CLT
UPDATE
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
MTF Fat-Cats crusade for more
as voters demand tax cut
Twenty-five years ago, Massachusetts voters rebelled against
high property taxes by capping them with Proposition 2½.
For good or ill, the cap achieved its purpose, but in recent years, property
taxes have been rising steeply again as state aid for every municipal service
but schools has been flat. To head off a new revolt or a steady deterioration in
police and fire departments, libraries, roads, and parks, the state's towns and
cities need help....
These changes are among the recommendations in a municipal finance task force
report issued Wednesday....
The task force has produced a blueprint for a more rational municipal finance
structure. Now it requires leadership to navigate the change. For example: If
boosting local aid cannot be done without shortchanging the state's own
responsibilities, legislators should look to an increase in one of the state's
broad-based taxes. The property tax is the wrong vehicle for funding statewide
needs; on this the tax revolters of the 1980s were right.
A Boston Globe editorial
Friday, September 9, 2005
Overtaxed towns
The Coalition is, of course, made up of the usual Gimme Guys,
area mayors, including our own Tom Menino who just can't collect enough revenue
from hard-pressed taxpayers, especially those who may work but not live in the
city. The task force was headed by the respected John Hamill, chairman of
Sovereign Bank New England, who really ought to know better than to accept the
mythology that all cities and towns are lean operations, doing the best they can
- if only they could get more help from the state and from a handful of new
taxes....
Sadly, the report is long on ways to eke more money out of taxpayers and far too
short on what municipalities can do to make those tax dollars go farther.
A Boston Herald editorial
Saturday, September 10, 2005
More new taxes a dreadful idea
Given current unrest over property taxes, cities
and towns can't dig much deeper into homeowners' pockets as they
struggle to keep their budgets in balance.
Yet with current revenues failing to keep pace with the increasing
cost of employee salaries and benefits, and a major spike in heating
costs looming this winter, "something has to give," according to
Michael Widmer, president of the highly regarded Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation. He spoke to the North Shore Chamber of Commerce
last week about the slow economic recovery, the growing demands on the
state budget and the implications for both on municipal budgets.
A Salem News editorial
Monday, September 12, 2005
Local pride forces cities and towns to pinch pennies
By a more than 2-to-1 margin, voters gave
themselves a tax break yesterday in a special election.
The vote was 2,164-973 to support the rare Proposition 2½ underride....
Sandwich becomes the 11th community to vote itself a lower tax levy
since the state Department of Revenue began keeping statistics in
1995.
The Cape Cod Times
Friday, September 9, 2005
Prop 2½ measure wins by landslide
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
There goes the predictable Boston Globe editorial
board again, taking the so-called "Hamill Commission Report" seriously,
at least the recommendation calling for a hike in "one of the state's broad-based taxes."
Any excuse for a tax increase is good enough for the elitist
tax-and-spenders.
The more practical Boston Herald editorial saw
through the report and what it lacked: reform of municipal spending
habits. Until those reforms finally happen, no more of our money
should ever be considered as fodder for the rapacious beast, else it'll
swallow the cash and be right back for more.
The Boston Globe did get one thing right, though:
"the tax revolters of the 1980s were right"! Who'd have expected such
recognition, even if belatedly, from the ivy tower elites on Morrissey
Boulevard?
Meanwhile, Michael Widmer, president of the so-called
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, is as usual out stumping on his
never-ending crusade for higher taxes at the behest of his masters,
Boston Fat-Cat Big Business, at the expense of everyone else.
This at the same time when voters, given the chance
as they were last week in Sandwich, are electing in a landslide to lower
their tax burdens.
Talk about Widmer and his Fat-Cats being completely
out-of-touch.
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Chip Ford |
The Boston Globe
Friday, September 9, 2005
A Boston Globe editorial
Overtaxed towns
Twenty-five years ago, Massachusetts voters rebelled against high
property taxes by capping them with Proposition 2½. For good or ill, the
cap achieved its purpose, but in recent years, property taxes have been
rising steeply again as state aid for every municipal service but
schools has been flat. To head off a new revolt or a steady
deterioration in police and fire departments, libraries, roads, and
parks, the state's towns and cities need help.
In particular, communities deserve higher and more consistent levels of
aid from the state, plus greater freedom to control their own finances,
whether by levying a meals tax or better handling health insurance
costs.
These changes are among the recommendations in a municipal finance task
force report issued Wednesday. Chaired by John P. Hamill, chairman of
Sovereign Bank New England, the task force concluded that local leaders
have generally done a good job of controlling costs. It is not wasteful
spending but reductions in support from the state that are forcing local
officials to rely more heavily on the property tax, a levy that is
particularly burdensome for homeowners on fixed incomes.
According to the report, state aid peaked in 1988, when it was 31
percent of municipal revenues, while property taxes provided 46.1
percent. Now, local aid has dropped to 24.4 percent and property taxes
are 52.9 percent. The state estimates that -- except for communities
that have residential tax exemptions -- average household property tax
bills have jumped $910 in the last five years. During that time,
Massachusetts municipalities cut their payrolls more steeply than in any
other state in the nation.
Most of the report's proposals for easing the pressure on the property
tax are good ones. The percentage of state revenue going to local aid
should be fixed as close as possible to the 20 percent peak of 1988, up
from the 16.4 percent of 2004. The state should also have long since
granted cities a right to tax meals, parking garages, and rental cars.
The report equivocates on whether state law should be changed to
standardize local taxes on telecommunications equipment. It should be.
And the proposal to generate more auto excise taxes for cities by
slowing down the state's depreciation schedule for cars would be more
socially useful if the excise were based on fuel efficiency, not resale
value.
The task force has produced a blueprint for a more rational municipal
finance structure. Now it requires leadership to navigate the change.
For example: If boosting local aid cannot be done without shortchanging
the state's own responsibilities, legislators should look to an increase
in one of the state's broad-based taxes. The property tax is the wrong
vehicle for funding statewide needs; on this the tax revolters of the
1980s were right.
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The Boston Herald
Saturday, September 10, 2005
A Boston Herald editorial
More new taxes a dreadful idea
Timing, as they say, is everything. And the recent report and
recommendations by a task force set up by the Metro Mayors Coalition
couldn't be more poorly timed - or more ill-advised.
The Coalition is, of course, made up of the usual Gimme Guys, area
mayors, including our own Tom Menino who just can't collect enough
revenue from hard-pressed taxpayers, especially those who may work but
not live in the city. The task force was headed by the respected John
Hamill, chairman of Sovereign Bank New England, who really ought to know
better than to accept the mythology that all cities and towns are lean
operations, doing the best they can - if only they could get more help
from the state and from a handful of new taxes.
As to the first premise, let's look no further than Springfield, say,
where a professional consultant's report released on the same day as
Hamill's found that the city could save $17 million over five years with
a few basic reforms of just its school system. An upcoming report by the
Boston Municipal Research Bureau will take another look at some avenues
for cost-trimming here too.
Yes, property taxes can be burdensome. But residential exemptions - an
item completely ignored by the task force in doing its calculations - do
help ease that burden. But nearly unfathomable at a time when gasoline
prices have risen to usurous levels and home heating oil is about to do
the same, is their recommendation that what is really needed here is to
allow communities to levy an additional meals tax, parking excise taxes,
rental car surcharges and find a way to squeeze more money out of the
motor vehicle excise tax. The group wisely walked away from an
economy-killing proposal to tax telecommunications equipment.
Sadly, the report is long on ways to eke more money out of taxpayers and
far too short on what municipalities can do to make those tax dollars go
farther.
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The Salem News
Monday, September 12, 2005
A Salem News editorial
Local pride forces cities and towns to pinch pennies
Given current unrest over property taxes, cities and towns can't dig
much deeper into homeowners' pockets as they struggle to keep their
budgets in balance.
Yet with current revenues failing to keep pace with the increasing cost
of employee salaries and benefits, and a major spike in heating costs
looming this winter, "something has to give," according to Michael
Widmer, president of the highly regarded Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation. He spoke to the North Shore Chamber of Commerce last week
about the slow economic recovery, the growing demands on the state
budget and the implications for both on municipal budgets.
The outlook as far as mayors and selectmen are concerned, is not good.
All of which prompted former 6th District Congressman Michael
Harrington, who was in the audience at the Peabody Marriott, to pose the
question: Whither regionalization? Does Massachusetts, he wondered,
which is relatively small in size, really need 351 separate governmental
entities, many of which operate their own school systems, their own
public works departments and their own police and firefighting forces?
The answer is of course it doesn't. But given the fact that many of
these separate and fiercely independent jurisdictions have been around a
lot longer than the United States of America, effecting change is seen
as being exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.
As a result, potential economies of scale are sacrificed to the desire
to maintain traditional political boundaries. It doesn't make sense, and
it costs a lot of money, but voters have yet to indicate they want to
change things.
Widmer knows all too well how "very, very difficult" it is for one
community to intrude on another's turf, having served for many years on
the Belmont Finance Committee. When it was suggested that his town and
neighboring Watertown get together and hire a single animal control
officer to serve both communities, he related, it was like proposing a
merger of Jordan Marsh and Filene's.
Of course the latter, once unthinkable, is now reality as the company
that owns Macy's — which took over the Jordan Marsh chain years ago —
prepares to absorb its former competitor. The difference? That's the
private sector where what makes the most economic sense usually prevails
over sentiment and self-interest.
Indeed, it's that same private sector that subsidizes municipal spending
to the tune of an estimated $1 billion a year as a result of a system
that allows commercial and industrial property to be taxed at a higher
rate than residences. Take that away, one local businessman rightly
observed, and there might be more support for taking a regional approach
to things.
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The Cape Cod Times
Friday, September 9, 2005
Prop 2½ measure wins by landslide
By George Brennan, Staff writer
SANDWICH - By a more than 2-to-1 margin, voters gave themselves a tax
break yesterday in a special election.
The vote was 2,164-973 to support the rare Proposition 2½ underride.
Voter turnout was low, with 22 percent of the town's 14,948 voters going
to the polls.
Sandwich becomes the 11th community to vote itself a lower tax levy
since the state Department of Revenue began keeping statistics in
1995....
Selectmen put the Proposition 2½ underride on the ballot after the town
learned in June it would receive an additional $480,000 from the state
in aid. In supporting the underride, selectmen said if they'd known the
town would be getting that extra money before the May election, they
would have sought a $2.6 million override instead of the $3.1 million
voters narrowly approved in May.
Selectman Thomas Keyes, who first proposed the underride, said it was an
impressive victory for taxpayers. "The numbers tell us we're on the
right track. We are listening to our taxpayers," he said.
Both the finance committee and Town Administrator George Dunham argued
the underride was shortsighted. Dunham said the extra levy capacity
would give the town, which has some unknowns in its budget projections,
some flexibility. Taxpayers would get a break anyway because there were
no plans to spend the state windfall, he said.
That Proposition 2½ override in May added $300 to the tax bill of a home
assessed at $370,000, the town's median price. The underride will save
the same taxpayer an estimated $46 per year off that $300 increase when
tax bills are mailed in January.
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