The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Shifting dynamics complicate transit plans
By Noah Bierman
Legislators and Governor
Deval Patrick have promised that fixing the state's crumbling
transportation system would be near the top of the agenda as the yearly
session begins today. But with a new transportation secretary preparing
to take office next week and a very unpopular toll increase set for a
vote later this month, the dynamics have begun shifting even before any
plans have officially been submitted.
It now seems likely that
drivers will face an increase in tolls, gas taxes, or MBTA fares, or
some combination of the three, in the year ahead. As the negotiations
begin, lawmakers will have to navigate a thicket of differences, drawn
largely along geographical lines, as they try to figure out how to
fairly distribute the cost of getting rid of potholes and keeping the
trains running. At the same time, Patrick and others have promised
voters they would fundamentally change the system to get rid of the
culture that led to the current problems.
"The fundamentals in our
transportation system, quite frankly, are broken," said Senator Steven
A. Baddour, a Methuen Democrat who cochairs the Joint Committee on
Transportation, during a committee hearing yesterday.
Observers and political
leaders say that Beacon Hill must take advantage of the political
opportunity - now that the toll proposal and ensuing debate have
attracted the public's attention - to fix the transportation problems
all at once, while legislative elections are still more than a year
away.
"Every time you turn
around, the numbers keep coming back to us," said Stephen J. Silveira,
chairman of the state Transportation Finance Commission. Silveira
testified at yesterday's hearing. "If anything, the numbers have gotten
worse. . . . As much as we'd like to give everything away and have
cookies and ice cream for everybody, that's just not going to happen."
Silveira's commission,
created in 2004, said two years ago it would cost an extra $15 billion
to $19 billion over the next 20 years to maintain the existing road and
public transit network. Commission members who testified yesterday said
the state cannot fix the problem with reform alone, and they recommended
a higher gas tax, along with increases in MBTA fares and tolls. The
commission said many of its recommendations from 2007, including one to
reduce MBTA worker benefits, have not been accomplished.
Toll increases have become
the most immediate public concern. Patrick has backed a Turnpike
Authority proposal that would double cash tolls to $7 at the Ted
Williams and Sumner tunnels and raise them to $2, from $1.25, at the
Weston and Allston-Brighton booths. A final vote is scheduled Jan. 22,
with the new rates scheduled to take effect in early April.
But incoming transportation
secretary James A. Aloisi Jr., who will lead the turnpike's board when
he takes office, has said he will give the toll proposal a fresh look,
leaving the Patrick administration an opening to shift its position.
Residents in the western suburbs, the North Shore, and East Boston have
been strongly opposed. Some lawmakers have said they would refuse to
look at higher gas taxes and other transportation proposals, including
Patrick's, if the tolls rise as proposed.
Over the next few weeks,
lawmakers are expected to negotiate what all players are calling a
comprehensive solution.
Patrick has promised to
submit a plan this month that would abolish the Turnpike Authority -
removing most tolls west of Route 128 and turning over the eastern
portion of the turnpike to the Massachusetts Port Authority. Baddour
said the Senate will submit its own plan and talked yesterday about
merging more transportation agencies.
House Speaker Salvatore F.
DiMasi backs raising the gas tax to avoid a toll increase. Patrick has
not backed a gas tax but recently has suggested that it could become
part of an agreement, given the level of interest in the Legislature.
Any tax increases will face
opposition as the state and national economy struggles.
"It's a scam," said
Barbara Anderson, executive director of the Citizens for Limited
Taxation, "to neglect the things that everybody agrees [are needed]
so you can spend the money on the things that voters don't like."
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, January 6, 2008
Patrick wants Net sales tax created
Mass. coffers would gain $15m per year
By Casey Ross
Governor Deval Patrick is
pushing lawmakers to expand the state's ability to collect sales tax on
products sold over the Internet, which could add millions of dollars in
revenue each year and alleviate a severe budget crisis.
Patrick's revenue
commissioner, Navjeet K. Bal, has submitted a report to the Legislature
asking it to approve an Internet sales tax by the end of this year.
Currently, only Internet retailers that have in-state locations, such as
stores and warehouses, collect and remit sales taxes on purchases by
Massachusetts residents.
The proposed law would
expand that to collect taxes from Internet retailers that have agreed to
participate in a multistate compact, called the streamlined sales tax
initiative. Because participation is voluntarily, Massachusetts
officials estimate the state would collect only an additional $15
million in taxes a year.
Still, state officials said
passage of the law would help spur Congress to approve a broader version
of an Internet sales tax that could produce hundreds of millions of
dollars in additional revenue.
So far, 22 states have
adopted Internet, phone, and mail-order sales taxes based on the
streamlined sales tax system.
Legislation by Congress
would require all 45 states that have sales taxes to collect on those
transactions. Because it would be a federal mandate, the law would
dramatically increase the number of retailers required to participate,
generating as much as $545 million for Massachusetts alone, according to
an analysis by the University of Tennessee.
The US House version of the
bill is sponsored by Representative William Delahunt, Democrat from
Quincy, who has argued that implementing the tax agreement is more about
creating a fair tax policy than raising revenue.
"This will protect
Massachusetts businesses that are disadvantaged by the current system,"
Delahunt said. "Small- and medium-sized businesses need this in order to
compete with large sellers from out of state" that aren't required to
collect and remit sales taxes.
But opponents argue such a
tax would unfairly burden Internet retailers with the cost and
complication of setting up systems to collect the tax and expose them to
audits if tax collectors argue they did not collect enough.
"Why in the world would you
think increasing taxes on people buying stuff would help the economy?"
said Grover Norquist, president of
Americans for Tax Reform.
"It won't do anything other than throw sand in the gears of commerce."
In Massachusetts, the tax
proposal appears to enjoy broad support in the Legislature, where
members are grappling with anticipated budget cuts that could reduce
local aid to communities, hurting schools and cutting public safety
services. A special corporate tax committee that studied the issue voted
14 to 1 in 2007 to support its implementation here.
Even the one lawmaker on
the committee who voted against it, Brad Jones, a North Reading
Republican, now sounds more supportive. Jones said an Internet sales tax
would be a far better option for the state than an across-the-board tax
increase. He noted that taxing Internet sales is technically not a tax
increase, because consumers are currently required under a
seldom-enforced law to pay tax directly to the state on those items
they've purchased from out-of-state vendors.
"There are some questions
that need to be vetted and explored, but this is something that is
deserving of consideration," Jones said.
Some of those questions
include whether the state can reconcile conflicts in its tax code with
the system being developed by the streamlined project. For example, the
current system does not allow states to use price thresholds when taxing
certain categories of products, but Massachusetts only taxes clothes
that cost more than $175.
Last month the members of
the multistate organization gave preliminary approval to allowing the
Massachusetts clothing threshold. A final vote is expected within
months.
State House News Service
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sales tax hike, cost savings mulled
by education panel appointed by Patrick
By Gintautas Dumcius
Members of a panel charged
with recommending financing ideas in light of Gov. Deval Patrick’s
ambitious education reform plans are considering a hike in the state’s
sales tax as part of a package that would also include cost-saving
measures.
A draft report obtained by the News Service portrays an 18-member panel
of businessmen, academics, and policy experts, known as the Readiness
Finance Commission, wrestling with the prospect of a tax increase and
its possible impact on both public education and the state’s economic
competitiveness.
The draft report noted that
a majority of the commission agreed on the need for new revenues, with
savings alone not being able to meet immediate funding needs. Some felt
that the governor should “first consider an increase in the sales tax.”
But the draft report added, “Additionally, some members felt the state
should require implementation of cost-savings measures before looking to
new revenues.”
A commission member who
declined to be named said the panel has not reached consensus on
revenues.
A spokesman for the
Executive Office of Education stressed the report was still in draft
form.
Patrick tasked the
commission with coming up with a way to pay for his proposed education
reforms, aimed at bringing the state’s education system into the 21st
century over the next 10 years. He directed them to consider all options
except raising local property taxes.
Analysts predict a fiscal
2010 budget gap of $2 billion to $3 billion, and school districts, early
education providers and public higher education institutions are
preparing for a “nearly unprecedented reduction” in funding, according
to the draft. The state is also struggling with rising health care costs
and transportation funding deficits.
“In this context, based on
a review of the various revenue measures available, the Commission
favored the sales tax as the best mechanism to include in a finance
reform package that would also feature the cost savings and
restructuring measures being recommended,” according to the draft. “Many
Commission members believed that both cost-cutting and revenue
strategies will be needed and should be pursued simultaneously.
Commission members felt that, without this kind of multi-pronged
approach, there would be a risk of losing ground in existing programs
and infrastructure.”
The state in the next
several years will be preoccupied with preserving the “existing level”
of quality in the education system, the report states, and policymakers
must “seize the moment” to make changes in the structure and operation.
“In the long run, the Commission concluded that the state’s strategy for
educational transformation must make efficiencies and restructuring a
part of genuine education reform,” the draft report says. “As these
changes are implemented any available revenues can then be directed to
the education sector in the knowledge that they will be spent
efficiently and effectively.”
The state sales tax is
currently 5 percent of the sales price or rental charge of personal
property or telecommunications services. Roughly 40 percent of sales tax
revenues help fund the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and
the Massachusetts School Building Authority. Next to the income tax, the
sales tax is the state’s second largest source of tax revenue,
generating just over $4 billion in fiscal 2008.
The draft report does not
recommend a specific increase in the sales tax and repeatedly points to
a package that would also have to contain cost savings and restructuring
measures that would be “pursued simultaneously” and implemented as soon
as possible.
The report noted some of
the concerns among commission members that they do not have tax policy
expertise.
“Consequently, there was
some reluctance to detail specific tax recommendations,” the draft
report says. “Notwithstanding these considerations, because of existing
needs and the dire outlook for the upcoming fiscal year, the Commission
was convinced of the need for additional investment to attain the
education goals set forth by Governor Patrick.”
The draft report also
recommends linking increments of state aid to the implementation of some
of the cost-saving ideas. “Small amounts of aid could be withheld to
encourage particular practices that are sensible, consistent with
statewide goals and ultimately beneficial to students,” the report says.
As an example, the report
points to a group purchasing strategy for higher education institutions
as a condition for issuing state aid.
“A positive side effect of
such an approach is that practices once viewed as politically difficult
become more feasible when state aid is the incentive,” according to the
draft. “At the same time, the Commission acknowledged that
municipalities and districts must be given the tools necessary to
implement those changes before this kind of linkage is established.”
Other cost savings
opportunities included in the draft report:
-- Reducing retiree benefit
costs by moving retired teachers into Medicare;
-- Regionalization of
school districts to increase efficiency and capacity;
-- Reducing procurement
costs through procurement reform and coordinated purchasing;
-- Moving municipalities
into the Group Insurance Commission to reduce employee health insurance
costs;
-- Reducing energy costs
through conservation campaigns, better purchasing and use of energy
savings companies;
-- Maximizing federal
Medicaid reimbursements for special education costs;
A partial list of
priorities of the Readiness Project, as Patrick’s ten-year education
reform effort is called, includes cost estimates for free community
college ($92 million for all 51,000 full or part-time students in the
community college system); universal pre-kindergarten ($302 million to
$595 million); full-day kindergarten for high-need districts ($2.7
million); expanded learning time ($219 million); increased financial aid
($29 million, restoring MassGrants to a fiscal 1989 peak) and the higher
education funding formula ($550 million), according to the draft report.
The commission,
co-chaired by Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish and Bentley
University President Gloria Larson, has been meeting privately
since it was first convened over the summer, looking at various
proposals over the course of six meetings and one public hearing.
Fish and Larson met with
the governor on Monday to speak with him about the impending report,
according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 7, 2008
Mayor tight-lipped on son’s part-time job
By Dave Wedge
Mayor Thomas M. Menino has
kept secret his cop son’s side job with a politically wired construction
firm, claiming he didn’t have to disclose the potential conflict because
he has no role in the company’s city business.
“Suffolk has had no
business with the city that the mayor has had direct control over,” said
Menino spokeswoman Dot Joyce.
However, Suffolk
Construction, which employs Menino’s son, Boston Police Detective Thomas
Menino Jr., as a safety engineer, has built schools, government
buildings and other multimillion-dollar projects in the city. And
Suffolk executives frequently venture to City Hall seeking permits
before agencies under the mayor’s control.
State ethics laws require
municipal officials to disclose all potential conflicts to the city
clerk’s office. The law also requires elected officials to recuse
themselves from decisions that could impact the personal finances of
themselves or their immediate family members.
Suffolk has also built a
slew of major developments backed by the mayor, such as the $30 million
Boston Opera House renovation and the $55 million Landmark Center in
Allston. The firm is also building the $5.8 million Camp Harbor View -
reportedly at cost - for city kids on the Boston Harbor Islands, a
Menino pet project.
In addition, the mayor
chairs the George Robert White Fund, a public charitable trust
administered by the city that paid $2 million in 2007 to renovate a
Roxbury community center. Suffolk was the job’s contractor.
“The George Robert White
Fund funds projects. It does not decide who the developers or
construction teams are,” Joyce said.
Menino made no disclosure
of his son’s 20-hour-a-week Suffolk job and has never filed any
disclosures of potential conflicts with the clerk’s office, officials
said.
Joyce said the mayor
believes “there is no conflict,” but that city Corporation Counsel
William Sinnott - appointed by Menino - is looking into whether the
mayor is required to file an ethics disclosure over his 39-year-old
son’s job.
Menino Jr., an
$86,000-a-year Boston police detective, has been working mornings for
Suffolk since January 2008, in addition to his nightly 4 p.m. to
midnight shift in the BPD’s intelligence unit.
His moonlighting is a
rarity in the BPD, where just 44 detectives and superior officers have
department-approved outside employment. Among the secondary occupations
held by cops are lawyers, carpenters, consultants, movie extras and
college professors, records show.
Besides the mayor’s son,
Suffolk employs former Boston Redevelopment Authority officials, as well
as Menino’s former top City Hall adviser and longtime political
operative Peter Welsh. Menino’s brother, David, also works for Suffolk.
Suffolk executives have
long supported the mayor, including the company’s president John Fish,
who has been a campaign donor.
State House News Service
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Education, business leaders debate merits and pitfalls of new taxes
By Gintautas Dumcius
Education policy-makers are
praising an education financing panel’s consideration of a number of
cost-saving reforms, along with an increase in the state’s sales tax.
But a Bay State retailers’
association that routinely lobbies for an annual sales tax holiday says
an increase would be ill timed and ill-advised during a recession
economy that is blasting billion-dollar holes in the state budget.
Former Democratic
gubernatorial candidate Christopher Gabrieli, a venture capitalist who
is also chairman of the education think tank Mass2020, said he had not
seen drafts of the report from the Readiness Finance Commission, the
panel that Gov. Deval Patrick set up to cost out his reform proposals.
The final report is due out Wednesday.
Gabrieli said the 18-member
group, made up of businessmen, academics, and policy experts, is right
in raising the prospect of an increase in the 5 percent sales tax.
“I’m glad that commission
is helping put it on the table as the transportation commission did” in
suggesting an increase in the gas tax, another revenue source Beacon
Hill is now considering, Gabrieli said. “I think it’s difficult for the
legislative leaders and the governor to raise it.”
He said Massachusetts no
longer has the high taxes it was once notorious for and anecdotally
pointed to his fellow venture capitalists in New York and California
paying more than he does in taxes. Other states in the country are
pursuing tax increases as the recession hits harder and seeking to avoid
cuts in economic drivers like education, he said.
“I think sometimes the
conversation in Massachusetts is in a time warp. California has a
Republican governor calling for tax increases,” Gabrieli said, referring
to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I think the notion that we
all want to be careful about these things, the notion that it would be
off the table, would put us in a radical position.”
In the draft report
obtained by the News Service, the commission appears to struggle with
the idea of raising the sales tax, but ultimately endorses the hike. But
members also recommend cost-saving measures such as reducing retiree
benefit costs by moving retired teachers into Medicare; the
regionalization of school districts to increase efficiency and capacity;
and moving municipalities into the Group Insurance Commission to reduce
employee health insurance costs.
Jonathan Palumbo, a
spokesman for the education secretariat, said they’ll be “more than
willing” to discuss the recommendations when the final report is
released Wednesday.
“Further, I would caution
people from drawing any conclusions or reacting in any way to what is
alleged to be a draft report,” Palumbo said. “The fact of the matter is,
the report has gone through many iterations, and has grown and has
developed, and is at a point where the commission is confident in the
content of the report.”
Patrick directed the
commission, co-chaired by Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish and Bentley
University President Gloria Larson, to consider all options, except
raising local property taxes, to pay for modernizing the state’s
education system. The plans include costly items like free community
college. Patrick has said that the downturn will likely force him to
pare back some of his proposals.
Others in the education
policy arena expressed hope for a sales tax increase and the other
reforms the commission appears to be considering.
“We're sort of hoping the
sales tax would be on the table,” said Glenn Koocher, executive director
of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. “There's a
groundswell coming from the membership for the sales tax.”
Koocher added that moving
retired teachers into the Medicare system is a “no-brainer.” “Joining
the Medicare system is something that's critical, that's easy,” he said.
“If those proposals are among the group is looking at, how great it is
to hear the sound of one's own voice coming from another source.”
In the business community,
the reaction was more mixed, with some saying a hike in the sales tax
would put small business owners out of work and drive customers to New
Hampshire, where there is no state sales tax.
“Downtowns are going to be
hammered. All those employees are going to be put out of work. It's just
an absurd suggestion,” said Jon Hurst, head of the Massachusetts
Retailers Association. “They'll probably declare a holiday in New
Hampshire, because it's what brings in a huge amount of New Hampshire's
business.”
Hurst said that the sales
tax, while providing the state with over $4 billion in revenue in fiscal
2008, is unstable.
Discussion over the sales
tax had previously arisen in a March “long term financing” report
prepared by a subcommittee formed as part of Patrick’s Readiness
Project. The subcommittee said at the time that a 1 percent increase
would net $700 million in revenue and said the tax is “generally stable,
but can fluctuate based on the economy.”
That subcommittee, which
recommended that the Readiness Finance Commission be created to look
into the issue and other taxes, added that the sales tax falls
“disproportionately on lower income brackets.”
The MBTA and the
Massachusetts School Building Authority are aided in part by 40 percent
of sales tax revenues, which have continued to slump and have forced the
state to cover the quasi-public agencies’ losses, as required by law.
Alan Macdonald, executive
director of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, said he was unsure
what stance his group will take on a potential sales tax increase. Their
task force on education meets on Jan. 15.
“We'll see where we go on
this one. I can't predict where we are on the sales tax,” he said,
adding that during the last round of education reform, in 1992, they
supported an increase but a healthy economy rendered it unnecessary.
Readiness Finance
Commission members have declined to return phone calls or speak
on-the-record about the proposals, saying they are willing to talk only
when the report is finalized.
House Minority Leader
Bradley Jones (R-North Reading) voiced concern that a possible sales tax
increase could lead to the MSBA and the MBTA receiving less in the end.
“Are they going to be increased or reduced by some amount?” he said,
adding that he is siding with commission members who say they want to
see the reforms before talk turns to revenues.
Separately, the co-author
of the state’s 1993 education reform law hammered the Patrick
administration’s education reform efforts on another front.
Former Senate President
Thomas Birmingham, a Chelsea Democrat, told a crowd of education
policy-makers earlier this month that he was “personally discomforted”
by the directions of the Readiness Project and a state task force that
has recommended teachers include skills such as global awareness,
technology and media literacy in the classroom.
Birmingham added that the
proposals of the 21st Century Skills Task Force, a group of public and
private sector leaders who issued their recommendations in November,
“may threaten to dismantle the structure of our success and drive us
back in the direction of vague expectation and fuzzy standards,”
according to an audio recording of the Dec. 16 event at the Omni Parker
House.
“As a political matter, the
success of education reform is broadly enough acknowledged to make it
practically unlikely to forge an explicit frontal assault on standards
and knowledge-based education,” he said. “Instead of that, I worry about
a soft subversion of objective assessments, a watering down of clear
expectations with vague aspirations.”
Birmingham spoke at a forum
on K-12 standards and liberal arts that was sponsored in part by the
Pioneer Institute, a right-leaning think tank that has been frequently
critical of Patrick’s education reform efforts.
State House News Service
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Patrick panel identifies education finance, cost savings options
By Gintautas Dumcius
Additional funds will be
necessary to maintain basic educational services and to pursue "vital"
investments in public education, but any revenue-generating measures
should be tied to restructuring and cost-saving reforms, according to
the final report of Gov. Deval Patrick's Readiness Finance Commission
released on Wednesday.
Commission members, who
include lawmakers, corporate executives and education policymakers, are
calling for the immediate commencement of cost savings proposals. Those
proposals, including a number that would require legislative approval,
could produce as much as $550 million in savings, according to the
commission.
Citing the economic
downturn, which is forcing sweeping state spending cuts, the commission
concentrated largely on the cost savings “to maintain support for our
education system in a time of inadequate resources.”
But saying savings alone
won't be enough, commission members found increasing the sales tax the
"most viable" of the revenue-generating options discussed, with the
other revenue sources eyed being the gas tax, the income tax, interest
and dividend taxes, and the licensing of casinos.
“I’m not saying that at
some point, that’s not going to be part of the discussion,” said Rep.
Patricia Haddad, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Education and a
member of commission, of raising revenues. “But I think in fairness to
everybody out there, the first thing you have to do is you make sure you
have exhausted every possibility of making changes to the current system
before you go ahead and ask people for more money.”
The report was released by
the Patrick administration without fanfare during a New Year’s Eve
snowstorm.
In fiscal 2008, education
spending for schools topped $10 billion, according to the Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education.
According the report, the
potential cost savings measures include moving municipalities into the
Group Insurance Commission to reduce municipal employee health insurance
costs ($200 million); reducing teacher retiree benefit costs by moving
them into Medicare ($135 million); regionalizing schools’ food services,
transportation and building maintenance (almost $20 million); maximizing
federal Medicaid reimbursements for special education (over $100
million); reducing energy costs through better purchasing, conservation
campaigns and energy savings companies (over $100 million); and enacting
procurement reform and coordinating the purchase of utilities, bookstore
contracts, office supplies, vending contracts, (savings “range”).
Haddad said she would push
for regionalization, which some communities oppose because they want to
keep handling matters on their own, as a top priority. “I think that
hard times like this are the times that you can make big institutional
changes and they make sense,” she said. “You never make changes like
this in good times.”
The commission is also
encouraging private fundraising “as a means for jumpstarting the
Governor's education agenda.” For instance, the Executive Office of
Education is hoping to raise private money to support planning grants
for Readiness Schools, which would include charter school-like aspects
to encourage innovation, according to the report.
Michael Widmer, head of the
business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and a member of the
commission, said private fundraising to deal with ongoing costs is
unrealistic. “If there’s special projects, private fundraising may be an
option,” he said. “When we’re talking about costs in the hundreds of
millions, billions of dollars, I think it’s an idea worth exploring but
realistically it won’t have much of an impact.”
Widmer said the most
important cost savings come from health care and giving municipalities
the ability to adjust their own health plans without going through
collective bargaining.
Chris Anderson, commission
member and president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, said
the commission’s proposed efficiencies will be “very helpful” to
lawmakers and Patrick’s education reform agenda.
“But that really just helps
the communities manage what they have on their plate today,” he said.
“There’s a disconnect where we ended up in terms of looking ahead and
how to advance the agenda, mainly because of the deterioration of the
state’s finances.”
Because of that, Anderson
said he wasn’t sure how any revenues raised, as the report says
commission members discussed, are going to advance Patrick’s reform
effort, “even if the Legislature decided to raise the sales tax.”
A 1-percent increase in the
5-percent sales tax would draw $720 million in new revenue, according to
the report.
Citing an analysis reported
to the commission by Augenblick, Palaich and Associates Inc. (APA), the
commission "learned that the tax burden in Massachusetts is lower than
that of most nearby states and about the same as a handful of states
that are similarly situated in terms off population, wealth and student
education needs."
The APA report said the
overall tax burden in Massachusetts has decreased “significantly” since
1995 and tax reductions were "generally greater" than those enacted in
other states over the same timeframe.
In its report, the
commission said any increase in the gas tax would likely be devoted to
transportation spending and said commission members view increases in
taxes on income and interest and dividends as “less tenable approaches
given the need to balance any new revenue measures with the state's
ability to remain economically competitive.”
The commission, in its
conclusions, said the education sector “needs to be a top priority for
the state, and represents a worthwhile, indeed critical, investment for
the long-term growth and success of the Commonwealth.”
An appendix to the report
outlines a series of areas where Education Secretary Paul Reville
intends to recommend “modest” funding increases for fiscal 2010, “unless
there is a continuing and steep decline in revenue projections.”
The items targeted for
potential investment include home-based language and literacy; universal
pre-kindergarten; extension of the school day; an increase in state aid,
known as Chapter 70; financial aid; and free community college, which
would be exclusively offered to teachers, potential early education
teachers and low-income parents of public schoolchildren.
The “steep decline” in
revenue projections appears to be in progress, with Gov. Patrick
announcing another $1 billion in budget fixes appears necessary, on top
of $1.4 billion in alterations put in place this fall.
In a statement, Reville
said the report is a “significant contribution to our efforts to achieve
maximum efficiency and educational effectiveness in these challenging
times.” Reville was not available for comment Wednesday.
Commission co-chairs John Fish, CEO of Suffolk Construction, and Gloria
Larson, president of Bentley University, did not return phone calls
seeking comment.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Grudging support for gas tax hike in poll
Funding option favored over increase in tolls
By Noah Bierman
Massachusetts residents are
more willing to embrace higher gas taxes to repair the state's crumbling
transportation system than any other proposed solution, including higher
tolls or more booths at the state's borders, a Boston Globe poll shows.
In fact, higher tolls - as
recently proposed by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with Governor
Deval Patrick's support - are by far the least popular among an array of
suggestions that have been floated to fix the state's transportation
woes.
Patrick has called it a bad
time, with the economy sagging, to raise the gas tax. House Speaker
Salvatore F. DiMasi has said he would prefer a tax hike, which affects
motorists generally, to toll hikes that burden only some.
When those polled were
asked to choose between raising tolls on the turnpike or raising the gas
tax, the tax won out 48 percent to 42 percent. The feelings about taxes
or tolls varied considerably depending on where respondents live - toll
hikes were the clear preference of those from the state's west and
southeast sections, who are least likely to pay them.
But even some who do not
regularly drive on toll roads object to the hikes.
"It's outrageous," said
Steve Edelheit, a 62-year-old college teacher from Brookline who seldom
pays tolls and responded to the poll. "Why should it fall on the backs
of those folks to pay for the Big Dig?" The lingering costs of the $15
billion tunnel project and the resulting financial crisis for state
roads and public transit have vaulted transportation funding to the top
of the state's political agenda.
But residents - by a more
than 2 to 1 ratio - say the final product was not worth the time and
money invested in it. Sixty-five percent said the Big Dig has had no
impact on their travel time, and some said it has even made trips
longer. Fifty-four percent said they were at least somewhat nervous
driving through the tunnels, which claimed a life in 2006 when a ceiling
panel collapsed.
"You've got two-thirds of
the people who say it wasn't worth it, but they're going to have to pay
for it," said Andrew E. Smith, director of the University of New
Hampshire Survey Center, which conducted the Globe's poll. "That makes a
political problem."
The poll of 501
Massachusetts residents, which was conducted Dec. 11 through Dec. 18 and
has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent, also measured the
popularity of statewide political figures, several of whom are at the
center of the transportation debate. DiMasi, although unknown by many of
those polled, is viewed the least favorably. Since the Globe's last poll
in September 2007, his favorability rating has dipped from 26 percent to
15 percent, as he has become enmeshed in multiple state and federal
ethics investigations involving the lobbying efforts of his close
associates. In the latest survey, the number of residents who view him
unfavorably has grown from 20 percent to 41 percent.
In contrast, Patrick has
seen his favorability rating grow from 57 percent last September to 64
percent, even as his constituents appear to be increasingly nervous
about jobs and the faltering economy, the poll indicated.
Attorney General Martha
Coakley's popularity is similarly high, 58 percent, with only 12 percent
viewing her unfavorably; Patrick, by contrast, had an unfavorable rating
of 24 percent. And, although the position of state treasurer is normally
low-profile, Timothy P. Cahill, a potential candidate for governor, has
a relatively strong rating - well-liked by 43 percent of those polled
and viewed unfavorably by just 8 percent.
Another statewide issue,
casino gambling, has grown slightly in popularity since last year's
Globe poll, even as its chances appear slimmer in the Legislature.
Fifty-seven percent of those polled favor it, while 40 percent oppose
it, compared with 53 percent who supported it last year.
The Legislature, which
earlier this year was preoccupied with Patrick's failed effort to
legalize casinos, will turn its attention in January to the sagging
finances of its transportation agencies. Both the Turnpike Authority and
the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority are running deficits as
they struggle to pay off billions of dollars in debt.
The Turnpike Authority last
month gave preliminary approval to a proposal that would charge drivers
$7 at the Sumner and Ted Williams tunnels, up from $3.50 now, and $2 at
the Weston and Allston booths, up from $1.25. Meanwhile, the MBTA may
consider steep fare hikes and deep cuts in bus, train, subway, and
light-rail service over the next year.
Many politicians have been
loath to endorse raising the state's gas tax, even though a key
government commission recommended doing so last year. But the Globe poll
suggests that a gas tax increase may be the most palatable.
Not one of the available
options drew more than 40 percent approval when those polled were asked
for an up or down vote.
"None of them are popular,"
Smith said, "but it's the least unpopular option. It's the medicine that
people know that may taste the best going down."
Residents in the poll
roundly oppose leasing out the turnpike to a private company - a
proposal that has been floated by the state Senate - or charging drivers
by the mile by putting a computer chip in inspection stickers - an idea
recently raised by Patrick. Placed head to head against other
money-raising options, a higher gas tax wins in every case.
Residents said they would prefer a higher gas tax to an MBTA fare
increase, 51 percent to 37 percent. They prefer the gas tax to adding
tolls to other highways - 48 percent to 37 percent.
Comparing the gas tax hike
with a turnpike toll increase drew the slimmest margin, at 6 percentage
points - 48 percent for a gas tax to 42 percent.
The preferences on the gas
tax and tolls reflected geographic biases. Residents of Greater Boston,
who are most likely to use toll roads, prefer a gas tax. Residents of
Central, Western and Southern Massachusetts, who are less apt to pay
tolls, would rather not raise the gas tax.
"When you raise the gas tax
for those of us who live off of Route 2, how fair is that?" said Beth
Atwood, a 43-year-old fitness center owner from Orange. "It only goes
back into Boston. We never see it out here."
That schism is also
reflected in the political debate. Legislators from Boston, the North
Shore, and the western suburbs - whose constituents most frequently use
the turnpike and airport tunnels - have led the charge against toll
hikes and proposed replacing them with a higher gas tax.
The poll also indicated
geographical differences in how people perceive the Big Dig's
beneficiaries. The farther people live from Boston, the more likely they
are to think the project benefited Boston residents. Boston residents
themselves were less likely to believe the project helped their city
than others who responded to the poll.
"When I'm on the motorcycle, I can see every crack," said Marie Salami,
a 72-year-old Dorchester resident who reluctantly rides her
Harley-Davidson through the tunnels. "It's terrible."
Similarly, the T earned
relatively high marks for quality - 52 percent of all respondents rating
it excellent or good. But those who actually ride it have a worse
impression - 45 percent rate it excellent or good.
While the poll suggests
that political leaders might be able to sell a gas tax increase to
Massachusetts residents, they would not have carte blanche. A plurality
of those who responded, 47 percent, said they would accept an increase
of only 5 cents per gallon. Support dropped as the increase got higher.
A 5-cent increase might head off the current toll increase, but it would
not allow officials to take down existing tolls or forestall an MBTA
fare hike.
"You've got to make a
strong pitch for why that's necessary first," Smith said. "If you're a
politician, you've got to lay out a case for it."
