pay more in taxes. This amounts to saying the
government can take your home and give it to a private developer with
grand plans for stimulating the economy.
This overly-broad interpretation of eminent-domain authority came on a
5-4 margin last month in a case that pitted private homeowners against
the city of New London on the Connecticut coast. The city sought to take
the homes for a waterfront complex of housing, businesses and retail
establishments.
The majority of justices who perpetrated this outrage are good at
gilding such things with high-sounding rhetoric about public benefits.
And they may be correct that allowing New London to seize these
properties will lead to "economic rejuvenation," jobs and added tax
revenue. But that does not change this gross misreading, or deliberate
twisting, of the government's authority to seize private property.
The Fifth Amendment language that allows government to take private
property for public use so long as "just compensation" is paid in
return, was never meant to also extend to a private use that generates
more jobs and pays higher taxes. That's confusing public benefit with
public use — two very different things.
Under the court's new definition, as columnist George Will put it, "You
can take from A and give to B if B pays more taxes."
The results of this ruling may not be immediately devastating, but as
dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noted, it will doubtless
encourage a cozier relationship between developers and local
governments, and more aggressive land-taking for economic development
projects.
"The beneficiaries (of this decision)," she said, "are likely to be
those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the
political process, including large corporations and development firms."
Indeed, it is a supreme irony that the majority in this case was made up
of the liberal wing of the court, supposedly the defender of the "little
guy" against the power of government. Instead, they have made government
even more powerful, while diminishing the rights of the average citizen.
Given the court's confusion about the meaning of the Fifth Amendment,
elected officials should clarify it. "Public use" should mean just what
it says, and no more.
Return to top
The Lowell Sun
Thursday, June 20, 2005
A Lowell Sun editorial
Wise ruling on eminent domain
The power of eminent domain is often demonized, but it exists because
communities must be able to act in the best interests of all of their
residents. The U.S. Supreme Court backed that concept in the case of New
London, Connecticut, a floundering city seeking to use eminent domain
for a major redevelopment project, and the ruling should encourage other
cities following similar strategies.
Mayor John Barrett III of North Adams has aggressively used eminent
domain to push city projects and the community is a better place for it.
The Supreme Court ruling makes it clear that eminent domain, which
involves taking private property for public use, also applies to
economic development, as it should. To decide otherwise would put the
revival of communities at the mercy of a few opponents.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's overwrought dissent failed to acknowledge
that eminent domain can only be used for projects that benefit the
public, not a private party exclusively. Those whose property is taken
by eminent domain must be fairly compensated, which New London
emphasized it would do in proposing a project that will help many more
city residents than it will inconvenience.
The concept of the public good is all but lost at a time when the wants
of the few regularly outweigh the needs of the many. The Supreme Court's
wise ruling will make it easier for elected officials to act for the
public good in restoring their communities to economic health.
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Friday, July 1, 2005
A Boston Herald editorial
Seeking justice in Weare
Supreme Court Justice David Souter is a man of simple needs and
unpretentious ways - his Weare, N.H., home assessed at little more than
$100,000.
But Souter was also in the high court's majority on a recent decision
vastly expanding the rights of municipalities to take by eminent domain
private property that could be used to better economic benefit for a
community.
So now a California gadfly, Logan Darrow Clements, has decided to make
his point by proposing to replace Souter's modest home with the "Lost
Liberty Hotel" and the "Just Desserts Cafe." We truly admire Clements'
chutzpah - and his creativity. And it may even tempt Weare's town
officials - at least for a moment. With Souter paying a mere $3,000 a
year in property taxes, surely a little development would be good for
the town's tax base.
After all, the case that arose in New London, Conn., is over, but the
issue is far from settled.
Return to top
The Springfield Republican
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Judges, magistrates push for pay hikes
By Dan Ring
Top judges and clerk magistrates yesterday told a key legislative
committee that judges need a 30 percent salary increase, after going
without a pay raise for five years.
The Committee on the Judiciary yesterday held a hearing on a bill that
would raise the annual salary for a regular judge in the Trial Court
from $112,777 to $146,351 in the first year of the three-year increase.
Under the bill, clerk magistrates at district courts would see their
salaries rise from $88,676 to $114,997 in the first year. Margaret H.
Marshall, chief justice on the state Supreme Judicial Court, and Robert
A. Mulligan, the state's chief administrative justice, appeared together
to testify in support of the proposed pay increase for judges and
clerks.
Marshall said "fair, appropriate and competitive" salaries are needed
for judges. She said "something is deeply awry" when only four other
states pay judges less than Massachusetts after judicial salaries are
adjusted for cost of living.
"No one is calling for judges to receive rock-star salaries," Marshall
said. "But Massachusetts is now truly at the low end of the national
scale and this diminished status is keenly felt by those who take the
bench each day."
In a phone interview, Barbara Anderson, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, questioned the need for a salary
increase for judges. Legislators should comply with a ballot question
approved in 2000 that calls for cutting the state income tax rate to 5
percent, Anderson said.
During the fiscal crisis in state government, legislators in 2002 voted
to freeze the income tax rate at 5.3 percent. Anderson said there are
plenty of applicants for judicial openings. "Is there some kind of
shortage of judges, that if you don't raise the pay, you won't have
anybody applying for the job?" she said.
Mulligan told legislators that judges are "competent, dedicated and
hard-working" and deserve a raise.
At yesterday's hearing, James G. Collins, a juvenile court judge in
Western Massachusetts, said there have been no salary increases for
judges and clerks for five years. Collins said the bill would cost $27
million in the first year after it takes effect.
Collins said a pay raise is justified considering the responsibility and
duties of judges.
If the legislation becomes law, judges would see annual salary increases
for three consecutive years.
A regular judge in the Trial Court would receive $156,775 by July 1,
2007.
According to an analysis of the legislation by the Massachusetts Judges
Conference, the salary for an associate justice on the state Appeals
Court would jump from the current $117,467 to $152,375 in the first
year, while the salary for an associate justice on the state Supreme
Judicial Court would rise from the current $126,943 to $164,670 in the
first year.
While some members of the legislative committee voiced support for the
bill, Rep. Lewis G. Evangelidis, R-Holden, told judges they should
document instances of judges' leaving their jobs because of the pay. He
said legislators aren't hearing those stories. "That's the kind of
evidence that really helps," he said.
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The Boston Herald
Friday, July 1, 2005
Terror hacks do nothing:
'Amateurs’ produce zip, demand $7,500 for their 'work’
By Thomas Caywood - Herald Exclusive
Five members of an obscure do-nothing state commission supposedly
responsible for overseeing federal homeland security grants are
demanding an unprecedented $7,500-a-year stipend although they can't
point to a single accomplishment, the Herald has learned.
The commission includes politically connected insiders with no clear
terrorism expertise, including former Massport lobbyist David McCool,
who was aboard the infamous Massport "booze cruise" in August 1999. At
the time he told the Herald: "When I get a chance to go hog wild, I do."
"I feel like this has been imposed on us so a group of people can just
collect some money and take the rest of the year off," grumbled Public
Safety Secretary Edward Flynn, who said the commission is a waste of
taxpayer dollars at best and at worst could interfere with homeland
security funding.
"We are frequently audited by the federal government," Flynn added. "We
don't need the original amateur hour mucking about in our homeland
security funding process."
The first order of business at the commission's inaugural meeting in
October was for members to vote themselves a $7,500-a-year stipend each,
according to meeting minutes. Only one of the roughly two dozen other
similar commissions under the Executive Office of Public Safety receives
a stipend, and that one gets just $50 a meeting for members.
Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed the State Resilience Development and
Anti-Terrorism Commission's $50,000 funding yesterday afternoon for the
second time. Romney vetoed the commission's funding last year as well,
but it was reversed by state lawmakers, who created the controversial
panel.
The only members with law enforcement credentials are retired state
police Col. John DiFava and Maurice DelVendo, former chief investigator
of the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.
"I'm not taking that money. I'm on record now saying I'm not taking the
money," DiFava said, who said the commission had been gathering
information and doing interviews with police and fire officials on their
funding needs.
"If we are seen to not be necessary, that's fine," DiFava said. "But I
think we're looking at it from a point of view that nobody else does."
None of the other members returned calls left at their home, offices or
both yesterday afternoon. Flynn met with the new commission's members,
all of whom are appointed - with no minimum qualifications required - by
state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan in January.
"We didn't hear from them again until June, when they asked for their
stipend," said Flynn spokeswoman Katie Ford.
Flynn's office responded by asking to see the commission's work. That
was early in June.
"We have yet to receive any evidence from the commission of what they
have been doing," Ford said.
The State Resilience Development and
Anti-Terrorism Commission:
Joseph Giglio
Executive professor of business administration at Northeastern
University and vice chairman of the Hudson Institute, a national think
tank.
Maryanne Lewis
Lawyer and former state legislator, close associate of former House
Speaker Tom Finneran.
John DiFava
Former state police colonel who retired to become police chief at MIT,
served as Logan's interim public safety director after Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
David McCool
Republican consultant and one-time Massport consultant who was on the
infamous booze cruise.
Maurice DelVendo
Former chief inspector for the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission,
former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent.
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The Boston Globe
Sunday, July 3, 2005
Teacher raises surpass US rate
Localities cite budget strains
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff
The average salary for Massachusetts teachers has been rising faster
than the national average, setting off concerns that local school
committees have given in too easily to teacher unions' demands and
squandered limited money on salary increases.
Footing the bill for hefty salary increases already has depleted some
local school systems' budgets and led to layoffs of the newest, and
lowest-paid, teachers. The pay increases also have sparked
finger-pointing between some town and school officials over whether they
raised salaries too quickly. State officials say they are also upset
that unions and school districts have made no move to link teacher pay
to performance.
"It makes no sense to give raises and then turn around and lay off
teachers," Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said. "I wish we
could pay teachers more, I really do. But we have to deal with the
realities of the economy."
Average teacher pay in Massachusetts jumped 37 percent during the last
decade, to $53,529 last year, according to a Globe analysis of state
education records. Average pay for teachers nationally climbed 31
percent during the same period to $46,752, according to the National
Education Association.
Boston topped the list in the state, with an average salary of $69,022,
up nearly 60 percent in the last decade. It's one of the highest-paying
urban school systems in the nation, but also located in one of the most
expensive areas to live, according to a national teachers' union that
represents many urban school systems.
School systems, in part, ratcheted up teacher pay over the past decade
because they received billions of dollars in state aid as part of the
1993 Education Reform Act. The act, in turn, pushed school systems to
demand more of teachers, who are expected to hold students to higher
standards.
Driscoll and others say the extra money did not necessarily always go to
the right places. Teacher contracts grant raises to all employees, good
or bad, instead of giving more money to the teachers who deserve it
most, they said.
But union leaders say increasing teachers' pay was long overdue in an
expensive state that pressures teachers to perform at high levels -- and
gets results, since Massachusetts is nationally known for high
achievement. When the amounts are adjusted for inflation, the increase
is not as dramatic -- 7 percent over the last decade, according to the
National Education Association.
"We've got to attract the very best and the brightest -- new, energetic
young teachers who are highly qualified," said Kathleen Kelley,
president of the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers. "If you're going
to have the high standards, you are going to have to pay them."
Kelley predicts that Boston's average teacher salary will plummet next
year as many older, higher-paid teachers retire.
Boston, which used to lag behind affluent suburban school districts in
teacher pay, has not laid off teachers, but has left hundreds of
teaching positions unfilled as its teacher pay rose to the top in the
state, said Richard Stutman, president of the 7,000-member teachers'
union.
"Boston is suffering under the state's failure to adequately fund local
aid and public education," said Stutman. "We make no apology for seeking
adequate wages. It's about time we've caught up to some of the other
communities."
Michael Contompasis, the Boston school system's chief operating officer,
said he does not "begrudge the teachers what they get because it happens
to be what I think is an extremely difficult job." Contompasis said he
started in the district making $13 a day as a substitute teacher in
1965.
"The truth of the matter is that for years we didn't pay people in this
profession the money they should have received," he said. "But what we
have to do is be vigilant and make sure we get a return on an investment
that's worth the salary that we pay."
In other communities, town officials say playing catch-up has carried
too high a price.
In Southbridge, one of the lowest-scoring school systems in the state,
Ronald J. Chernisky, town councilor, asked the School Committee to
renegotiate the teacher contracts because the town could not afford the
5 percent raises and other increases teachers received. The School
Committee kept the contracts in place, and on Tuesday, voters rejected a
tax override that would have covered a nearly $2 million deficit. Now
the town may lay off nearly 70 teachers.
"Everybody's going to have to work harder if we have all these layoffs,"
Chernisky said.
The union and the School Committee could have found a compromise, a less
generous pay increase that would have at least preserved jobs, he said.
Mary Ellen Prencipe, chairwoman of the Southbridge School Committee,
said the teachers deserved the raises because they were making so much
less than peers in neighboring districts and communities with similar
demographics.
Also, they were being asked to do more, including teaching an extra
period a day because the school system eliminated study halls in middle
and high schools, she said.
"I stand by that 5 percent increase. We were way off the mark and we're
barely competitive now," Prencipe said.
"When you're not competitive, what teachers would you attract? I don't
believe you would get top teachers," she said.
On average, Southbridge teachers made $43,962 in 2004, up 21 percent
since 1994.
In Saugus, the School Committee raised teacher pay after years of
offering less than surrounding towns. Before, prospective teachers would
put Superintendent Keith Manville on hold to wait for a better deal from
another school system. Now, he said, he often gets teacher candidates to
sign contracts on the spot.
Yet around the same time the raises took effect, the state's economy
went into a tailspin. Faced with the contract demands and less state and
local aid, Saugus had to lay off more than 40 teachers and increase
teachers' workloads. Elementary class sizes rose to about 27 students
from 22.
"I don't think anybody anticipated the bottom dropping out as quickly as
it did," Manville said. "We've had to tighten things up."
School officials say average teacher pay does not tell the whole story
of what teachers earn. Stutman, of Boston, said an average teacher
making $69,000 would need at least a decade's experience, a master's
degree, and additional training.
Lowell school officials say the average salary may reflect additional
stipends teachers pick up from teaching summer school or coaching other
teachers.
Average teacher salaries can vary by the number of years the teachers
have been in the school system -- the longer the service, the higher
their pay -- and the provisions of teacher contracts.
Nationally, Massachusetts ranks eighth among the 50 states and
Washington, D.C., on average salaries and 13th in average increases.
Average salaries range widely in the Bay State, from a low of $34,504 in
tiny Florida School District in North Adams to Boston's high of nearly
$70,000. In Springfield, the second-largest school system, the teachers
earned about $22,000 less on average than Boston teachers last year.
"Nobody ever got rich on a teacher's salary," said Glenn Koocher,
executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School
Committees. "The raises haven't been obscene."
Tracy Jan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press
Monday, July 4, 2005
Teachers union leader pledges to raise salaries
for starting teachers, veterans and aides
The head of the country's largest education union has pledged to renew
his fight to get higher pay for starting teachers, veteran instructors
and classroom aides - policies likely to require hundreds of millions of
dollars.
National Education Association president Reg Weaver, speaking to
reporters at the union's annual meeting, said yesterday his officers
will work with their state and local chapters to lobby state leaders and
school boards.
"The issue is where the money is going to come from," Weaver said. "And
to respond to that, my answer is I don't care. I don't care where the
money comes from. Because when this country thinks and decides that
something is important, they find the money."
Not a single state pays its new instructors an average of $40,000, with
the U.S. average hovering close to $30,000 for beginning teachers,
according to the American Federation of Teachers, another teachers
union.
Weaver, poised to begin his second three-year term as the union's
president, said the typical starting salary for teachers should be
$40,000. He noted that higher pay for veteran teachers and classroom
aides also will be a political priority for the union.
Teacher pay has long been a point of contention within education.
Salaries are often seen as an important reason why schools struggle to
hire and keep teachers, which is particularly true for young
instructors, men and minorities, Weaver said. But an increasing number
of states and districts want to make classroom performance or student
scores a bigger factor in teacher pay.
Overall, teachers were paid an average of $46,752 last year, a slight
raise that did not keep pace with inflation, the NEA says. Pay is
usually based on teacher seniority and education.
The pay proposal is part of a broader NEA priority list to close the
achievement gap between white and minority children and reach out to
minority communities. The NEA push comes as it is at odds with the Bush
administration. The union has sued the federal government over Bush's No
Child Left Behind law, arguing that it puts unfair financial burdens on
states and districts.
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