CLT
UPDATE
Saturday, May 27, 2006
A collection of bumps on a log
The Massachusetts Senate is calling for the state
income tax to finally be lowered to 5 percent, but with an important
qualifier:
First, local aid would have to be restored to 2002 levels, adjusted for
inflation. That was the year a fiscal crisis led to double-digit cuts in
state funding for a variety of programs, including cash aid to cities
and towns....
The Senate was also being criticized for not cutting the tax to 5
percent unconditionally. The income tax was 5.85 percent before the
rollback began.
Barbara Anderson, of Citizens for Limited Taxation, which
fought for the tax rollback with former Gov. A. Paul Cellucci in 2000,
said in a statement that the group "is not celebrating."
Anderson called it a Senate "ploy" to avoid dropping the tax rate to 5
percent, as Gov. Mitt Romney has called for in every budget since he was
elected.
"We suspect that advocates of local aid shouldn’t be celebrating
either," Anderson said. "They have actually hurt their chances for an
increase because legislative leaders will make sure that the amount to
municipalities that triggers the rollback is never reached. Once again,
voters have been slapped in the face. This time, without dissent, with a
unanimous 39-0 vote of the Senate."
Michael Widmer, of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, argued that any rollback should be tied to economic
indicators ...
Ottaway News Service
Friday, May 26, 2006
Senate endorses income tax reduction, with condition
Bay State judges enjoy a year-round, rotating festival of
posh golf-resort educational seminars in the Berkshires, on Cape Cod and
elsewhere largely at taxpayer expense, despite a court system jammed with a case
backlog stretching back years.
Meanwhile, the state judges are pushing lawmakers on Beacon Hill for a 12
percent boost to their $112,777 annual pay.
"If you wanted to be kind, you would compare them to the state lawmakers who
take their conferences on the
coast of Spain," quipped Barbara Anderson, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation. "At least they are staying in the state."
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Judges huddle in high style on your dime
A $7 million pay raise for state judges and court clerks was
slipped into the Senate budget in an eleventh-hour legislative sleight of hand
while tax cuts and scores of community projects were swiftly axed....
Contacted by the Herald last night, several senators who voted on the budget
said they were unaware the pay-raise package was included....
A spokesman for Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who has opposed the raises, called the
Senate action "predictable but disappointing."
"The Legislature continued to add more spending while ignoring the tax
rollback," Healey spokesman Tim O’Brien said.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, May 27, 2006
$7M budget boost courts critical eye:
Measure flew under radar
Why do these damn judges deserve a raise? And please, don’t
tell me they’re going to quit and make more money in the Dreaded Private Sector.
If they hadn’t been starving to death in private practice, they wouldn’t have
needed to scrape together $10,000 or $15,000 to bribe - in a legal sense, of
course - a bunch of pols to give them a black robe....
The judges were threatening to quit, you say? Well, name me three that have.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, May 27, 2006
At State House, bold move makes ‘bundle’ of sense
By Howie Carr
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
"Contacted by the Herald last night, several senators
who voted on the budget said they were unaware the pay-raise package was
included."
Clueless, as I
said
on Thursday -- mere bumps on a log. Pavlov has his proof.
Pretty much everything our Legislature on Beacon Hill
does is either "bundled in" or "bundled out" of the state budget
debates. When that time in late-May or early-June arrives, nobody
but the leadership knows what's going on up there. "The Great and
General Court" indeed.
Useless dolts, mere bumps on a log. Honestly,
in Massachusetts could a monarchy be any worse? It'd sure be less
expensive than supporting 200 minor and self-serving fiefdoms.
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Chip Ford |
Ottaway News Service
Friday, May 26, 2006
Senate endorses income tax reduction, with condition
By David Kibbe
The Massachusetts Senate is calling for the state income tax to finally
be lowered to 5 percent, but with an important qualifier:
First, local aid would have to be restored to 2002 levels, adjusted for
inflation. That was the year a fiscal crisis led to double-digit cuts in
state funding for a variety of programs, including cash aid to cities
and towns.
While it was cutting spending four years ago, the Legislature also froze
the final phase of a voter-approved rollback in the income tax, which
was scheduled to drop from 5.3 percent to 5 percent.
Local aid is still several hundred million dollars short of 2002 levels.
But with state tax revenues coming in $1 billion higher than expected,
and looking good next year, Senate lawmakers said it was time to
reinstitute the tax cut.
The Senate priced the tax cut at $517 million a year after it is phased
in over three years, beginning Jan. 1, 2007.
The Senate also voted this week to extend property tax relief to seniors
and veterans and establish a sales tax holiday on Aug. 12 and 13.
"By approving these measures, we continue to craft a careful and
responsible approach to bring tax relief to the residents of the
commonwealth," said Sen. Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, who chairs the
Senate Ways and Means Committee. "While our economy has not yet fully
recovered, the Senate understands the need for tax relief and has taken
the steps within this budget and throughout the last several years to
answer that call in a financially responsible manner."
The income-tax measure, approved unanimously Wednesday as a budget
amendment, now goes to the House, where it faced a skeptical reception.
The House rejected a similar Senate plan last year.
And it could still take years for the local aid target to be reached,
since the Senate needed to use $350 million in reserves to balance this
year’s budget.
The Senate was also being criticized for not cutting the tax to 5
percent unconditionally. The income tax was 5.85 percent before the
rollback began.
Barbara Anderson, of Citizens for Limited Taxation, which fought for the
tax rollback with former Gov. A. Paul Cellucci in 2000, said in a
statement that the group "is not celebrating."
Anderson called it a Senate "ploy" to avoid dropping the tax rate to 5
percent, as Gov. Mitt Romney has called for in every budget since he was
elected.
"We suspect that advocates of local aid shouldn’t be celebrating
either," Anderson said. "They have actually hurt their chances for an
increase because legislative leaders will make sure that the amount to
municipalities that triggers the rollback is never reached. Once again,
voters have been slapped in the face. This time, without dissent, with a
unanimous 39-0 vote of the Senate."
Michael Widmer, of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, argued that any rollback should be tied to economic
indicators, not the level spent by the state on aid to schools and
towns.
"We think, given the volatility of tax revenue and the uncertainty of
the economy, it should have some triggers in it in case the economy or
the stock market ran into major problems," Widmer said. "The larger
question is why would you tie that to local aid, because there were
major cuts in the budget across the board, public higher education,
public health, environmental affairs and human services."
Jeff McLynch, the deputy director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy
Center, said the Legislature should restore funding to all the important
budget categories that were cut earlier this decade, not just local aid.
"While it is important to make sure you restore funding for local
services, before you begin to continue cutting taxes again, you might
want to consider restoring funding for other vital services like higher
education, environmental affairs or public health," he said.
So far, the House has been content with a current, though little noticed
state law, which would lower the tax rate to 5 percent over six years,
beginning in 2009, depending on economic performance. The current
trigger has already expanded the personal exemption on taxes.
Rep. Michael J. Rodrigues, D-Westport, asserted that the expansion of
the personal exemption meant more to middle-class families than the
income tax cut.
Rodrigues said tying any future tax cut to revenue, rather than local
aid, "I think is a wise thing to do."
Rep. John F. Quinn, D-Dartmouth, said taxes had to be balanced with the
state’s real needs, as it rebounds from the fiscal crisis earlier this
decade.
"If you could cut the taxes, that would be the ultimate goal," Quinn
said. "Certainly, in the short term, there are huge unmet needs at a
whole host of different levels. We can’t have a reduction in revenue and
pay for whatever, commuter rail. We can’t have it both ways."
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Judges huddle in high style on your dime
By Scott Van Voorhis
Bay State judges enjoy a year-round, rotating festival of posh
golf-resort educational seminars in the Berkshires, on Cape Cod and
elsewhere largely at taxpayer expense, despite a court system jammed
with a case backlog stretching back years.
Conferences for most of the seven divisions of the state’s trial courts
empty various courthouses across the state at different points
throughout the year, leaving skeleton crews to keep the wheels of
justice turning during busy work weeks.
For example, dozens of Superior Court judges met at the Cranwell Resort,
Spa & Golf Club in Lenox in late April, where a lodging and golf package
goes for $370 a night. Despite a "government rate" of $129 a night for
the judges’ conference, the event cost about $34,000, based on estimates
provided by Judge Robert Mulligan, chief justice for administration for
the trial courts.
Every year, the state court system shells out well over $100,000 for
annual and biannual conferences at luxury resorts like Cranwell and
Chatham’s Wequassett Inn Resort and Golf Course.
Other conference venues include the Williams Inn in Williamstown and the
Chatham Bars Inn in Chatham.
Conferences aren’t just for superior court judges. District, municipal,
juvenile, probate and family court judges have them, too.
These same judges are facing pressure to dispense justice more swiftly
and efficiently in the wake of a 2003 blue ribbon report that blasted
Massachusetts courts as "mired in managerial confusion."
For some, conferences aren’t the answer. The golf resort seminars raised
the hackles of Alan Jay Rom, head of the nonprofit Massachusetts
Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.
"Certainly you don’t go off to lavish country clubs when people are
suffering and people don’t have access," Rom said. "That should be clear
as a bell."
Meanwhile, the state judges are pushing lawmakers on Beacon Hill for a
12 percent boost to their $112,777 annual pay.
"If you wanted to be kind, you would compare them to the state lawmakers
who take their conferences on the
coast of Spain," quipped Barbara Anderson, executive director
of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "At least they are staying in
the state."
Mulligan defended the Cape and Berkshire educational jaunts, calling the
biannual meetings a tradition that stretches back more than a century.
State courts spokeswoman Joan Kenney also noted that superior court
judges pay a $30 out-of-pocket fee at their conferences.
Mulligan says the conferences are intense legal education forums. A
recent Cranwell stay featured seminars entitled "sentencing scenarios
with videos" and "post verdict issues."
Mulligan said he has also used the forums to roll out his agenda for
increasing courthouse efficiency.
"We go to these places off season," Mulligan said. "I am not sure people
really want to stay at the Wequassett Inn on Dec. 1. It may sound hollow
to some people, but it’s a sacrifice to go to these."
"These are not events where people are doing anything but working hard,"
Mulligan said,
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The Boston Herald
Saturday, May 27, 2006
$7M budget boost courts critical eye:
Measure flew under radar
By Dave Wedge
A $7 million pay raise for state judges and court clerks was slipped
into the Senate budget in an eleventh-hour legislative sleight of hand
while tax cuts and scores of community projects were swiftly axed.
The 13 percent judicial pay hike quietly attached to the Senate’s $25
billion budget means an average raise of $18,220 a year for the state’s
judges. Clerk magistrates, who serve under judges, fare even better.
Their annual pay jumps 13 percent from $88,000 to more than $100,000,
and they also will get an additional 5 percent bump under the new salary
scale.
Contacted by the Herald last night, several senators who voted on the
budget said they were unaware the pay-raise package was included.
Under the deal, Chief Administrative Justice Robert Mulligan’s pay will
leap from $122,050 to $140,358, while Margaret Marshall, chief justice
of the state’s highest court, will see her pay jump nearly $20,000 to
$151,239. Salaries for trial court judges will increase from $112,777 to
$129,694.
The raises were pushed through while plans to slash gas and income taxes
died and several community projects were killed, including:
* $15,000 to fix up a North Attleboro playground.
* $100,000 to improve a Vietnam veterans memorial in Billerica.
* $300,000 for a bike path on Crane’s Beach in Ipswich.
* $750,000 to renovate two blighted Dorchester parks.
Sen. Robert Creedon (D-Brockton) supported the pay hikes, saying the
raises still don’t elevate Massachusetts judges to the salary levels of
their counterparts in other states. Connecticut judges, for example,
make $144,000 annually, he said.
"This is obviously much less than (the Connecticut judges’ pay),"
Creedon said. "In any state position you try to keep pace with states of
comparable backgrounds."
A spokesman for Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who has opposed the raises,
called the Senate action "predictable but disappointing."
"The Legislature continued to add more spending while ignoring the tax
rollback," Healey spokesman Tim O’Brien said.
With the House already supporting the raises, the package is expected to
be part of the final budget that goes to Gov. Mitt Romney. Beacon Hill
insiders say the raises are a done deal because the Legislature would
easily override a Romney veto.
The package originated in a December supplemental spending plan. The
raises were added to the final budget at the last minute after senators
realized a "technical oversight" would have left the lucrative deal out,
said the amendment’s sponsor, Sen. Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy).
"We put the money in. We’re obviously for it," Morrissey said. "The
intention was relatively simple and that was to put the necessary
language in for the court personnel to get their pay."
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The Boston Herald
Saturday, May 27, 2006
At State House, bold move makes ‘bundle’ of sense
By Howie Carr
Why do these damn judges deserve a raise? And please, don’t tell me
they’re going to quit and make more money in the Dreaded Private Sector.
If they hadn’t been starving to death in private practice, they wouldn’t
have needed to scrape together $10,000 or $15,000 to bribe - in a legal
sense, of course - a bunch of pols to give them a black robe.
From $112,777 to $129,694 a year for most of them. And naturalized
citizen Margaret Marshall of gay-marriage fame goes from $131,512 to
$151,239. Not bad for a job where you only "work" 35 or so weeks a year.
The judges were threatening to quit, you say? Well, name me three that
have.
And now the clerks get well too. If judges are bust-out lawyers, clerks
are usually bust-out non-lawyers. Their pay is hiked from $88,696 to
about 100 large.
Once the word leaked out, Sen. Bob Creedon was trotted out to make a few
remarks.
He used to be the state rep from Brockton and then was succeeded by his
brother Mike, who went on to become a senator, and then a judge, after
which his brother Bob reclaimed the seat, while Bob’s wife Geraldine
became the state rep.
Did I mention another Creedon brother is a court clerk?
Happy Memorial Day weekend, Creedons!
The judicial pay raise, which has been in the works for years, was
sneaked into the Senate budget late Thursday afternoon.
Senate President Bob Travaglini, who is widely reported to be ticketed
for a soft landing, perhaps at the Mass Turnpike, announced to the
membership that there was food and "cold beverages" available in his
office.
"So feel free to indulge," he said, as if solons need to be told that.
"There is no deceit or trickery under way."
That was a promise to the solons, obviously, not the public.
What they do now is "bundle" amendments. It’s an appropriate word,
because when all the little b&e’s on the Treasury are bundled, it
usually means a bundle for somebody. Somebody named Creedon.
Soon on the Senate floor the hacks were buzzing about how "some people"
were going to be happy, although wasn’t it a shame that they couldn’t
make the raises retroactive?
But of course they will. Another rumor around the deserted State House
yesterday was that the skids are also being greased for Trav and his
House counterpart, Speaker Sal "The Animal" DiMasi, to collect a
"bundle."
Giving Sal a bundle the same week it was revealed that he represented
more than one organized-crime plug ugly would seem to be very poor
timing, but the hacks are shameless.
I’m telling you, this would have never have happened if Mitt Romney were
still governor of Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, more payroll Charlies are issued black robes every week. Last
week the Governor’s Council held a hearing for Merita Hopkins, a City
Hall coatholder whose husband was an FBI agent who was nicknamed "The
Pipe" by Whitey Bulger, the serial killer for whom Speaker DiMasi’s
gangster client Joe Yerardi toiled.
On her questionnaire, Merita was asked if the "compensation level" for
judges is adequate. Perhaps knowing that the fix was about to be put in,
she said yes but added that there should be an occasional "adjustment as
is the practice in most employment settings."
Oh sure, just ask a cabbie how often he gets an adjustment. But wouldn’t
you know it, the very next day, Merita’s new salary was "adjusted."
Howie Carr’s radio show is broadcast every weekday afternoon on WRKO
AM 680, WCRN AM 830, WHYN AM 560, WGAN AM 560, WXTK 95.1 FM, WEIM AM
11280 and WTPL 107.7 FM.
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