CLT UPDATE
Friday, March 28, 2008
Crisis offers opportunity
The state's top leaders vowed yesterday to use their
combined political might to take on powerful police unions by limiting
construction details, a longstanding cash cow for police officers that
critics for years have called a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Senate President Therese Murray, joined by Governor Deval Patrick and
House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi at a Beacon Hill press conference,
said they had agreed to come up with new regulations that will encourage
state and municipal officials to rely on civilians in bright vests with
flags, instead of officers, to direct traffic and monitor some low-risk
construction sites.
The move is surprising because it is being undertaken by Democrats who
typically count public safety unions among their political allies.
The Boston Globe
Friday, March 28, 2008
State takes aim at police details
Trims would save about $5m a year
“Our transportation system has got to be addressed,” Murray
said. “Everything has to be on the table. We’re under no illusions this set of
proposals is perfect, but we know it is of the utmost importance to our economy
to start this conversation now.” ...
Officials now must weigh proposals to hike the gas tax by 11.5 cents and
implement per-mile user fees on interstates.
In an unusual display of unity on a controversial issues, Patrick, Murray and
DiMasi said they support curtailing the use of police details on road projects -
long a sacred cow of Massachusetts politics often criticized as a wasteful
giveaway to police unions.
Murray said the transportation and public safety officials will craft a
regulation for the use of civilian flag men on projects on secondary roads where
traffic is moving more slowly. Officials said that move would save $100 million
over 20 years - but police union officials say cops are a better value
financially.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 28, 2008
Police details eyed for overhaul
A report released last year found that more than $19 billion
is needed to maintain the state's infrastructure over the next 20 years. Senate
Ways and Means Chair Steve Panagiotakos, D-Lowell, said the dire economic
outlook makes the reforms necessary.
"As you look out onto the economic horizon there is no doubt there are stormy
days ahead," Panagiotakos said. "We have to be ready for it."
Murray would not rule out a gas tax or additional tolls to address the
transportation woes, either.
The Lowell Sun
Thursday, March 27, 2008
State proposes replacing police
with flagmen at some detail sites
Cash-starved cities and towns across the state are launching
an all-out offensive on taxpayers’ pocketbooks, repeatedly asking homeowners to
ignore Proposition 2½ and dig deep to pay for everything from teachers to fire
trucks to trash collection.
At least 50 Bay State communities already have announced they will seek
overrides of the property-tax-limiting Proposition 2½ law this spring, a number
expected to at least double as towns scramble to cope with rising costs and
sinking revenues....
“This is going to get a lot worse before there’s any relief,” said Michael
Widmer of the nonprofit Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation. “What I see is cities
and towns undergoing this relentless year-to-year squeeze that gets tighter and
tighter.”
But Barbara Anderson, leader of Citizens for Limited Taxation who
helped craft the Proposition 2½ law 28 years ago, said the crisis stems from
years of wasteful spending and soaring public [employee] salary and benefit
packages. She called on voters to reject overrides and hailed a proposal by
House Speaker Sal DiMasi to create a new state agency to rein in municipal
spending.
“What I’m hoping it will be is an assault on business as usual and taxpayers say
‘no,’” Anderson said. “What we need is for taxpayers to make it absolutely clear
that the easy way out is not available - that they won’t support tax increases.
That’s the only thing that’s going to save any of us.”
But Massachusetts Municipal Association director Geoffrey Beckwith said most
cities and towns already are at bare bones.
“Communities have been cutting back on services,” he said. “The choices they
face is whether to cut services more or consider an override.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 28, 2008
Prop 2½ under siege in Mass.
Cities desperate for $$$
In 2007, just 34 percent of Proposition 2½ overrides passed
in Massachusetts, while Bay State voters approved just $37 million of $96
million in tax hikes sought by local government officials.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 28, 2008
Town haul$ fall short
More than 50 Bay State communities will be asking voters this
spring to approve tax hikes to cover budget shortfalls. Among the overrides
being sought are . . .
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 28, 2008
Override overdrive
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
In Tuesday's CLT Update ("Union
clout fading with membership decline") I wrote: "We voters
vastly outnumber union membership, more so by the day. Let's hope the
time has finally arrived, that the politicians and public officials
continue to recognize and act on it quickly -- before the unions take us
taxpayers, the vast citizen majority, down with them in their death
throes."
Yesterday the High Triumvirate of Beacon Hill --
Governor Patrick, Senate President Murray, and House Speaker DiMasi --
united and announced the end of police details as we know them. As
we've often said, it takes an economic downturn, a recession, a "fiscal
crisis" to produce any government reform whatsoever. As long as
tax revenue is rolling in hand over fist, it will be spent and then
some: The only change on Beacon Hill will be for the worse, the
state spending hole will be dug deeper and deeper.
Their announced intention to reduce police details is
a good initial step. Once the first flagman plants his flag in the
soil of Massachusetts, the iron grip of police union intimidation will
have been finally broken. It will become a signal to the other
public employee unions of things that are now possible at last. We
the taxpayers seem to be getting through with our far too long ignored
message.
With all three state leaders aboard, and with the
rank and file membership of the Democrat majority usually following in
lockstep, under ordinary conditions this should be a slam-dunk done
deal. But watch for an all out wall of blue to surround each
legislator. House members faced nothing like that kind of
intimidation from the governor or resort casino backers when they bowed
to Speaker DiMasi's arm-twisting during the recent casino vote.
The state's leadership knows it cannot propose the
planned tax increases without first taking at least a few token steps
toward reform, and police details is the poster child for ridiculously
wasteful state spending. Since taxpayers vastly outnumber police
union special interest, this might prove to Beacon Hill pols that their
loyalties have been misplaced for too long, that the risks are greater
by staying the course of business as usual.
As a next step, the Legislature needs to
remove the public employee unions' veto power over municipalities
that want to shift public employee health insurance into the state's
less expensive plan -- or it'll never happen.
Geoffrey Beckwith, head of the Massachusetts
Municipal Association, claims more Proposition 2½ overrides are
necessary because “Communities have been cutting back on services.
The choices they face is whether to cut services more or consider an
override.”
He left out the biggest municipal budget-busters as
though there isn't a third option. The driving forces behind
skyrocketing budget demands year after year are public employee union
demands for ever-escalating salaries and the increasing costs of their
health insurance and pension benefits. Perhaps once legislators
stand up to bullying unions and start making reforms, municipal leaders
will at last find the backbone to do likewise.
DiMasi has also suggested establishing a "Municipal
Audit Bureau" to investigate how each city and town spends its annual
share of state local aid. It appears he may be tiring of the
incessant whining from municipal officials that "more is never enough."
According to the
State House News Service, at a recent Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce breakfast forum he said: “We are investing much in our
cities and towns, and we should. But when they call for more, as
they do every year in good and in bad times, we have a right to know
why, and for what.”
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Chip Ford |
The Boston Globe
Friday, March 28, 2008
State takes aim at police details
Trims would save about $5m a year
By Matt Viser
The state's top leaders vowed yesterday to use their combined political
might to take on powerful police unions by limiting construction
details, a longstanding cash cow for police officers that critics for
years have called a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Senate President Therese Murray, joined by Governor Deval Patrick and
House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi at a Beacon Hill press conference,
said they had agreed to come up with new regulations that will encourage
state and municipal officials to rely on civilians in bright vests with
flags, instead of officers, to direct traffic and monitor some low-risk
construction sites.
They offered few specifics about how the rules would work, but said they
would focus initially on dead-end streets and side roads. The change
would be modest, saving only about $5 million a year. The rules, which
would apply to road construction and utility-work sites alike, could be
in place in a matter of months.
The move is surprising because it is being undertaken by Democrats who
typically count public safety unions among their political allies.
Governor William F. Weld, a Republican, tried in the 1990s to crack down
on police details and failed. His successors opted against taking them
on.
But with a state study last year identifying $19 billion in
transportation needs over the next 20 years and an immediate state
budget gap of $1.3 billion, Beacon Hill leaders said they are looking
everywhere for savings, even if it means targeting expenses long seen as
off-limits. "Everything is on the table," Murray said. "This is a
necessary step."
Massachusetts has no statewide regulations requiring the use of police
details for state or local road projects or utility jobs. But for
decades state and local officials have used them at construction sites
anyway, in deference to politically powerful unions. Any attempts on
Beacon Hill to require by law the less expensive use of civilian flagmen
have quickly been quashed.
The effort announced yesterday would establish recommendations for when
flaggers should be used and when police details should be used.
Police unions generally declined to comment yesterday, because the
administration has not spelled out the specifics. Police have argued
that the presence of a patrol cruiser and a uniformed officer slows
traffic and provides the best protection for the public and for road
workers.
"The public safety that we offer is leaps and bounds beyond what a
flagman could offer," said Rick Brown, president of the State Police
Association of Massachusetts. "I don't know how you put a flagman out
there without endangering the public."
The press conference to unveil the plan was the first time DiMasi and
Patrick have appeared together publicly since the speaker orchestrated a
crushing defeat of the governor's proposal to license three casinos in
Massachusetts. They did their best to put a good public face on their
fractured and sometimes acrimonious relationship. They stood several
feet away from one another, but their eyes rarely met. They did embrace
briefly.
The New York Times ran a story yesterday that quoted Patrick accusing
the speaker of waging an undemocratic deliberative process and blaming
DiMasi for the governor's own political losses. At the press conference,
Patrick deflected a question from a reporter about the Times story and
listed a series of projects that he said he and DiMasi have accomplished
together, including a $1 billion life sciences initiative and tax
credits for filmmakers.
"Obviously the papers are used to put forth a twist or a bend on
something," DiMasi said when it was his turn to talk about the Times
story. "The reality is that I'm working with the governor."
Murray, who was hosting the press conference in the ornate Senate
Reading Room, quickly stepped in and halted questions about the tiff
between DiMasi and Patrick. "This is about transportation," Murray said.
"Let's turn back to the subject."
The leaders, flanked by a dozen or so legislators, also announced plans
to streamline construction projects, crack down on retirement and
pension plans at the MBTA, and force the Turnpike Authority to look into
adopting electronic toll systems and get rid of workers. But the police
detail changes are expected to be the most controversial. The proposal
would save the state $100 million over 20 years, according to Murray's
office, or $5 million annually.
In comparison, costs for police details on Massachusetts Highway
Department projects alone increased from $15.5 million in 2003 to $22.6
million in 2006, a 48 percent increase over the three years, according
to a report last year by the Transportation Finance Commission.
About 4.5 percent of the total cost of MassHighway's construction
projects goes to pay for police details.
Municipalities would also save between $37 million and $67 million a
year by replacing most police details with less expensive flaggers,
according to a 2004 study by the Beacon Hill Institute, a nonprofit
economics study group at Suffolk University.
"The very fact that there's movement in this direction represents a very
important shift," said David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon
Hill Institute. "It's very promising."
Senator Steven A. Baddour, a Methuen Democrat and cochairman of the
Joint Committee on Transportation, said the recommendations would
classify streets in tiers, with heavily trafficked streets in one tier
and secondary and dead end streets in another.
State officials said they want to use the money to help ease
infrastructure costs. There is a projected shortfall in funding of $15
billion to $19 billion to maintain roads, bridges, and other
transportation projects over the next two decades, according to a blue
ribbon commission impaneled by the state last year.
"This is an impressive list of proposals, and they're taking on several
sacred cows," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation and a member of the Transportation Finance
Commission. "This is an impressive first step."
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 28, 2008
Police details eyed for overhaul
By Casey Ross
A sweeping transportation reform plan unveiled yesterday would curb the
use of police details on road projects, slash employee benefits at the
MBTA and Mass Pike and force all transportation agencies to publicly
report cash flow on major construction projects.
Senate President Therese Murray announced the measures in a press
conference with Gov. Deval Patrick and House Speaker Sal DiMasi as the
three top Democrats proclaimed an urgent need to implement reforms to
dig the state out of a $19 billion transportation funding deficit.
“Our transportation system has got to be addressed,” Murray said.
“Everything has to be on the table. We’re under no illusions this set of
proposals is perfect, but we know it is of the utmost importance to our
economy to start this conversation now.”
The proposals constitute the first phase of a transportation overhaul
that could lead to a dramatic reshaping of the Bay State’s labyrinthine
network of agencies that maintain highways, rail services and Logan
International Airport.
“The state’s transportation infrastructure remains in desperate need of
significant additional revenues,” said Joe Dorant, president of the
Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists, a union
that represents highway engineers.
Before considering tax hikes, Patrick said he and top aides are crafting
a plan to consolidate transportation agencies into a larger centralized
authority. An early version of his plan called for the merging of the
Mass Turnpike and MassHighway into a single entity that would also
oversee the MBTA.
“We’re looking for ways to (close) a $1 billion dollar deficit short of
and before we get to the questions of going out for broad-based tax
increase,” Patrick said.
The governor had proposed to license three casinos as a way to raise
money for transportation, but that proposal was killed last week in the
DiMasi-led House of Representatives. Officials now must weigh proposals
to hike the gas tax by 11.5 cents and implement per-mile user fees on
interstates.
In an unusual display of unity on a controversial issues, Patrick,
Murray and DiMasi said they support curtailing the use of police details
on road projects - long a sacred cow of Massachusetts politics often
criticized as a wasteful giveaway to police unions.
Murray said the transportation and public safety officials will craft a
regulation for the use of civilian flag men on projects on secondary
roads where traffic is moving more slowly. Officials said that move
would save $100 million over 20 years - but police union officials say
cops are a better value financially.
The Lowell Sun
Thursday, March 27, 2008
State proposes replacing police
with flagmen at some detail sites
By Hillary Chabot
Drivers could see civilian flagmen replacing police details on secondary
streets throughout the state within months thanks to new reforms
lawmakers introduced Thursday morning.
The change is part of a multi-faceted transportation overhaul meant to
save the state millions to address crumbling roads and bridges. The
changes will be tacked on to the $4.8 billion transportation bond bill.
"We have to change the way we do business and change the way we use
taxpayer dollars," said Senate President Therese Murray, who announced
the changes with Gov. Deval Patrick and Speaker Sal DiMasi.
The reforms would also take a closer look at performance and spending on
state transportation projects while cutting much of the red tape during
the bidding process.
"The sheer number of structurally deficient bridges in Massachusetts
alone should serve as a vivid symbol of the work we have to do," Patrick
said. "The failure to address this in the past has created stress on our
infrastructure, an impediment to economic growth and legitimate
public-safety concerns throughout the commonwealth."
The current law demands only that construction projects must be
overseen, not that police have to do so. Murray said flagmen could be
used in state and local projects, but only on projects which aren't high
risk.
A report released last year found that more than $19 billion is needed
to maintain the state's infrastructure over the next 20 years. Senate
Ways and Means Chair Steve Panagiotakos, D-Lowell, said the dire
economic outlook makes the reforms necessary.
"As you look out onto the economic horizon there is no doubt there are
stormy days ahead," Panagiotakos said. "We have to be ready for it."
Murray would not rule out a gas tax or additional tolls to address the
transportation woes, either.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 28, 2008
Prop 2½ under siege in Mass.
Cities desperate for $$$
By Dave Wedge
Cash-starved cities and towns across the state are launching an all-out
offensive on taxpayers’ pocketbooks, repeatedly asking homeowners to
ignore Proposition 2½ and dig deep to pay for everything from teachers
to fire trucks to trash collection.
At least 50 Bay State communities already have announced they will seek
overrides of the property-tax-limiting Proposition 2½ law this spring, a
number expected to at least double as towns scramble to cope with rising
costs and sinking revenues.
In Brockton, officials are bracing for as many as 40 possible layoffs,
in addition to the elimination of 28 vacant jobs, as the city faces a
$4.7 million budget shortfall.
“Layoffs are going to happen,” said Brockton City Councilor Bob
Sullivan, who predicted an override would fail because residents already
are struggling with a recent 60 percent water rate hike.
“People are going to get whacked on water and now layoffs. It’s going to
be messy in Brockton,” he said.
While state aid to cash-strapped cities and towns will be hiked $223
million this year, local officials say the increase is not nearly enough
to cover soaring health care, pension and energy costs. And the tanking
of Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino bill, which would have pumped $400
million into the state’s sagging economy, dealt another devastating
blow.
“If the override fails we are looking at deep cuts,” said Newton Mayor
David Cohen, whose city will decide on a $12 million override. “The
situation is very serious this year.”
The same dire scenario is being played out from Springfield to
Provincetown, leading dozens of towns to look to override Proposition 2½
- the landmark 1982 law that restricts communities from hiking property
taxes more than 2½ percent annually. For example, North Reading needs a
$1.2 million override and Canton needs $4.5 million to prevent school
layoffs for the second straight year.
“This is going to get a lot worse before there’s any relief,” said
Michael Widmer of the nonprofit Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation. “What
I see is cities and towns undergoing this relentless year-to-year
squeeze that gets tighter and tighter.”
But Barbara Anderson, leader of Citizens for Limited Taxation
who helped craft the Proposition 2½ law 28 years ago, said the crisis
stems from years of wasteful spending and soaring public [employee]
salary and benefit packages. She called on voters to reject overrides
and hailed a proposal by House Speaker Sal DiMasi to create a new state
agency to rein in municipal spending.
“What I’m hoping it will be is an assault on business as usual and
taxpayers say ‘no,’” Anderson said. “What we need is for taxpayers to
make it absolutely clear that the easy way out is not available - that
they won’t support tax increases. That’s the only thing that’s going to
save any of us.”
But Massachusetts Municipal Association director Geoffrey Beckwith said
most cities and towns already are at bare bones.
“Communities have been cutting back on services,” he said. “The choices
they face is whether to cut services more or consider an override.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 28, 2008
Override overdrive
By Herald staff
More than 50 Bay State communities will be asking voters this spring to
approve tax hikes to cover budget shortfalls. Among the overrides being
sought are:
Ashburnham - $500,000 to avoid school layoffs
Tyngsboro - $1.2 million to avoid 22 possible school layoffs
Northboro - $316,000
Randolph - $6.4 million to avoid school, police and fire cutbacks
Chelmsford - $2.8 million
Milton - $2.7 million to avoid 23 possible school layoffs
Newton - $12 million
Holliston - $1.7 million, facing 28 possible school layoffs
Canton - $4.5 million
Brookline - $5.4 million to prevent cuts to fire, police, public works
and schools
Falmouth - $353,000 for fire apparatus
Provincetown - $153,000 for trash pickup costs
Belmont - $4.5 million for schools
Shrewsbury - $1.5 million
Spencer - $528,000 to keep a library open and avoid laying off a police
officer;
Dalton - $250,000
Truro - $400,000 for schools
Wayland - $1.5 million for schools
Sudbury - $2.8 million for schools
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