CLT UPDATE
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The inevitable crisis has arrived
If no solution now, when?
Last week, five leading business
groups came out in favor of an increase in the gasoline tax to pay off
old debt and improve roads and bridges, but now anti-tax groups are
pushing back.
The National Federal of Independent Businesses said Thursday that small
businesses cannot afford to pay higher taxes, and demanded that
politicians fix the debt-ridden transportation system first.
"Building and maintaining roads, bridges and other infrastructure
projects is certainly a key component to growing our economy and
competing in a global marketplace," said the group's state director,
Bill Vernon of Mansfield.
"But before we ask small business owners to pick up the tab for
additional revenues, they deserve more than lip service from
policymakers on reform," he said. "Years of mismanagement have made them
suspicious of blindly throwing more money at a transportation
bureaucracy that has been marred with inefficiencies, bad judgment and
irresponsible spending."
The Sun Chronicle
Friday, March 13, 2009
Anti-tax groups sound off on gas hike issue
I'm having a tough enough time with Deval Patrick as
governor. I'm not going to stand for him trying to be my parent as well.
"DeVille" brought his campaign for his proposed 19 cents-per-gallon gasoline tax
increase to Haverhill last week. He called it a "conversation." And yes, he did
give some of the 200-plus people who showed up a chance to comment and ask him
questions. But, he also continued the hectoring, parental-style guilt trip that
has now become part of his shtick wherever he goes.
It is getting old. It is profoundly disrespectful. It is also profoundly
disingenuous....
There is definitely an adolescent mentality at play here. But it is not the
taxpayers who are displaying it. It is the governor. It is adolescents who, when
they run out of money, don't cut their spending, go out and get a job or wait
for next week's allowance. They run to their parents, demanding more — now —
claiming they can't get by on "nothing." And any sane parent would laugh at such
idiocy.
That is what the governor is doing. He is the one who needs to grow up.
The Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, March 15, 2009
'Grown-ups' know they're already paying plenty in taxes
By Taylor Armerding
Denise Banks’s husband works for a rental car company that
could be slapped with thousands of dollars in new costs, under a proposed
Patrick administration fee hike on passenger cars, commercial vehicles and a
spate of motor vehicle services....
Banks was one of the few frustrated voices at the Registry of Motor Vehicles
hearing on proposed fee increases that could be implemented as soon as April 6
and touch up payers for $9.6 million by June 30.
Increases on everything from ID cards, license plate replacements and commercial
vehicle licenses – all proposed as part of the state’s budget-balancing plans -
drew little public comment, but the few who did show up said the fees would harm
the trucking, rental car and data collection industries.
Other fees eyed for April implementation include raising to $75 from $50 the
cost of a vehicle ownership title, to $25 from $15 the cost of a Massachusetts
ID card, to $20 from $10 the cost of retrieving an accident report record, and a
variety of new driver education fees.
All the fees could raise $75 million a year from the state’s 4.6 million drivers
and may be fully implemented by October.
State House News Service
Monday, March 16, 2009
Mass. drivers face wide-ranging fee hikes
Deval Patrick has neatly adapted to the culture of the State
House, the one he said he planned to overhaul.
That's the only conclusion to be drawn from his decision to give state Senator
Marian Walsh a $175,000 job to help run a state bonding authority....
But we should know by now what politicians mean when they talk about reform:
nothing. Taking care of the people who took care of you is the essence of
political business as usual. Reform is for suckers.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A pledge forgotten
By Adrian Walker
The soon-to-be-defunct Turnpike Authority, which is poised to
foist painful toll hikes on motorists, has quietly put at least two new
high-priced staffers on its payroll - both of them retreads from the state
transportation department, the Herald has learned.
The two staff members were shuffled over from the executive office of
transportation within the last three months, even as administration officials
were telling lawmakers the Pike was in desperate need of cash.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Pike hires add to ‘burden’
Critics slam pricey personnel
While Governor Patrick wants to fix the state's
transportation bureaucracy, his new transportation secretary, James F. Aloisi
Jr., isn't the most obvious symbol of reform.
The Globe's Andrea Estes reported yesterday that Aloisi's sister, Carol Aloisi,
holds a state job that paid her $60,000 for doing nothing. It's hard to imagine
anyone without connections getting such a plum deal.
A Boston Globe editorial
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Reform begins at home
Have you noticed how often Gov. Deval Patrick and his
coat-holding minions try to justify picking our pockets by saying they’re only
lifting the cost of a cup of coffee - or maybe a turkey sandwich? ...
The problem is, a cup of coffee here, a turkey sandwich there, and pretty soon
you’re talking real money. And how come, if it’s such short money, the state
can’t handle the shortfall by, oh, firing a few hacks, starting with Aloisi’s
sister?
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Let’s all give up coffee, lunch to feed Pike hacks
By Howie Carr
Gov. Deval Patrick is quietly pushing hefty $26,000 raises
for sheriffs in two of the state’s sleepiest counties - one of which doesn’t
even oversee any prisoners - in another stunning move that appears to collide
with his own reform agenda.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Small-town sheriffs lock down big pay boost
A member of the board that hired a state senator to fill a
long-empty executive job ripped Gov. Deval Patrick and his colleagues for the
appointment and said the state should not be spending $175,000 per year on a
glorified lobbyist....
[Marvin] Gordon, who is vice chairman and the longest-serving member of the
board, said Walsh should not have been put in the "nonexistent" position of
assistant executive director.
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Board member rips Patrick for hiring Walsh to $175K job
Eleven staff members of former House speaker Salvatore F.
DiMasi have continued collecting state paychecks and health benefits even though
DiMasi resigned under a cloud in January and they have no clearly defined
responsibilities at the State House, state officials said.
The arrangement demonstrates how staff members of top lawmakers are sometimes
treated more favorably than other state workers whose jobs are eliminated....
Taxpayers have been paying more than $14,000 a week to keep DiMasi's former
aides on the state payroll.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Former DiMasi aides still on House payroll
Employees given office, but duties are unclear
It's hard to sell voters on a tax increase when they're
convinced the money taken from their pockets will simply be used to line someone
else's.
And neither Gov. Deval Patrick nor the Legislature — whose members recently
pocketed the fruits of yet another automatic pay hike — are doing much to
convince the public it won't be business as usual if taxes are increased....
The solution is simple: End the culture in which public service is just another
word for self-service.
An Eagle-Tribune editorial
Friday, March 20, 2009
Public service can no longer be self-service
Gov. Deval Patrick is taking a scornful tone regarding the
hiring of companies that have cheated taxpayers in Massachusetts....
But Team 5 Investigates has discovered Patrick's words are much different from
his administration's actions. In the coming months, millions of tax dollars will
pay for repairs to area roads and bridges by a company whose former top
executives are well-known for cheating taxpayers.
"Isn't it a tradition in Massachusetts to make a mess of public works projects?"
said Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "Aren't we
almost obligated to our fans to have corruption tied in?" ...
"Very little of what Massachusetts does is right," Anderson said. "Most of what
we do is wrong and so this simply carries on that tradition."
WCVB TV-5
Team 5 Investigates
Thursday, March 19, 2009
State Pays Millions To Company that Cheated Taxpayers
Critics Question Transportation Reform Promise
A dismissive Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday belittled as
“trivial” recent exposes detailing plum jobs and fat raises to the politically
connected under his watch, saying the controversies won’t distract him from
“meaningful” issues....
Patrick has come under fire in recent days for seemingly cynical moves that
appear at odds with his stated mission of reform....
House Minority Leader Brad Jones said Patrick’s moves undercut his recent
speeches preaching shared sacrifice. “Things like this would have been what he
gave as examples of things he would change when he was running for governor,”
Jones said. “Deval Patrick was elected to change Beacon Hill, and it changed
him.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 20, 2009
Deval Patrick slams ‘trivial’ pursuits
Dismisses attacks over hires, raises
Move over, Sen. Marian Walsh, and make room for a couple of
small-town sheriffs on the shelf reserved for overpaid bureaucrats!
Fresh off engineering a $100,000 raise for Walsh, Gov. Deval Patrick is pushing
$26,000 raises for the sheriffs in the commonwealth’s two smallest counties -
one of whom doesn’t actually supervise any inmates.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, March 20, 2009
Another Patrick payday
Most Massachusetts residents would disagree with a group that
opposes MCAS, charter schools, accountability and Proposition 2½ property tax
limits, and supports raising taxes to boost state education funding by at least
20 percent. But we would defend the group’s right to espouse its positions -
unless it used tax dollars to do it.
That’s exactly what the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) is
doing....
The policies MASC is using our tax dollars to promote would undo hard-won
education reform gains and turn all of Massachusetts into Cambridge.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 20, 2009
School panel lobby fighting taxpayers
By Charles Chieppo
A proposed skatepark for the area beneath the Zakim Bridge
could get nearly $2 million in stimulus funds, but a nonprofit has already
raised enough money to build it.
“That project was supposed to be funded by donations,” said Barbara Anderson,
executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. “So now that we’re
increasing the national debt to $11 trillion we don’t need private funding
anymore?” ...
The Charles River Conservancy has already raised enough money for the
skatepark’s design and construction, but the state Department of Conservation &
Recreation requested $1.85 million in federal stimulus dollars to build the park
anyway....
But Anderson is unconvinced. “There’s no such thing as free money,” she said.
“The kids who use the park and their kids will be paying for it for the rest of
their lives.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 20, 2009
Funded skateboard park could get $2M from feds
Municipal budgets across Massachusetts are stretched to the
breaking point as the state's own fiscal woes have limited the amount of money
available for local aid.
Further, taxpayers are in no position to contribute any more as their homes in
many communities are already taxed to hilt. Their own finances are in a shambles
as home values fall, retirement funds shrink and prospects for continued
employment are worrisome.
So municipal leaders are left to work with what money they have to balance their
budgets. In any budget, personnel costs are the biggest expense. And as their
counterparts in private industry have done, mayors and town managers are asking
their employees for help.
In our two largest local cities, those requests have been met with either stony
silence or outright refusal by the biggest sector of public workers — school
employees and teachers.
An Eagle-Tribune editorial
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Teachers must share in budget sacrifice
“One of the challenges in life is concentrating on the
meaningful and letting the trivial take a back seat,” Patrick said Thursday when
cornered by a reporter and asked about the impact of a spate of patronage
stories. “I sometimes feel like I’m in a profession where that is completely
upside down.”
Trivial? Public anger and public outrage about the misuse of their money and the
abuse of the public trust is never trivial....
The message is that the politically powerful take care of their own and the rest
of us get stuck with the bill.
A Boston Herald editorial
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Redefining ‘trivial’
The Patrick administration today will unveil a series of
proposed reforms designed to close loopholes in the state pension system that
have allowed workers to dramatically inflate their retirement benefits at a cost
of millions of dollars to taxpayers.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Patrick targets pension loopholes
Seeks to quell anger, generate big savings
The number of state retirees who take home pensions of
$100,000 or more has more than tripled over the past five years, adding to the
pension system's financial stress.
One hundred six retirees, or their survivors, are paid six-figure pensions, up
from 33 in 2003, according to state figures....
"It is way out of line with reality," said David G. Tuerck, executive director
of the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, a think tank on economic
issues....
In a defined benefit plan, the benefits to the retiree, such as monthly payments
and healthcare costs, are often locked in for life, no matter how costs change
later.
Nationally, the percent of private sector workers receiving defined benefit
plans has plummeted, from 39 percent to 20 percent between 1980 and 2007, while
more than 85 percent of public employees receive them.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, March 22, 2009
106 retirees collect $100k or more
in state worker retirement benefits
House officials are frantically preparing to release their
budget in April, and the state’s cash intake continues to be grim. While Patrick
has focused on specific taxes on gas, candy, and alcohol, many lawmakers are
focused on broad-based taxes.
The Boston Herald
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday morning briefing [Excerpt]
By Hillary Chabot
How refreshing it is to hear someone at the State
House acknowledge the obvious - that while our budget picture isn’t
pretty, to expect taxpayers to simply dig deeper to finance the state’s
historic level of spending is to live in a dream world.
OK, so those are our words, not House Ways and Means Chairman Charles
Murphy’s. But last week the newly appointed House budget chief
nevertheless drew some important budgetary lines in the sand....
And rather than rush to adopt broad-based tax increases - on restaurant
meals, hotel rooms, alcohol, soda and candy, among Patrick’s proposals -
Beacon Hill must first acknowledge a “new reality” and focus on
“considerable cuts” to the budget Patrick filed last month....
At the end of the day our financial problems are deadly serious. But
contrary to what the administration would have us believe, there are
solutions beyond panic-driven tax hikes.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, March 23, 2009
New fiscal reality
Gov. Deval Patrick says his transportation overhaul plan will
streamline bureaucracy, remove redundancy and eliminate the Massachusetts
Turnpike Authority as a political dumping ground by dissolving it.
That may be bad news to some of his own staff.
As Patrick and his new transportation secretary, James Aloisi, have tried to
build support for a 19-cent gasoline tax increase to pay for their plan, their
administration has hired duplicate transportation communications directors, put
a chastised state spokesman in an internal communications role at the highway
department and transferred two transportation department workers into new roles
at the cash-starved Turnpike Authority....
The officials are collectively paid nearly $650,000 a year, yet Patrick said
Thursday that recent newspaper stories about some of the personnel machinations
have been "trivial."
That's not how everyone sees it.
"It could be small potatoes until you add it onto the rest of the banquet, and
then you see an accumulated amount of government fat," said anti-tax crusader
Barbara Anderson. "That should be a good reason for everyone to say 'no' to
the gas tax."
Associated Press
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Mass. transportation hiring, reform plans clash
Gov. Deval Patrick gathered reporters in his office over the
weekend to make the urgent case for reforming the state pension system - the
urgency made more apparent, we suppose, by the fact that it was a Sunday and he
was wearing a sweater.
But we would caution the governor that such “I’m in charge” symbolism didn’t
always work for Mike Dukakis - and it may not be enough to revive his own
flagging agenda....
We don’t fault Patrick for endorsing changes that the taxpayers have long
demanded and that they deserve. But true reform will require more than a
conveniently-timed “crisis” press conference.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Style, not substance
State Senator Marian Walsh is asking to reduce the salary she
will receive in her new job at a state authority from $175,000 to $120,000, a
change that aides to Governor Deval Patrick hope will quell the uproar over her
appointment.
Walsh had been under pressure from the governor's staff to take some action to
tamp down the anger over her appointment as assistant executive director of the
Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority. But administration
sources said it was her suggestion to accept a $55,000 reduction in the pay for
the job.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Walsh's cost to calm furor: $55,000
Contentious Patrick pick seeks lower pay
Many public employees are expert in the game of pension
pursuit. But Massachusetts taxpayers are no longer willing to play along -
especially as pensions dwindle for private-sector workers. Inflated public
pensions are not just costly in dollars, but they greatly diminish public
confidence in state and local government....
Public hearings on pension reform will begin in April. But the public has heard
plenty on the subject already, and none of it to its liking.
A Boston Globe editorial
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Stop these pension ploys
Pension tension
In the last year or so, the Globe has exposed a number of
maddening public pension abuses, many of them courtesy of Sean Murphy's
determined reporting.
Too often, political inertia trumps public anger.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Turning talk into action on pension reform
By Scot Lehigh
A wave of voter disgust at business as usual on Beacon Hill
has swamped Gov. Deval Patrick, dealing the first-term governor a devastating
credibility blow that leaves his re-election hopes shaken, a new 7News poll has
found....
Patrick’s dismal poll numbers come after battering in the press over his naming
of a senator pal to a costly plum post, raises for sheriffs, addition of two
pricey staffers to the Pike payroll, embarrassing comments by his transportation
secretary and his own dismissal of the controversies as “trivial.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Deval Patrick tanks in new poll
32 percent back hiking the sales tax - over tolls or a gas
tax - to help bail out the state.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Highs, lows on Beacon Hill
Senate Republicans blasted Gov. Deval Patrick’s choice of
UMass dean Stephen P. Crosby to review salaries at the state’s 52
quasi-independent agencies yesterday, saying somebody “more independent” is
needed.
Patrick tapped Crosby - a former secretary of administration and finance to GOP
Govs. Paul Cellucci and Jane M. Swift - for the 90-day study after the flap over
Sen. Marian Walsh’s $175,000 job at an obscure funding agency.
“Is this something the governor is doing as damage control or is this a
legitimate effort?” asked Senate Minority leader Richard R. Tisei (R-Wakefield).
Crosby earns $170,000 as dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies
at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
“Given the fact that Mr. Crosby’s institute is dependent on state funding to
operate, any conclusion that he comes to regarding salary levels will lack the
credibility and independence necessary to gain the public’s trust,” wrote the
state’s five GOP senators in a letter to Patrick yesterday.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Deval Patrick takes flak from GOP
for tapping UMass dean to study pay
As credit analysts issued their latest warning about the
Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, the state Senate yesterday passed a bill that
leaders promised would fundamentally change the state's transportation system
and lay the groundwork for repairing its dilapidated finances.
The bill would eliminate the Turnpike Authority and the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority, which is also in a fiscal crisis, and replace them
with a new mega-agency that would oversee all roads, bridges, tunnels, subways,
trains, and buses. Despite months of discussion leading up to the vote,
lawmakers spent little time publicly debating the 278-page bill, working out
most of the issues behind closed doors.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Senate backs bill to merge T, Pike
State expects savings under mega-agency
“Uncle, uncle,” - Gov. Deval Patrick
Why are you crying “Uncle,” Gov. Patrick? It’s the taxpayers who are getting the
wedgie.
So a reporter asks you about your bone-headed comment about make-work jobs for
your feel-good friends and you say “uncle.” But last I checked, we taxpayers are
still on the hook for Carol Aloisi’s salary.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Deval Patrick’s initiation is finally complete
By Michael Graham
All five candidates for selectman in next week's election
said they would oppose any property tax override this year.
Three of the contenders are going one step further.
Candidates Dan Lanen, Donald Stewart and Joe Edward Smith have signed a pledge
to oppose Proposition 2½ overrides for their entire three-year terms, if
elected....
The North Andover Taxpayers Association put out the Taxpayer Protection Pledge
this month, something it's been doing for five years. The pledge is based on the
Citizens for Limited Taxation pledge given to state candidates....
"It doesn't surprise me that we have three this year," [Ted Tripp, president of
the North Andover Taxpayers Association] said. "The economy is in a lot less
better shape. I think they see with the economy so bad, nobody will go for one."
The Eagle-Tribune
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Three selectman candidates sign no tax override pledge
In recent statements about a lucrative $175,000 position for
Senator Marian Walsh, Governor Deval Patrick characterized critics as harping on
a "trivial" matter. The announcement yesterday that the pay would be cut to
$120,000 shows that the governor's tuning fork has finally alerted him to public
outrage. Still, the appointment is outrageous.
Walsh, who was named assistant executive director of the Massachusetts Health
and Educational Facilities Authority, has no experience in the world of bond
finance. She would be filling a position that is vacant, purposeless, and
unneeded....
In the end, it all comes down to money - not principle, not public policy, and
certainly not reform. It is often said that actions speak louder than words, but
sometimes words are far more illuminating than actions. In this instance, the
governor's version of "transparency" is really a smoke-and-mirrors clouding of
the public's view of the political version of trivial pursuit.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The truth behind the triviality
By Marvin Gordon and Robert J. Ciolek
As state tax collections spiral downwards, federal funds pour
in, and talk persists of raising taxes – the gas tax, sales tax and several
others - some four dozen lawmakers and aides met on Wednesday in the first of a
series of briefings on issues surrounding the state’s complex tax policies....
“There is no topic that is off-limits for these seminars,” Rep. Jay Kaufman,
House chair of the Joint Committee on Revenue, told the small crowd gathered in
the House Lobby.
That includes Proposition 2½, Kaufman said, calling the voter law a “third rail”
in politics....
The committee has scheduled a hearing on Patrick’s tax plans for April 7 in
Gardner Auditorium at 10 am.
State House News Service
Thursday, March 25, 2009
Revenue Committee to hold briefings on tax policies
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
I can't believe that while I'm recovering from major
surgery the world as we know it is going down the toilet around us.
Oh it doesn't surprise me, I just thought I'd be ready for it when it
happened.
State or federal, the governments' scams are running
out. On the national level, the USA is so
deeply in debt -- and digging us deeper hand over fist -- that it's
almost hopeless. Who can wrap their mind around trillions of our
progeny's dollars, never mind the sheer number of trillions piling up it
seems by the day?
Though there are a few factual flaws in his
statements, the best rallying cry I've heard in the past few days has
been bellowed by
Dr. Bob Besso channeling Tom Paine on YouTube: His "We
The People Stimulus Package" and "The
Second American Revolution" productions. We as a nation are
certainly in trouble. Really big trouble.
The state is, as they say, a "laboratory of
democracy," and Taxachusetts is leading the way to financial disaster
and ruin -- under the guise of democracy. Despite everything so
obvious to every one of us among The Great Unwashed, the Bacon Hill
games continue. Gov. Deval Patrick, "Mr. Reform" on the
campaign trail, not only can't
fulfill his campaign promises but has now been consumed by the Bacon
Hill political culture, absorbed
by it whether he knows it or not.
Does anyone really believe that "reform" is coming,
that "pension
reform" is for real, that "consolidation" will cost patronage
jobs, that
yet higher taxes will not be demanded to maintain for-years overbloated state budgets, filled with revenue surpluses and borrowing,
even as it is cut?
For decades we've been warning that this day of
reckoning was coming. It has now arrived. With both feet.
To give the beast more of our money is to condone, to
perpetuate it if that's even possible. If we can't excise the spending cancer during this
historic economic crisis right now -- then when will we ever?
Is it even possible any more?
It is past time for government to share our
sacrifices.
If not now, when . . . ?
 |
|
Chip Ford |
|
The Sun Chronicle
Friday, March 13, 2009
Anti-tax groups sound off on gas hike issue
By Jim Hand
Last week, five leading business groups came out in favor of an increase
in the gasoline tax to pay off old debt and improve roads and bridges,
but now anti-tax groups are pushing back.
The National Federal of Independent Businesses said Thursday that small
businesses cannot afford to pay higher taxes, and demanded that
politicians fix the debt-ridden transportation system first.
"Building and maintaining roads, bridges and other infrastructure
projects is certainly a key component to growing our economy and
competing in a global marketplace," said the group's state director,
Bill Vernon of Mansfield.
"But before we ask small business owners to pick up the tab for
additional revenues, they deserve more than lip service from
policymakers on reform," he said. "Years of mismanagement have made them
suspicious of blindly throwing more money at a transportation
bureaucracy that has been marred with inefficiencies, bad judgment and
irresponsible spending."
The position by the group representing small businesses came a day after
Citizens for Limited Taxation said it would seek to defeat any
politician who supports an increase in taxes.
"There is only one thing that anti-tax hike activists and citizens can
do to fight proposed increases in the gas, sales and income taxes," CLT
head Barbara Anderson said in a news release. "They must begin planning
immediately for the 2010 election. Voters must make it clear that they
will support the governor's opponent in both the primary and general
election. They must pledge that they will support the opponent of any
legislator who votes for tax hikes."
The state Republican Party has jumped on the issue, holding a protest
outside the Statehouse and conducting hearings around the state.
State Rep. Betty Poirier, R-North Attleboro, said Republicans will hold
a forum on the issue from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday in Attleboro city hall.
She said the forum is being held because she does not believe the
decision makers in Boston understand how much an increase in taxes will
hurt people.
Last week, business groups such as the Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce and Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation proposed a 25-cent
increase in the gasoline tax, saying it is vital to the region's
economy.
Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed a 19-cent increase, while legislative
leaders have talked about smaller jumps.
Supporters say the extra revenue is needed because the Turnpike
Authority and MBTA are billions of dollars in debt and roads and bridges
are in disrepair.
The debt dates back to the Big Dig project in Boston and expansion of
the commuter rail system, which previous governors undertook, but never
provided a funding source for.
Local lawmakers said they have heard loud and clear from taxpayers that
they cannot afford an increase in the gasoline tax. The legislators have
said the state should pass a series of reforms first to reduce costs and
increase efficiency.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses took a similar stand.
"Raising gas taxes under the guise of public investment and job creation
obscures the fact that new revenue will only bail out a failing system,"
Vernon said. "Massachusetts employers cannot afford and should not be
asked to bail out the state transportation bureaucracy with a higher gas
tax at a time when they themselves are having a hard enough time
surviving."
Patrick has proposed several reforms based on the recommendations of a
study group and a previous plan by the state Senate. The reforms are
aimed at lowering costs and improving management
The governor wants to end the practice of letting MBTA employees retire
early after 23 years, put MBTA and Turnpike employees under the less
expensive state health care system, combine the Turnpike Authority and
highway department and eliminate 300 jobs.
The Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, March 15, 2009
'Grown-ups' know they're already paying plenty in taxes
By Taylor Armerding
I'm having a tough enough time with Deval Patrick as governor. I'm not
going to stand for him trying to be my parent as well.
"DeVille" brought his campaign for his proposed 19 cents-per-gallon
gasoline tax increase to Haverhill last week. He called it a
"conversation." And yes, he did give some of the 200-plus people who
showed up a chance to comment and ask him questions. But, he also
continued the hectoring, parental-style guilt trip that has now become
part of his shtick wherever he goes.
It is getting old. It is profoundly disrespectful. It is also profoundly
disingenuous.
According to the governor, anybody who opposes the tax increase — which
will make the Massachusetts state gas tax the highest in the nation — is
behaving like a spoiled child or adolescent. "Grown-ups" know that this
simply has to be done, he says, in soothing parental tones.
Or, put another way, grown-ups understand, he says, that "we can't have
something for nothing."
You heard right: Nothing.
Please, Daddy Deval, while you are scolding us, tell us all who (besides
those collecting from the giant social services "safety net") is
demanding something for nothing?
Could you explain to all of us petulant adolescents out here, who have
to pay for all of your "adult" decisions, how it is that the 21
cents-per-gallon state tax already in place is "nothing?"
Could you explain to us how a state budget supposedly in the $28 billion
range but really somewhere north of $30 billion (since things like the
MBTA, pension funding, some Medicaid funding and other items have been
moved "off budget") is "nothing?"
Could you explain to us how any of us are demanding something for
nothing when we pay federal income taxes, state income taxes, Social
Security taxes, property taxes, cigarette and liquor taxes, a host of
telephone taxes and surcharges, airport taxes, car rental taxes, luxury
taxes, Medicare taxes, inheritance taxes, capital gains taxes, auto
excise taxes, sales taxes, plus a host of new or increased "fees" on
everything from renewing our driver's licenses to recreational licenses
to professional licenses to water and sewer services to school busing
and athletics to marriage licenses to court filings — I believe it
amounted to about $400 million in new fee revenue, thanks to the
previous Romney administration? And that is not even close to the whole
list.
Not that this kind of doublespeak is anything new. I recall a meeting
with the governor, before he was the governor, when he used the
Clintonesque semantic dodge that he would be "asking" the wealthy to
"contribute" more. I asked what he might do if the wealthy said no to
his "request." His response: "Well, I'm sorry if you don't like my
choice of words ..."
Nobody with a brain should like your choice of words, governor, unless
you don't want your words to mean anything.
But this accusation that taxpayers want something for nothing is a
time-honored bureaucratic attempt at thought control, much like the
constant barrage of demands for more money that we are told won't amount
to more than "a cup of coffee a day."
Right. What "adult" would complain about paying $1.50 a day for some
"critical" service that would "devastate" us all if it were to be cut?
You're supposed to think that this new cup of coffee is all you're
paying. You're supposed to forget about the hundred or so cups you're
already buying every day to support every level of government. In the
world of political-speak, those are "nothing."
And so it is with the gas tax. Only a spoiled child would think we can
have decent roads and bridges for "nothing."
Fortunately, even some of the leading members of his own party aren't
buying it. State Sen. Steve Baddour, D-Methuen, co-chair of the Joint
Transportation Committee, says he won't support an increase in the gas
tax until there is at least some credible reform — replacing most toll
takers with electronic collection, ending the outrageous
23-years-and-out pension system of the MBTA, forcing workers to accept
more affordable health insurance.
According to Baddour, major reforms, borrowing and money from the giant
federal economic stimulus bill will produce most of what the governor
says he must have with an 19 cent addition to the gas tax.
But I'm sure of one thing. There is definitely an adolescent mentality
at play here. But it is not the taxpayers who are displaying it. It is
the governor. It is adolescents who, when they run out of money, don't
cut their spending, go out and get a job or wait for next week's
allowance. They run to their parents, demanding more — now — claiming
they can't get by on "nothing." And any sane parent would laugh at such
idiocy.
That is what the governor is doing. He is the one who needs to grow up.
Taylor Armerding is associate editorial page editor of The
Eagle-Tribune.
State House News Service
Monday, March 16, 2009
Mass. drivers face wide-ranging fee hikes
By Kyle Cheney
Denise Banks’s husband works for a rental car company that could be
slapped with thousands of dollars in new costs, under a proposed Patrick
administration fee hike on passenger cars, commercial vehicles and a
spate of motor vehicle services.
“I’m afraid that this increase is excessive,” Banks told state officials
at a public hearing Monday. “It’s a domino effect. It hurts more people
than your realize.”
Banks said the new fees could force some car rental companies to lay off
employees.
“People are going into foreclosure. We can barely pay our bills.” she
said. “If my husband loses his job, I mean, I’ve got three kids at
home.”
Banks was one of the few frustrated voices at the Registry of Motor
Vehicles hearing on proposed fee increases that could be implemented as
soon as April 6 and touch up payers for $9.6 million by June 30.
Increases on everything from ID cards, license plate replacements and
commercial vehicle licenses – all proposed as part of the state’s
budget-balancing plans - drew little public comment, but the few who did
show up said the fees would harm the trucking, rental car and data
collection industries.
Other fees eyed for April implementation include raising to $75 from $50
the cost of a vehicle ownership title, to $25 from $15 the cost of a
Massachusetts ID card, to $20 from $10 the cost of retrieving an
accident report record, and a variety of new driver education fees.
All the fees could raise $75 million a year from the state’s 4.6 million
drivers and may be fully implemented by October. The governor proposed
the new fees to help close a growing midyear budget deficit.
A Patrick proposal to increase fees on passenger licenses and
registration, which factors into the $75 million total, was dropped by
the Legislature from a bill that passed both branches quickly last week.
The fee hikes Patrick plans for individual licenses and registrations
require legislative approval and were left off the Registry’s hearing
docket for now. Those fees include raising the cost of a two-year
registration from $36 to $50 and boosting the cost of a five-year
passenger vehicle driver’s license from $40 to $50.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Murphy said the bill
approved last week addressed only those items “that needed to be taken
up,” particularly a $327 million draw from the state’s stabilization
fund and a $101 million expenditure for unbudgeted snow and ice costs.
“We’ve saved it for another day to be addressed,” he said of the RMV
fees.
Murphy added that the provisions of the governor’s RMV fee hike proposal
requiring legislative approval could be taken up during an impending
debate on comprehensive transportation reform.
Registrar of Motor Vehicles Rachel Kaprielian emphasized that, should
all the fees take effect, the average driver would see a $6.50 increase
per year – “a couple cups of Starbucks.”
The Starbucks analogy has been used before. Gov. Deval Patrick noted
that a proposed 19-cent gas tax hike would cost the state’s drivers the
equivalent of one large cup of coffee per week.
Kaprielian acknowledged that the new fees would not necessarily be
plowed back into the RMV to shore up services.
“The pattern has been that there is an overall transportation agenda of
which we are a part,” she said, noting that the RMV is at “our low
watermark” for staffing levels. The RMV took $2.4 million in midyear
cuts this year, leaving its budget at just over $55 million.
Asked by reporters to explain why the Registry needed higher fees,
Kaprielian pointed to increasing costs at the registry for utilities,
leases for the registry’s 35 branches and the plastic used to make
licenses. “We are asked every year to do more with less,” she said. “The
number of drivers does not go down.”
Kaprielian noted that all drivers would bear some of the burden of the
new fees.
“It’s a privilege to drive. It’s not a right, it’s a privilege,” she
said. “Nobody is spared, and nobody should be.”
Advocates for commercial truckers warned the proposed fee hikes on
trucking licenses – from $60 to $75 for Class A licenses and from $50 to
$75 for Class B licenses – could affect the price of shipped goods.
“Commercial transportation finds itself in a very dubious and dangerous
financial set of circumstances,” said Ann Lynch, executive director of
the Massachusetts Motor Transportation Association, noting the potential
for toll and gas tax increases.
Lynch added, “97 percent of all goods in Massachusetts are delivered by
truck.”
Ted Hotham, director of government affairs for the international data
collection company Experian Automotive, drove down from Maine to
register his opposition to a proposed 300 percent hike – to $7,500 from
$2,500 – in the cost of obtaining Massachusetts motor vehicle records.
Hotham told the News Service that his California-based company compiles
motor vehicle title and registration records across North America for
use by manufacturers and anyone who might need such statistics.
“It’s not like we can get this information from somewhere else,” he
said. “We have to get it from the registry ... We’d like to see them
perhaps give us enhanced services for those increased fees. We’ll do the
best that we can to try and absorb them.”
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A pledge forgotten
By Adrian Walker
Deval Patrick has neatly adapted to the culture of the State House, the
one he said he planned to overhaul.
That's the only conclusion to be drawn from his decision to give state
Senator Marian Walsh a $175,000 job to help run a state bonding
authority.
Walsh, a veteran lawmaker from West Roxbury who has been out of favor
with leadership for several years, is supposedly being assigned to usher
in a new era of transparency at the state Health and Education
Facilities Authority. Given that Walsh declined to speak to the Globe
about her new job last week, it seems fair to say the transparency
movement is off to a rocky start.
This is a job that has been vacant for 12 years, which is pretty much
the definition of a nonessential job.
This deal was cut by Walsh's longtime Svengali, political consultant
Michael Goldman. Any doubt about that was put to rest long ago.
Last June, the Globe reported on a detailed memo from Goldman to
Patrick's chief of staff, outlining a plan to install Walsh as
chairwoman of the agency, replacing the incumbent, Benson Caswell.
Under Goldman's vision, the governor would pack the agency's board with
members who "share the governor's values." These highly principled souls
would then remove Caswell and replace him with Walsh.
That plan fell apart after becoming public, partly because Caswell would
have been due a huge payout if he were removed before the end of his
term. So the backup plan is going into effect, installing Walsh in a
long-vacant deputy's job with the understanding that she is really in
charge.
Walsh, unlike Caswell, has no experience in the bond business. Her
qualifications, supposedly, are that she chaired the taxation and
banking committees in the Senate. To be fair, she has been an effective
and occasionally brave lawmaker. But, like most politicians, this
would-be reformer has, in fact, never run anything. The closest she has
come is an administrative job in the Suffolk district attorney's office,
years ago. She wouldn't be a finalist in a real search.
Patrick administration officials stress that HEFA is self-funded, and
that her years there will not boost her state pension. That doesn't
change the fact that she is being handed a $99,000 raise for a job lots
of other people are probably more qualified to do.
But Walsh supported Patrick in 2006 when nearly all of the Legislature
was committed elsewhere. Apparently his gratitude knows no bounds.
It is no secret that Walsh has been trying to bail out of the Senate
ever since her bid to become its president was rebuffed. Somehow,
actually leaving government doesn't seem to have ever occurred to her.
Patrick must have long since regretted his pledge not to hire any
legislators, since he abandoned it. I have no problem with that -
frankly, it was a silly, pandering pledge. There is no reason why
legislators should be automatically disqualified from the executive
branch. But this is ridiculous. At a time of rising fees, tolls, and
taxes and constant complaints of poverty from the State House, you don't
suddenly stick your pal into a job at $175,000 a year.
Over the weekend, I heard a lot of people express surprise that Patrick
seems so "tone-deaf" about how something like this would be received.
But this is not just a perception problem, it is a reality problem. The
idea that fixing the way we do our bond business is the most pressing
problem facing state government, and that Marian Walsh is just the
person to fix it, would be laughable if it weren't so depressing.
But we should know by now what politicians mean when they talk about
reform: nothing. Taking care of the people who took care of you is the
essence of political business as usual. Reform is for suckers.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Pike hires add to ‘burden’
Critics slam pricey personnel
By Hillary Chabot
The soon-to-be-defunct Turnpike Authority, which is poised to foist
painful toll hikes on motorists, has quietly put at least two new
high-priced staffers on its payroll - both of them retreads from the
state transportation department, the Herald has learned.
The two staff members were shuffled over from the executive office of
transportation within the last three months, even as administration
officials were telling lawmakers the Pike was in desperate need of cash.
“I find no excuse whatsoever to be hiring at the Pike unless there is a
justified emergency,” said Sen. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford). “The last
thing we should do is burden this agency with more expenses.”
Trellis Stepter, who earned $84,000 as a legislative agent for former
Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, was hired as a $90,000-a-year
manager of special projects shortly after Cohen stepped down in January.
Robert Rooney, a former $123,000-a-year deputy secretary of public works
in the transportation office, is now a $122,000-a-year assistant chief
engineer with the Pike. Half his salary is paid by his old department.
Turnpike Authority executive director Alan LeBovidge said the agency has
hired new personnel only “as needed” - without explaining why any new
positions are necessary.
Montigny didn’t understand how Stepter’s and Rooney’s new jobs
constituted an emergency.
“This is exactly why the public has had it. There shouldn’t be any
increase in tolls or gas tax until reforms are in place,” he said.
LeBovidge acknowledged in a transportation hearing yesterday that higher
tolls - the first round of which kick in March 29 - are needed to cover
a $100 million funding gap. Tolls will jump to $1.50 inside Route 128,
while the Sumner and Ted Williams tunnels will cost $5.50.
Six months ago, the administration unveiled a plan to cut more than 100
toll takers over an 18-month period, but so far the Pike has shed only
48 due to retirements and voluntary departures, LeBovidge said. The
agency still employs 424 toll takers.
Gov. Deval Patrick pointed to initial reforms at the embattled agency
last month when he asked the Legislature to approve a 19-cent gas tax
hike, but lawmakers loudly doubted the depths of those reforms
yesterday.
“We are not going to get the public to step up and put more on the table
when they can clearly see there isn’t enough that’s been done,” said
Rep. Joseph Wagner (D-Chicopee).
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
A Boston Globe editorial
Reform begins at home
While Governor Patrick wants to fix the state's transportation
bureaucracy, his new transportation secretary, James F. Aloisi Jr.,
isn't the most obvious symbol of reform.
The Globe's Andrea Estes reported yesterday that Aloisi's sister, Carol
Aloisi, holds a state job that paid her $60,000 for doing nothing. It's
hard to imagine anyone without connections getting such a plum deal.
In 2005, then-House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi - a friend of James
Aloisi's - helped Carol Aloisi line up a job working for Representative
Cheryl Coakley-Rivera of Springfield. Health issues often kept Aloisi
out of the office. Despite an alleged back injury, she was healthy
enough to attend two political conventions, including the Democratic
National Convention in Denver.
Last August, DiMasi's office assigned Carol Aloisi to the office of
former state representative Rachel Kaprielian - after the lawmaker had
resigned to head up the state Registry of Motor Vehicles. So Aloisi was
chief of staff without any staff, yet still qualified for a 3 percent
raise. Two weeks ago, another lawmaker was assigned to the office. When
he found Aloisi there, presiding over an empty office, she got her first
work assignment.
In the meantime, Jim Aloisi became Patrick's transportation secretary.
He's now the chief advocate for the governor's transportation plan -
which includes a package of reforms as well as a 19-cent gas tax hike.
The news about Carol Aloisi hurts his ability to push either one.
The plan itself is a genuine - and courageous - attempt to deal with
years of underfunding of transportation in Massachusetts. But the
revelations of cushy postings stiffens public opposition to tax hikes.
It also emboldens employee unions to resist any reform that undercuts
their benefits and negotiating power.
Patrick's plan would take them on. He would merge the Massachusetts
Turnpike Authority into the Highway Department. Holdover employees would
be stripped of their seniority rights; managers would have the authority
to assign them to new bargaining units, with new salaries. Expiring
contracts from all transportation agencies would no longer be the basis
for ongoing negotiations. New employees of the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority would no longer get full pensions after 23
years. MBTA employees would also be required to enter the state
healthcare plan, saving taxpayers an estimated $50 million.
Passing these reforms - which Patrick says are as vital to his plan as
the gas tax hike - means convincing unions and their political allies
that the state's fiscal stability is at risk. Aloisi, who is supposed to
press the governor's message of reform, is a tainted messenger.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Let’s all give up coffee, lunch to feed Pike hacks
By Howie Carr
Have you noticed how often Gov. Deval Patrick and his coat-holding
minions try to justify picking our pockets by saying they’re only
lifting the cost of a cup of coffee - or maybe a turkey sandwich?
On Monday, at her conveniently scheduled Monday morning “public
hearing,” it was Rachel Kaprielian, the hack Registrar of Motor Vehicles
and former rep. She defended the Registry’s increased fees, saying the
extra $6.50 a year theft from motorists is merely “a couple of cups of
Starbucks.”
Before that, it was her boss, Deval, defending his scheme to double the
state’s gas tax by claiming it would “only cost . . . the equivalent of
one large cup of coffee each week, or about $8 a month.”
Then there was his administration’s “transportation planning document,”
which called for a 27-cent increase in the gas tax. No one would even
notice the highest gasoline tax in the nation, some anonymous payroll
patriot wrote, because the “average user will pay about an additional
$120 a year, less than the cost of two small Dunkin’ Donuts coffees per
week.”
Well, which is it - Starbucks or Dunkin’?
Next, come on down Jim Aloisi, the transportation secretary whose sister
got that very necessary $60,000-a-year job in Kaprielian’s State House
office after she quit. Aloisi brushed off the annual cost of the new $6
Turnpike Fast Lane transponder fees by saying it was “less than the cost
of the turkey sandwich he just had for lunch.”
The problem is, a cup of coffee here, a turkey sandwich there, and
pretty soon you’re talking real money. And how come, if it’s such short
money, the state can’t handle the shortfall by, oh, firing a few hacks,
starting with Aloisi’s sister?
The reality is, the hacks want to raise your taxes in order to keep
their friends’ snouts buried in the public trough. Aloisi himself let
the cat out of the bag at his meeting with legislators the day after the
Turnpike board rubber-stamped the March 29 toll hike.
According to solons who were there, Aloisi said they couldn’t lay off
toll collectors because, number 1, there was a “depression” going on,
and number 2, so many of the sticky-fingered millionaires were sent to
the Pike by the legislators themselves.
And now we find out not one toll collector has been laid off - not one!
And the Pike is still hiring. One new Pike hack is a moonbat from
Cambridge named Trellis Stepter. He got his new $90,000 job as “manager
of special projects” a few weeks after he ponied up $150 to Deval’s
campaign committee. What a coincidence.
Go ahead, have another cup of coffee. Just make it decaf.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Small-town sheriffs lock down big pay boost
By Hillary Chabot
Gov. Deval Patrick is quietly pushing hefty $26,000 raises for sheriffs
in two of the state’s sleepiest counties - one of which doesn’t even
oversee any prisoners - in another stunning move that appears to collide
with his own reform agenda.
Patrick tucked in nearly 27 percent raises for Nantucket Sheriff Richard
Bretschneider and Dukes Sheriff Michael McCormack to win support for a
contentious bill giving the state control over the seven remaining
sheriffs’ offices.
The bill, which has a legislative hearing today, boosts both salaries
from approximately $97,000 to $123,000 - the same level as the other 12
sheriffs in the state.
“If you look at Suffolk County vs. Nantucket County, there’s no way they
have the same workload,” said Rep. Jeffrey D. Perry (R-East Sandwich),
who backs the bill but not the raises. “The salaries should be based on
objective criteria, not the whims of those who are in political power.”
Patrick’s spokeswoman Cyndi Roy said the governor boosted the pay
because “the sheriffs wanted it and raised it as an issue of parity.”
Nantucket and Dukes are two of the state’s least-populous counties, with
a total of 27,000 residents between them. But McCormack, who oversees
Martha’s Vineyard and the 10 Elizabeth Islands, said there’s plenty of
work.
“It’s not like we’re just a sleepy little town,” said McCormack, who
said Dukes County’s population can hit 100,000 in the summer. “We really
are a full-fledged law enforcement agency.”
The Dukes County correctional facility only has 25 prisoners as of last
month, however, according to the Massachusetts Sheriff’s Association.
Nantucket County doesn’t have a correctional facility, and instead must
house any prisoners at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility in
Bourne.
The sheriffs’ other duties include transporting prisoners, serving legal
papers and collecting court-ordered child support. Bretschneider, who
has been fined for ethics and campaign finance violations, has three
other staffers, according to the Cape Cod Times.
The two sheriffs missed out on a pay raise bonanza in 2005, when
lawmakers approved a $123,209 annual salary for the other 12 sheriffs.
Both Nantucket and Duke counties were set to get the pay hike, but were
scratched because some lawmakers couldn’t justify the whopping raise for
two small-town sheriffs, McCormack said.
“I understood that a couple of legislators who thought we didn’t perform
equal services threatened to hold it up,” McCormack said, adding he
hasn’t gotten a raise in 10 years.
Before the 2005 raises, a sheriff’s pay was tied to the size of the
resident and inmate populations of the county.
Perry backs the rest of Patrick’s bill because the seven county sheriffs
depend on six sources of unpredictable revenue, and absorbing them into
the state’s budget would bring more predictability.
The bill would also remove a little known provision that allows the
Nantucket sheriff to keep all fees collected from serving summonses.
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Board member rips Patrick for hiring Walsh to $175K job
By Glen Johnson
A member of the board that hired a state senator to fill a long-empty
executive job ripped Gov. Deval Patrick and his colleagues for the
appointment and said the state should not be spending $175,000 per year
on a glorified lobbyist.
Marvin Gordon told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he was on
vacation in the Caribbean last week and had no notice that the
Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority was going to
vote on hiring Sen. Marian Walsh, D-Boston.
The vote was not itemized on the board’s public agenda and came up at
the end of the meeting, during a section described generically as the
"Chairman’s Report." The hiring was approved unanimously.
Patrick has appointed or reappointed the majority of the seven-member
board and has been roundly criticized for Walsh’s hiring — and $100,000
raise — while the state is facing a $1 billion budget deficit. In
addition, Walsh was an early political supporter, and both the governor
and Legislature have faced a public outcry over recent patronage
appointments within state government.
"It takes an awful lot to get me off a sailboat when I’m on vacation,
but had I known this was coming up for a vote, I would have flown back
to oppose it," said Gordon. "I hope and expect I might have been able to
convince some people to agree with me."
Gordon, who is vice chairman and the longest-serving member of the
board, said Walsh should not have been put in the "nonexistent" position
of assistant executive director.
MHEFA is a nonprofit agency that helps arrange financing for education,
health and cultural institutions. It has not had an assistant executive
director for at least the past 12 years.
In her role as assistant executive director, Walsh would assist the
agency in government relations and "reaching out to the other
Massachusetts agencies and quasi-public authorities," the board said in
a statement following the meeting.
Walsh would step down from the Senate, where she earns $76,440 as
majority whip, to take the new job.
Gordon said: "I don’t think a state agency should be hiring anybody as a
lobbyist. The euphemism of ’maintaining relationships with state
agencies,’ give me a break. Secondly, I think that filling a $175,000
job as a political reward for this governor, who I expected a lot more
from, is unconscionable."
Patrick’s office deferred comment to Board Chairman Allen Larson. He
told the AP the vote wasn’t highlighted in the agenda because it was
printed in advance. He said he e-mailed members March 9 to inform them
of the Walsh vote. Gordon was on vacation at that time.
"I think Marvin’s getting caught up in the politics of this," Larson
said. "Were it not a state senator getting appointed, I’m not sure there
would have been much of an issue here."
He added: "Marvin’s upset I didn’t figure a navigational way to contact
him at sea in the Caribbean. I just don’t see that as my job."
Larson, the husband of Bentley College President Gloria Larson, who
served as co-chairman of Patrick’s transition committee, said Walsh has
unique skills. He said her background will help the agency as it reaches
out to the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency and other state
agencies and quasi-public authorities to share expertise and resources.
The 54-year-old senator has served as chairman of the Senate Taxation
and Banking committees. She has been in the Senate since 1992 and served
two terms in the House.
Gordon, 72, is a Harvard and Harvard Business School graduate who was
worked as a chief executive, banker and hospital foundation board
member. He also served seven years as a selectman in Milton, the
hometown he shares with Patrick.
Gordon was appointed to the MHEFA board in 1997 by then-Republican Gov.
Paul Cellucci. Yet he twice gave the maximum $500 to Patrick during the
Democrat’s successful 2006 campaign for governor.
Agency spokesman Liam Sullivan said Gordon’s absence from a board
meeting was a rarity.
"He has a very good attendance record," said Sullivan.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Former DiMasi aides still on House payroll
Employees given office, but duties are unclear
By Andrea Estes
Eleven staff members of former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi have
continued collecting state paychecks and health benefits even though
DiMasi resigned under a cloud in January and they have no clearly
defined responsibilities at the State House, state officials said.
The arrangement demonstrates how staff members of top lawmakers are
sometimes treated more favorably than other state workers whose jobs are
eliminated.
Several staff members for House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, who also
resigned amid allegations of ethics violations, were kept on the state
payroll for up to four months after he stepped down as speaker,
according to House personnel records.
Taxpayers have been paying more than $14,000 a week to keep DiMasi's
former aides on the state payroll. The staff members include DiMasi's
former chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, policy aides, his former
press spokesman, and lower-level administrative secretaries.
DiMasi's successor, House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, has given the staff
members a fourth-floor office. DeLeo's spokesman, Seth Gitell, could not
say whether they show up on a daily basis or what they do when they are
there.
One of the staff members, who would only comment on the condition that
she not be named, said she arrives every day and "does whatever is asked
of her."
Another, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aides are
helping DeLeo with the transition, but Gitell would not verify whether
they had any such duties. Two of the staff members are community
liaisons who will continue to perform their regular duties until a new
representative is elected to succeed DiMasi in June, Gitell said.
"Some staff members of the former speaker are here during a traditional
period of transition," Gitell said in an e-mailed statement. "Others
remain to provide constituent services for the people of the Third
Suffolk District."
He said the payments to the former staff members "will come to an end,"
but he would not give a specific date.
Yesterday the door to Room 436 was locked at 4 p.m. after two of the
staff members, former communications director David Guarino and former
deputy communications director Victoria Bonney, left the office. This
week Guarino and Bonney announced they have taken new jobs. They will
stop collecting checks from the state this week. They declined to
comment, referring questions to Gitell.
Although aides of legislators who lose or vacate their seats often stay
behind until the end of the term to work with constituents, the concept
of paying people after their jobs are eliminated is virtually unheard of
in the rest of state government. A spokesman for Governor Deval Patrick
said it has never kept anyone on the payroll after jobs were eliminated.
Gitell said aides to other former House speakers remained on the payroll
long after their bosses departed, providing termination letters for a
handful of aides to Finneran. The letters indicated the staff members
kept getting paid until January 2005, four months after their boss
resigned as speaker in September of 2004. Finneran, whose former
spokesman could not be reached for comment, did not resign his House
seat until Dec. 31, 2004.
The state is paying the former DiMasi staff members when thousands of
other Massachusetts residents have lost their jobs because of the
national recession and skyrocketing unemployment rates.
"Nobody is doing anything to prolong the relationship with the
building," said one of the former DiMasi aides. "We are available to do
whatever they want us to do. We would still be there, except for the
political circumstances. We're hard-working people, like everyone else.
All we want is to be able to move on and not be in the news."
Several of the aides did not return phone calls seeking comment. Others
had unlisted phone numbers and could not be reached for comment.
Other of DiMasi's former aides are already in new jobs, working either
for DeLeo or the House Ways and Means Committee, including two executive
secretaries, a researcher, a receptionist, and a policy adviser. One
former DiMasi adviser, Christie Hager, who was chief counsel on
healthcare, has taken a job at Harvard, Gitell said.
Aaron Michlewitz, who served as DiMasi's constituent services director
for 4½ years, quit in February and is running for DiMasi's North End
seat.
"I chose to resign because I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to be
running for the seat while on the state's payroll," said Michlewitz, one
of several candidates in the June special election. He would not comment
on the decision by other staff members to remain on the state payroll,
saying, "I can only speak for myself."
Republicans and conservative watchdogs yesterday said paying former
staff members who have no clear duties sends the wrong message to
beleaguered taxpayers facing possible tax hikes, including a proposal to
increase the gas tax, and service cuts.
"There should be no talk of tax increases until we eliminate obvious
inefficiencies such as we are witnessing here," said David Tuerck,
executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute. "This is just one of
many instances in which the state is wasting money. It's our position
that the state needs to address waste and excessive costs before there
is any discussion of a tax increase."
Representative Lewis Evangelidis, a Republican from Holden, said
lawmakers seem detached from real-world concerns of their constituents.
"People outside the building are really hurting right now,' he said.
"I've never seen people so insecure about their situation and the
country as a whole. When they see . . . these types of abuses, it
frustrates people. They say, 'We're tightening our belts and saving
every penny, and look at the way they're acting up there on Beacon
Hill.' We're not living up to the standard that everyone else is."
But Representative Daniel Bosley, Democrat of North Adams, said that
keeping a speaker's staff in place during a transition period is a
longstanding tradition that makes sense.
"Sal kept Finneran's staff on, and Finneran kept [former speaker
Charles] F. Flaherty's staff," said Bosley, a staunch DiMasi ally. "When
there is a transition period, if you keep the staff on for a time
certain, it gives you an opportunity to tap into the institutional
knowledge of the group. If you were coming into a company, you would do
the same thing. You would keep valuable staff on."
The Eagle-Tribune
Friday, March 20, 2009
An Eagle-Tribune editorial
Public service can no longer be self-service
It's hard to sell voters on a tax increase when they're convinced the
money taken from their pockets will simply be used to line someone
else's.
And neither Gov. Deval Patrick nor the Legislature — whose members
recently pocketed the fruits of yet another automatic pay hike — are
doing much to convince the public it won't be business as usual if taxes
are increased.
One has to wonder what the governor was thinking when he signed off on
rewarding political ally Sen. Marian Walsh, D-Boston, with the $99,000
increase in pay she stands to gain if appointed deputy director of the
state Health and Education Facilities Authority. As has been widely
reported, the job had been vacant for 12 years, and the appointment
seems aimed first and foremost at providing Walsh with a comfortable
landing place following her unsuccessful bid to become Senate president
two years ago.
And then there have been the cushy assignments and pay raises handed out
by House speakers past and present. Former speaker Sal DiMasi found a
place for defeated Rep. Anthony Verga of Gloucester in the House clerk's
office; and Tuesday the Boston Globe reported on how the sister of
newly-appointed Transportation Secretary James Aloisi spent six months
in her $60,000-a-year job despite a lack of anything for her to do and
having had a spotty attendance record to boot.
The majority of public employees work hard and give good value for the
salaries they receive. And some, like those in the Essex County sheriff
and district attorney's offices are even suffering the same kinds of
cutbacks that have become commonplace in the private sector.
But so long as there are high-profile public employees being paid lots
of money for doing apparently very little, Beacon Hill will find there's
little appetite for new taxes whether they're levied on gasoline or soda
pop.
The solution is simple: End the culture in which public service is just
another word for self-service.
WCVB TV-5
Team 5 Investigates
Thursday, March 19, 2009
State Pays Millions To Company that Cheated Taxpayers
Critics Question Transportation Reform Promise
Gov. Deval Patrick is taking a scornful tone regarding the hiring of
companies that have cheated taxpayers in Massachusetts. From Beacon Hill
to his monthly radio show, the governor has called for transportation
reform and wants public agencies to keep their distance from companies
that hurt the state.
"Now is the time to reform and renew our system from top to bottom,"
Patrick said. "The days of avoiding truth and consequences must end and
end now."
But Team 5 Investigates has discovered Patrick's words are much
different from his administration's actions. In the coming months,
millions of tax dollars will pay for repairs to area roads and bridges
by a company whose former top executives are well-known for cheating
taxpayers.
"Isn't it a tradition in Massachusetts to make a mess of public works
projects?" said Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited
Taxation. "Aren't we almost obligated to our fans to have corruption
tied in?"
In this case, the ties go all the way to prison. Team 5 learned Mass
Highway has awarded Hanover, Mass.-based contractor P.A. Landers
$18,604,462 worth of new work on the South Shore and Cape since the
governor took office. More than $215,00 was paid to them for sanding and
plowing roads.
It's a hefty workload, say critics, especially when its founder, Preston
Landers, is housed in federal prison in Pennsylvania and its former vice
president, Gregory Keelan, is locked up in New York. Two years ago, both
men were convicted of defrauding the state, the MBTA and several
municipalities. The company was ordered to pay almost $4 million in
fines and was excluded from doing work for the federal government for
two and a half years.
"That is a powerful message when you start looking at individuals going
to jail as a result of the criminal conduct," said U.S. Attorney Michael
Sullivan, who prosecuted P.A. Landers.
But since the convictions, the suspension has been lifted. The company
reorganized under new management, it's under government monitoring and
the state has given Landers the green light to plow ahead with more
work.
"Why give this company a second chance?" asked Team 5 reporter Sean
Kelly. Frank Tramontozzi from Mass Highway said, "In the big picture
there are hundreds of people employed there who are honest, hardworking,
taxpaying Massachusetts residents that should not be penalized by the
actions of a couple people running the company."
"Was there any hesitation to get back into business with P.A. Landers?"
Kelly asked. "No, they were suspended." Tramontozzi said.
Critics question whether this is true transportation reform. "We've
instituted many transportation reform measures at Mass Highway,"
Tramontozzi said. "We know how things were in the past and this is how
things are moving in the future."
"We're not going to have real reform in this state," said Anderson.
"We're going to continue to elect people who tell us they'll reform,
then don't do it."
According to critics that includes State Sen. Steven Baddour, who chairs
the Joint Committee on Transportation. He declined Team 5's request for
an interview. According to his aide, the senator has friends who work
for P.A. Landers and even though he thinks this is "a little shady for
the state to be doing business with them, he'd rather not comment
because of that conflict." Instead, Baddour's office suggested Team 5
talk to Sen. Marc Pacheco, who heads the Senate Post Audit and Oversight
Committee.
"Let me be clear," Pacheco said. "I am for debarring permanently those
companies that have intentionally defrauded the taxpayer, period. We
shouldn't do business with them again. "
But Pacheco has not asked anyone to put the brakes on doing business
with P.A. Landers. The senator said he's not sure the state has any
legal ground to stand on although he says he's going to look into it.
"We are involved from an oversight perspective to try and put in place
up front rules and regulations that can be given to the executive branch
so that they can try to limit the possibility of these things
happening," Pacheco said.
Gov. Patrick already has the power to do that. He can bar companies from
doing business with the state. So can the secretary of transportation.
But neither has debarred any companies which critics say is not exactly
surprising since the secretary of transportation also played a big role
in the state's biggest transportation boondoggle.
"Very little of what Massachusetts does is right," Anderson said. "Most
of what we do is wrong and so this simply carries on that tradition."
The secretary of transportation declined Team 5's request for an
on-camera interview. So did the new president of P.A. Landers. But
during a phone interview he said the company has made significant
changes and is working hard to earn back the state's trust.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 20, 2009
Deval Patrick slams ‘trivial’ pursuits
Dismisses attacks over hires, raises
By Hillary Chabot
A dismissive Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday belittled as “trivial” recent
exposes detailing plum jobs and fat raises to the politically connected
under his watch, saying the controversies won’t distract him from
“meaningful” issues.
“One of the challenges in life is concentrating on the meaningful and
letting the trivial take a back seat,” Patrick said in the Senate
reading room, after a reporter asked him whether patronage-packed Beacon
Hill still has credibility with the public.
“I sometimes feel like I’m in a profession now where that is completely
upside-down,” he added.
Patrick has come under fire in recent days for seemingly cynical moves
that appear at odds with his stated mission of reform.
The Herald disclosed yesterday that Patrick is pushing hefty $26,000
raises for sheriffs in two low-crime island resorts. The paper also
reported that the Turnpike slipped two $100,000 staffers onto its
payroll, while failing to lay off any toll takers as the governor had
promised.
Patrick was blasted last week after he engineered a $175,000 state
agency job for Sen. Marian Walsh, an early campaign supporter. The
sister of Transportation Secretary James Aloisi also has come under
scrutiny after working for six months as chief of staff in an office
with no staff.
Patrick’s remarks, captured by a State House News Service video, came in
response to a reporter who asked, “Can you guys have any credibility
with the public on all these issues? There’s been stories in the last
week about you clearing the pathway for a senator to get a $100,000
(sic) raise. There’s been stories about Mr. Aloisi’s sister and other
members on the House payroll for an extended period. There’s people on
the Pike payroll added that the executive director can’t even address
when he’s asked about it.”
Later, Patrick’s press secretary Joe Landolfi said, “The governor
understands the significance of the recent issues and has made that
perfectly clear on a number of occasions. The governor was clearly
responding to a question about his perceived credibility and was not
trivializing in any way recent issues.”
House Minority Leader Brad Jones said Patrick’s moves undercut his
recent speeches preaching shared sacrifice. “Things like this would have
been what he gave as examples of things he would change when he was
running for governor,” Jones said. “Deval Patrick was elected to change
Beacon Hill, and it changed him.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 20, 2009
A Boston Herald editorial
Another Patrick payday
Move over, Sen. Marian Walsh, and make room for a couple of small-town
sheriffs on the shelf reserved for overpaid bureaucrats!
Fresh off engineering a $100,000 raise for Walsh, Gov. Deval Patrick is
pushing $26,000 raises for the sheriffs in the commonwealth’s two
smallest counties - one of whom doesn’t actually supervise any inmates.
The raises for the Nantucket and Dukes county sheriffs were tucked into
Patrick’s otherwise sensible plan to fold the seven remaining
independent sheriffs’ offices into the state public safety operation.
Yes, it’s remarkable how far a 27 percent raise can go to win buy-in for
a controversial reform that should have happened long ago.
A Patrick spokeswoman said the raises were included in the bill because
the sheriffs “raised it as an issue of parity.” Heaven forbid that
sheriffs who oversee a combined total of 25 inmates not earn the same
salary as the Suffolk sheriff, who is responsible for nearly 3,000.
Nantucket and Dukes missed out on the last pay raise for sheriffs, so
naturally they’re being rewarded for their patience. Because it’s
certainly not for their heavy workload.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 20, 2009
School panel lobby fighting taxpayers
By Charles Chieppo
Most Massachusetts residents would disagree with a group that opposes
MCAS, charter schools, accountability and Proposition 2½ property tax
limits, and supports raising taxes to boost state education funding by
at least 20 percent. But we would defend the group’s right to espouse
its positions - unless it used tax dollars to do it.
That’s exactly what the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC)
is doing. If you live in one of the more than 97 percent of school
districts here that pay dues to the organization, you’re helping fund
the lobbyists MASC pays out of its $1.75 million annual budget to
advocate for positions with which you probably disagree.
MASC thinks you should pay more for education - as long as none of it
goes to charter public schools. One of the organization’s 2008
publications claims the “confiscatory” charter funding system
“garnishes” money from school districts. That so-called confiscatory
system consists of having the cost of educating a child follow him or
her from the district to the charter school. And for the next three
years, taxpayers reimburse the school district two-thirds of the cost of
that student who is no longer enrolled there.
In an e-mail sent to members last year, MASC President Glenn Koocher
described charter schools as “very effective vehicles of segregation,”
which he called a “major MASC talking point.” The percentage of minority
students in Massachusetts charters is more than double the statewide
public school average.
I guess MASC would count President Barack Obama among such supporters of
segregation. Last week, in his first major education speech since taking
office, he said, “There are caps on how many charter schools are allowed
in some states, no matter how well they are preparing our students. That
isn’t good for our children, our economy, or our country.”
A groundbreaking study conducted by Harvard and MIT researchers and
published in January by the Boston Foundation found that the estimated
academic effect of a year in a Boston charter school is often quite
similar to that of a year in one of the city’s elite exam schools.
Single year gains are equivalent to half the size of the achievement gap
between black and white students.
Meanwhile, tax dollars from the families of 7,000 Boston students who
languish on charter school wait lists are helping fund MASC’s lobbying
efforts against the very schools they so desperately want their children
to attend.
A conspiracy theory vibe permeates MASC’s rhetoric. MCAS is part of a
“backhanded effort to discredit schools, students and public education.”
The federal No Child Left Behind law, co-authored by Sen. Edward
Kennedy, is “a vehicle to discredit public schools so as to create
greater public willingness to endorse the charter school concept,
vouchers and privatization of public education.”
In a 2008 article, Koocher recalled chairing the Cambridge School
Committee’s finance committee when Proposition 2½ was “sold to voters”
in 1980. How fitting. Despite spending about $25,000 per student - more
than any other Massachusetts school district - Cambridge consistently
performs below state averages. As a result, public school enrollment
there has declined by 16.5 percent since 2003, the largest drop of any
major Massachusetts city.
The policies MASC is using our tax dollars to promote would undo
hard-won education reform gains and turn all of Massachusetts into
Cambridge.
Charles Chieppo is the principal of Chieppo Strategies, a public
policy writing and advocacy firm.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 20, 2009
Funded skateboard park could get $2M from feds
By Thomas Grillo
A proposed skatepark for the area beneath the Zakim Bridge could get
nearly $2 million in stimulus funds, but a nonprofit has already raised
enough money to build it.
“That project was supposed to be funded by donations,” said Barbara
Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. “So now
that we’re increasing the national debt to $11 trillion we don’t need
private funding anymore?”
At issue is the $2.5 million Charles River Skatepark slated to break
ground later this year along the Charles River in the shadow of the
Leonard Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge.
The one-acre park will be a place for skilled skateboarders and novices
to practice the technical elements of the sport.
The Charles River Conservancy has already raised enough money for the
skatepark’s design and construction, but the state Department of
Conservation & Recreation requested $1.85 million in federal stimulus
dollars to build the park anyway.
“DCR included the park in its list of projects to get stimulus funds so
that the money we raised would be reserved to operate the skatepark,”
said Renata von Tscharner, the conservancy’s president. “DCR has never
managed a skatepark, so they’re concerned they will need special
expertise and special funds.”
Richard K. Sullivan, DCR commissioner, defended the request, noting that
the idea is to have the conservancy, rather than the state, pay for the
ongoing care of the park.
“In the end, it would be a cost-saving to the state,” said Sullivan.
But Anderson is unconvinced. “There’s no such thing as free money,” she
said.
“The kids who use the park and their kids will be paying for it for the
rest of their lives.”
The Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, March 22, 2009
An Eagle-Tribune editorial
Teachers must share in budget sacrifice
Municipal budgets across Massachusetts are stretched to the breaking
point as the state's own fiscal woes have limited the amount of money
available for local aid.
Further, taxpayers are in no position to contribute any more as their
homes in many communities are already taxed to hilt. Their own finances
are in a shambles as home values fall, retirement funds shrink and
prospects for continued employment are worrisome.
So municipal leaders are left to work with what money they have to
balance their budgets. In any budget, personnel costs are the biggest
expense. And as their counterparts in private industry have done, mayors
and town managers are asking their employees for help.
In our two largest local cities, those requests have been met with
either stony silence or outright refusal by the biggest sector of public
workers — school employees and teachers.
In Lawrence, Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy must submit a balanced budget
for the coming school year by May 1. That budget has a deficit of nearly
$7 million.
Laboy has asked workers in the nine unions representing teachers and
school employees to accept a wage freeze on their scheduled 3 percent
raises for a year. The alternative, Laboy says, is to lay off 130-140
employees, most of them teachers. The school's nonunion administrators,
including Laboy, have already agreed to a wage freeze.
Laboy said he began reaching out to the unions with this plan last
November. He's yet to have any productive discussion with union
leadership about it, he said.
Teachers union President Frank McLaughlin has said the union wants to
wait until it sees how much state and federal aid the city will receive.
Laboy counters that he needs to balance his budget now. If the city gets
more aid than he expects, they can always adjust the budget then.
The teachers union has long complained that Laboy is unwilling to
discuss substantive matters with them. Here, Laboy is reaching out to
the unions and getting no response.
In Haverhill, the teachers union refused a School Committee request for
its membership to take a single unpaid day off — a move that would cost
the average teacher about $325, but would save the district about
$240,000. The savings, according to school officials would prevent all
or most impending layoffs.
The union also appears to be calling what their leadership must believe
is a bluff by the committee. And so far, it is working. This week, the
committee blinked. Committee President Scott Wood had warned on Tuesday
that without the teachers agreeing to a one-day furlough, immediate
layoffs of as many as 20 teachers might follow.
But the union rejected it. And Wednesday night, after a one-hour closed
meeting of the committee, Wood said there would be no immediate layoffs.
He said he hoped there might still be a way to cut $300,000 from the
budget without any layoffs.
While Union President Marc Harvey says he believes federal stimulus
money will make the furlough unnecessary, that is not a sure thing. And
it is troubling that union leaders are willing to risk as many as 20 of
their members losing their jobs entirely, when a small sacrifice from
all of them could keep everybody working.
Haverhill's 11 principals also rejected a day off without pay, a poor
decision on their part that shows an unwillingness to lead.
This kind of shared sacrifice — wage freezes, furloughs, or both — is
happening all across the private sector, even in some public school
districts. Even if it should turn out that federal stimulus money or
some other aid makes wage freezes or furloughs unnecessary, teachers
unions and school employees generally must at least show a willingness
to discuss such sacrifices, which are being made by taxpayers across the
private sector.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, March 21, 2009
A Boston Herald editorial
Redefining ‘trivial’
A week ago in this space we called Gov. Deval Patrick “tonedeaf.” He has
spent the past week working overtime to prove that assessment - and then
topped deeds with words, dismissing as “trivial” concerns over wasting
the public’s money on politically wired jobs and raises for the
well-connected.
“One of the challenges in life is concentrating on the meaningful and
letting the trivial take a back seat,” Patrick said Thursday when
cornered by a reporter and asked about the impact of a spate of
patronage stories. “I sometimes feel like I’m in a profession where that
is completely upside down.”
Trivial? Public anger and public outrage about the misuse of their money
and the abuse of the public trust is never trivial.
The governor’s comments took us back to the bad old days of “Cadillac
Deval” - but this time it gets harder and harder to dismiss such conduct
as rookie errors. And this time it’s all happening in the context of a
fiscal crisis - one that might involve threatened tax hikes on people
who are even now struggling to make ends meet.
The $175,000 job given to Sen. Marian Walsh - a job that had gone
unfilled for 12 years - resonated with the public because it’s easy to
understand. Sure, we appreciate the difficulty of wrestling with billion
dollar budget shortfalls. But billions of dollars are unfathomable to
those standing in the unemployment lines.
Huge salaries for jobs that aren’t essential - or in some cases where
the recipient rarely, if ever, has to show up? Well, that’s easy to
understand - especially by someone who has no job at all.
The message is that the politically powerful take care of their own and
the rest of us get stuck with the bill.
Tell us, Governor, is that really trivial?
The Boston Globe
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Patrick targets pension loopholes
Seeks to quell anger, generate big savings
By Andrea Estes
The Patrick administration today will unveil a series of proposed
reforms designed to close loopholes in the state pension system that
have allowed workers to dramatically inflate their retirement benefits
at a cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers.
Officials say they hope the changes can generate "significant" cost
savings. Just as important, they said, is ending abuses that have
angered the public, whose support the governor needs as he seeks to
close an ever-widening budget gap. Taxpayers have made it clear they
want government to cut spending and curb abuses before they will support
any tax hikes.
"In addition to the savings, there is also the perception of fairness,"
said Patrick spokesman Kyle Sullivan. "It's not only the public, but
other government employees who follow the rules feel others are getting
away with something. "
Patrick's plan, released in advance of an April 6 House hearing on
pension reform, would eliminate the most egregious forms of abuse. Some
of the changes, which require the Legislature's approval, would apply to
current employees. All of the changes would apply to future employees.
But they would not apply to any retired employees.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who has made pension reform a top priority,
said yesterday in an e-mail that he looked forward to working with
Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray.
"I've heard loudly and clearly from the public that we need to rein the
pension system in," DeLeo said. "There will be reform."
Murray pledged in an e-mail to work to overhaul the system.
"With a shared commitment between the Legislature and the
administration, we will advance common-sense pension reforms this
session to eliminate loopholes and help restore public confidence in our
pension system," she said.
Among his proposed changes, Patrick hopes to abolish the rule that
allows employees who work only one day to receive a full year for
pension purposes.
Former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, for example, resigned in
January, but was credited with a full year's service.
He has begun collecting a benefit of just under $60,000 a year.
The governor's plan would also eliminate termination pensions, an
obscure provision that allows officials who are fired to collect an
early retirement benefit much larger than what they would have received
had they left voluntarily.
Officials say this rule - originally designed to prevent political
purges after a change in administration - is regularly exploited by
officials who say they were terminated simply to qualify for the
benefit.
Among those who have collected termination pensions is Peter Forman,
former acting governor Jane Swift's chief of staff, whose application
was originally denied by the state's retirement board.
The board later reversed the decision.
The Globe reported in February that Jeffrey Simon, Patrick's stimulus
czar, has been collecting a termination pension since he was fired by
the Massachusetts Government Land Bank in the mid-1990s.
And two years ago DiMasi fired executive assistant Donna Sweeney 11 days
after she had worked the 20 years necessary to qualify for the benefit.
Patrick's plan would also prohibit workers from buying pension credit
for time spent working in nonpaying public jobs. The law has allowed
officials such as two town moderators from Canton and Milton, as well as
lobbyist John A. Brennan Jr., to receive credit for essentially
volunteer work, according to Globe articles.
In a recent story, Canton's former town moderator, Michael P. Curran,
told the Globe he simply took advantage of a benefit that was legal. "I
was entitled to something and I took it," he said.
Patrick's reformer role has come into question in recent weeks after
actions that have spurred controversy, including his handing a
$175,000-a-year agency job to Senator Marian Walsh, an early campaign
supporter.
Last week he called several news stories "trivial," including those
about Walsh's patronage hire and a Globe article that described how
Transportation Secretary James A. Aloisi Jr.'s sister, whose
$60,000-a-year title was "chief of staff," worked in an empty State
House office for six months with no apparent duties.
Patrick's plan would also:
= Abolish
the MBTA's generous policy allowing employees with 23 years of service
to retire with full benefits regardless of their age. This provision has
enabled many MBTA workers to retire in their 40s and then take other
jobs while collecting their pensions.
= Prohibit
public employees from collecting two pensions after holding multiple
jobs at the same time. That change would address the case of Charles
Lincoln, the retired Brockton police lieutenant dubbed "the poster child
for pension abuse" for collecting nearly $140,000 from two public jobs.
= Define
regular compensation as wages only. Presidents of the state's public
colleges and universities have been allowed to count housing and
transportation allowances as compensation after William Bulger, a former
University of Massachusetts president, fought for the perk and won.
Counting his housing allowance boosted his pension by $17,000 to
$196,000 a year.
= Eliminate
double pensions for employees who retire under one system and then take
another government job, such as a judgeship, with a separate pension
system.
= Bar
employees from receiving an accidental disability benefit after being
injured while filling in for a supervisor. Some Boston firefighters have
been collecting benefits based on their bosses' higher pay level after
getting injured on the job while subbing for them.
Patrick officials hope a pension commission established last year will
look at other potential changes including placing a dollar cap on the
amount of any employee pension and beefing up enforcement and oversight
of the pension laws.
"This is a terrific package of reforms that will end many of the abuses
that have justifiably upset taxpayers for so long," Michael Widmer,
president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said in a phone
interview yesterday.
"These virtually daily stories of excesses and abuses of state and local
pension systems are particularly galling because they fly in the face of
the enormous struggles and concerns the average citizen is facing."
Widmer, who has been pressing for pension reforms for years, said the
time is ripe for major changes.
"The combination of the public outrage and the fiscal crisis presents a
real opportunity to pass these reforms," said Widmer, who said that
closing the loopholes would "over time save tens of millions of dollars
a year."
The Boston Globe
Sunday, March 22, 2009
106 retirees collect $100k or more
in state worker retirement benefits
By Matt Carroll
The number of state retirees who take home pensions of $100,000 or more
has more than tripled over the past five years, adding to the pension
system's financial stress.
One hundred six retirees, or their survivors, are paid six-figure
pensions, up from 33 in 2003, according to state figures. The list is
dominated by university and college officials and professors, doctors,
and high-ranking State Police officers.
Topping the list are two University of Massachusetts Medical School
doctors, Arthur M. Pappas, the former Red Sox medical director who
retired a decade ago with a pension of more than $230,000, and Aldo
Rossini, who receives slightly more than $200,000.
Third, at just under $200,000, is William M. Bulger, the former
president of the University of Massachusetts and onetime state Senate
president, who won a legal battle in 2006 to boost his pension an extra
$17,000 by counting his university housing allowance.
More than 600 take home $75,000 or more.
The list includes more than 45 people from the UMass system, most from
Amherst, more than 25 State Police officers, and 15 from UMass Medical
School. A small portion, about 1 in every 500 retirees of the 50,000 in
the system, take home more than $100,000, but critics say the increase
in high pensions and the various abuses reported recently fuel public
outrage.
"It is way out of line with reality," said David G. Tuerck, executive
director of the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, a think
tank on economic issues.
Pensions for UMass and UMass Medical School officials have escalated as
a result of higher salaries paid because of competitive reasons during
the 1980s and 1990s, said UMass spokesman Robert Connolly. The size of a
state pension is determined partly by the average salary an employee
earns over his or her last three years on the job.
The system conducted salary and peer analysis of other systems, he said.
The idea was "attract and retain good people," he said.
Connolly pointed out that the pensions of UMass Medical retirees are 85
percent funded by contributions generated by the medical school, and do
not come from the state, unlike other state workers.
The average state pension is about $24,000; state workers do not receive
a Social Security benefit for their work in the state system.
Nationally, the median annual private pension in 2006 was about $7,200,
according to an Urban Institute study, plus Social Security. The average
Social Security benefit is about $13,000.
The state pension system had major investment losses in the market
meltdown last year, dropping from a 2007 peak of $53 billion to about
$38 billion.
Stung by recent reports of pension abuse, a 15-member panel, made up of
retirement officials, legislators, and outsiders, is gearing up to
recommend reforms.
The panel is known as the Blue Ribbon Panel on the Massachusetts
Contributory Retirement Systems.
The blue ribbon committee's goal "is to make the system more financially
viable," said Alicia Munnell, chairwoman and a professor at the Center
for Retirement Research at Boston College. The report is due by July.
One state retiree, Richard Farris, who receives a pension of about
$176,000, said he is as upset about abuses as everyone else, but that he
did nothing wrong.
The 72-year-old professor, who worked for nearly 30 years before
retiring in 2002 as head of the Polymer Science and Engineering
Department at UMass-Amherst, said he took only what was offered and
worked hard to get what he is given.
"I'm happy to receive it and I hope people don't resent it," said the
Korean War veteran. "You play the game by the rules that are there and
if they want to change the rules in the future, that's something to
consider."
State workers receive what are known as defined benefit plans, which
have rapidly lost popularity among private sector employers because of
their expense.
In a defined benefit plan, the benefits to the retiree, such as monthly
payments and healthcare costs, are often locked in for life, no matter
how costs change later.
Nationally, the percent of private sector workers receiving defined
benefit plans has plummeted, from 39 percent to 20 percent between 1980
and 2007, while more than 85 percent of public employees receive them.
The Boston Herald
Monday, March 23, 2009
A Boston Herald editorial
New fiscal reality
How refreshing it is to hear someone at the State House acknowledge the
obvious - that while our budget picture isn’t pretty, to expect
taxpayers to simply dig deeper to finance the state’s historic level of
spending is to live in a dream world.
OK, so those are our words, not House Ways and Means Chairman Charles
Murphy’s. But last week the newly appointed House budget chief
nevertheless drew some important budgetary lines in the sand.
We can’t afford to draw more than $200 million from the rainy-day fund
next year, Murphy told the State House News Service (that’s barely a
third of the $568 million proposed by Gov. Deval Patrick) - not when the
downturn is expected to extend beyond 2010 and the balance stands at a
mere $1.4 billion.
And rather than rush to adopt broad-based tax increases - on restaurant
meals, hotel rooms, alcohol, soda and candy, among Patrick’s proposals -
Beacon Hill must first acknowledge a “new reality” and focus on
“considerable cuts” to the budget Patrick filed last month.
That common sense philosophy won’t make Murphy popular with, say,
municipal officials or human service advocates, already sounding the
alarm over the midyear cuts Patrick has been forced to make - never mind
what is yet to come.
And it won’t make him particularly popular with Patrick himself, whose
response to the budget crisis has been to proclaim that 1) the sky is
falling and 2) the only way to hold it up is to confiscate more of the
taxpayers’ hard-earned income.
In the meantime the entire budget-writing exercise is complicated by the
fact that Massachusetts is due to receive billions in federal stimulus
dollars - but exactly how much and how it can be spent is a puzzle that
has yet to be solved. The Patrick administration has made drip-by-drip
announcements of federal awards, but has yet to get a handle on the big
stimulus picture.
At the end of the day our financial problems are deadly serious. But
contrary to what the administration would have us believe, there are
solutions beyond panic-driven tax hikes.
Associated Press
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Mass. transportation hiring, reform plans clash
By Glen Johnson
Gov. Deval Patrick says his transportation overhaul plan will streamline
bureaucracy, remove redundancy and eliminate the Massachusetts Turnpike
Authority as a political dumping ground by dissolving it.
That may be bad news to some of his own staff.
As Patrick and his new transportation secretary, James Aloisi, have
tried to build support for a 19-cent gasoline tax increase to pay for
their plan, their administration has hired duplicate transportation
communications directors, put a chastised state spokesman in an internal
communications role at the highway department and transferred two
transportation department workers into new roles at the cash-starved
Turnpike Authority.
There are two more transportation spokesmen working for the agency as
well.
The officials are collectively paid nearly $650,000 a year, yet Patrick
said Thursday that recent newspaper stories about some of the personnel
machinations have been "trivial."
That's not how everyone sees it.
"It could be small potatoes until you add it onto the rest of the
banquet, and then you see an accumulated amount of government fat," said
anti-tax crusader Barbara Anderson. "That should be a good reason
for everyone to say 'no' to the gas tax."
Some of the recent hiring appears to conflict with the transportation
reform plan both Patrick and Aloisi are promoting. It, in part, would
streamline the state's transportation bureaucracy.
Aloisi hired former Senate aide Colin Durrant to be his chief spokesman
at an annual salary of $115,000. Yet the former chief spokesman for the
Executive Office of Transportation, Klark Jessen, remains on the state
payroll at his same $90,000 annual salary, according to state payroll
records.
Durrant has the title "deputy secretary for communications and policy,"
while Jessen is listed as "communications director." When The Associated
Press inquired about the potential overlap, Durrant said Jessen had been
given a new title: "marketing and internal communications manager."
He also said Jessen's salary had been trimmed to $85,000 annually, yet
Jessen was paid his previous salary during the most recent two-week
state pay period, according to the payroll. Durrant said that would
likely be revised in the next paycheck.
Meanwhile, Durrant has a deputy, Adam Hurtubise, who is paid $74,500
annually. The department also has a communications director at the
Registry of Motor Vehicles. Ann Dufresne is paid $82,400 annually.
While Durrant is supposed to handle communications for the entire
department, the Massachusetts Highway Department pays Richard Nangle, a
former Worcester Telegram reporter, $65,800 annually as "manager of
construction communication."
Nangle had previously served as chief spokesman for the Department of
Social Services, but he was labeled uncooperative in several news
stories last year about a 7-year-old Middleborough boy who was allegedly
victimized by his mother's boyfriend.
Durrant said Nangle joined the highway department later in the year and
prepares briefings, reports and background in response to inquiries
about an accelerated bridge repair program.
Despite Nangle's title, Durrant said, "Richard is not a media contact or
member of communications staff." Durrant added: "We are level-staffed
and, in fact, have one less position handling media calls than before."
The Patrick administration's transportation overhaul plan also calls for
eliminating the Turnpike Authority, a longtime political dumping ground.
Yet during the past three months, two transportation department workers
were transferred to the Turnpike even as the agency complained it was so
cash-strapped it needed to nearly double tolls.
Trellis Stepter was paid $84,000 as a legislative agent to Aloisi's
predecessor, former Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, but now is
paid $90,000 as manager of special projects at the Turnpike. Robert
Rooney was paid $123,000 as deputy secretary of public works under Cohen
but now is paid $122,000 as the Turnpike's assistant chief engineer.
Turnpike Executive Director Alan LeBovidge said he hires people who help
the agency, but he walked away from a TV reporter this past week after
she asked him why Stepter and Russell were specifically needed.
Despite the hiring, the Turnpike is leaving one high-profile position
open: a $98,000 slot as communications director.
"There's no plans right now to fill it," Durrant said.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
A Boston Herald editorial
Style, not substance
Gov. Deval Patrick gathered reporters in his office over the weekend to
make the urgent case for reforming the state pension system - the
urgency made more apparent, we suppose, by the fact that it was a Sunday
and he was wearing a sweater.
But we would caution the governor that such “I’m in charge” symbolism
didn’t always work for Mike Dukakis - and it may not be enough to revive
his own flagging agenda.
You see, the governor had a very tough week last week.
He was in the middle of the fallout over picking Sen. Marian Walsh for a
$175,000 job that had gone vacant for 12 years when his transportation
secretary, already a lightning rod, attacked The Boston Globe for
reporting on his sister’s less-than-essential State House job.
Then the governor decided to dismiss such reporting as “trivial.” But
taxpayers who feel that government at every level is mishandling their
hard-earned money are in no mood to have their anger easily dismissed.
So while the package floated by the governor on Sunday contains
worthwhile ideas, it is not much more than a press release - and a
rehash of bills that have previously gone nowhere.
We would like to think this year will be different - with the governor,
the speaker of the House and the Senate president each pledging to
reform the system that allows the few to profit at our collective
expense.
But where was the weekend press conference when Sen. James Marzilli put
in for an inflated pension last fall because he failed to win a race he
didn’t even contest?
Heck, the governor’s own pick to supervise the state’s share of federal
stimulus dollars - appointed just six weeks ago - has benefited from at
least one of the loopholes that Patrick is now demanding be closed.
We don’t fault Patrick for endorsing changes that the taxpayers have
long demanded and that they deserve. But true reform will require more
than a conveniently-timed “crisis” press conference.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Walsh's cost to calm furor: $55,000
Contentious Patrick pick seeks lower pay
By Frank Phillips
State Senator Marian Walsh is asking to reduce the salary she will
receive in her new job at a state authority from $175,000 to $120,000, a
change that aides to Governor Deval Patrick hope will quell the uproar
over her appointment.
Walsh had been under pressure from the governor's staff to take some
action to tamp down the anger over her appointment as assistant
executive director of the Massachusetts Health and Educational
Facilities Authority. But administration sources said it was her
suggestion to accept a $55,000 reduction in the pay for the job.
"I've been thinking about it for days," Walsh said after Patrick
announced she had asked to be paid less for the job. "If it created such
anxiety and disturbance, I can say, 'no, thank you' to the $175,000."
She insisted that a hefty state salary was not her motivation for taking
the job.
"My career has never been about the amount of money I make," she added.
Even at $120,000, Walsh's new salary will still be far above the $76,440
that the 54-year old lawmaker makes as the Senate's majority whip. Walsh
said the authority's board had conducted a "due diligence" in arriving
at the $175,000 figure. "I was surprised at the salary," she said.
Asked if she considered her appointment an act of patronage by the
governor, Walsh said: "What I see is that I have a skill set and I have
a commitment to public service."
She was unclear as to when she will resign her Senate seat to take up
her new position.
At a press conference in his State House office yesterday, Patrick
strongly defended the Walsh appointment, while acknowledging the public
outcry. He said her experience in politics and government suits her for
the assignment to help coordinate the agency's work with other
authorities. Walsh has no experience in public financing, the core
mission of the authority. He denied that either he or his staff had
pressured Walsh to accept a lower salary.
"This is a job that has got to be done, and she's the one to do it," the
governor said of the post, which has been vacant for 12 years. "She is
in the right place."
Patrick also announced that the controversy over Walsh has prompted him
to order a review of salaries and benefits at state public authorities.
He called on the agencies to freeze salaries in the meantime. He has
asked Stephen Crosby, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of
Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts and a former
Republican state official, to conduct the review within 90 days. Crosby
is former chief of staff and secretary of administration and finance
under governors Jane Swift and Paul Cellucci.
Republicans pounced on the latest twist in the Walsh appointment. Senate
minority leader Richard Tisei called the governor's response a
"charade."
The state GOP spokesman, Barney Keller, said in a written statement:
"Does Governor Patrick think that $120,000 is going to be more palatable
to outraged taxpayers? It doesn't make Senator Walsh any more qualified
for the job, and it doesn't change the fact that the job was vacant for
12 years. To use Governor Patrick's words, this is a 'trivial' attempt
at damage control."
The reference to "trivial" was a jibe at Patrick's statements last week,
in which he tried to brush aside criticism of the Walsh appointment and
other personnel controversies on Beacon Hill. His statement further
inflamed reaction to the appointment.
Yesterday the governor said he was chagrined at having used the word
trivial to describe ethics and patronage controversies. "Uncle, uncle,"
he said. "I wish I had never uttered the word."
The decision by the Health and Educational Facilities Authority's board
nearly two weeks ago to appoint Walsh, a West Roxbury Democrat, had
ignited a public outcry. In addition to being vacant for more than a
decade, the position had not been advertised and a search firm had not
been hired to compile a list of candidates. It was also not listed on an
agenda for the meeting where it was unanimously approved.
One board member, Marvin Gordon, a Republican appointee who has been
sharply critical of Patrick's move, has vowed to force the board to take
a vote on the appointment at its next meeting. Gordon, the board's
vice-chairman, was on vacation and could not attend the March 12
meeting. He has charged that Walsh's appointment was rammed through and
is a violation of the legislative intent to keep public authorities
insulated from political pressures.
"She may have qualifications for some other job, which merits that
salary," Gordon said, adding that with benefits her newly adjusted pay
will be about $150,000. "But this job does not exist, is unneeded, and
thus the salary is still ludicrous; and yes, the appointment is still
unconscionable."
Walsh, who was one of Patrick's earliest supporters in his long-shot bid
to become governor in 2006, had hoped last year to become the executive
director of the agency, a job that pays $225,000, according to private
e-mail the Globe obtained between her political adviser, Michael
Goldman, a veteran Democratic political operative, and the governor's
chief of staff, Doug Rubin. That plan was put on hold and revised after
a Globe story in June described the behind-the-scenes jockeying.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A Boston Globe editorial
Stop these pension ploys
Pension tension
Many public employees are expert in the game of pension pursuit. But
Massachusetts taxpayers are no longer willing to play along - especially
as pensions dwindle for private-sector workers. Inflated public pensions
are not just costly in dollars, but they greatly diminish public
confidence in state and local government.
Over the weekend, Governor Patrick outlined his priorities for
comprehensive pension reform. It was a solid list, though largely lifted
from existing legislation crafted by the Legislature's Joint Committee
on Public Service. Now it falls to legislative leaders to end the
disreputable practices of some public employees who bump up their
pensions with outlandish perquisites. Such practices are an affront both
to taxpayers and the average state employee, who earns a reasonable
pension of about $24,000 a year in lieu of Social Security benefits.
Legislative leaders may be tempted to jettison one or two of the more
outrageous pension perks as a way to pacify the public. But that won't
be enough. House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese
Murray must put an end to all of the pension abuses cited by the
governor. Among those that need to go:
The "king for a day" clause that allows some public safety workers to
earn exaggerated benefits by filing disability claims while filling in -
even for one day - for a higher-paid employee.
A virulent variation is the "one day, one year" provision that allows
elected officials to earn a full year of creditable pension service for
working only one day during the year.
The loose definition of "regular compensation" that lets some workers
include housing and transportation costs in their pension calculations.
Double-dipping by judges and others who work the system to collect
benefits from separate pension systems.
Pension provisions that allow MBTA workers to collect pensions after
only 23 years of service.
An even more foolish law that allows certain lawmakers to collect
enhanced pension benefits if they fail to win reelection.
A buyback provision that allows local officials, such as town
moderators, to graft service credits from their volunteer positions onto
the pension base from their public service jobs.
Lawmakers shouldn't limit themselves to the governor's recommendations.
They also need to cap public pensions for big earners, such as state
college administrators. A public pension of $100,000 is high enough. And
legislators must find the courage to stop basing the pensions of public
employees on their last three years of earnings. Politically connected
employees game that system by finagling higher-paid jobs at the end of
their careers. Public pensions should be calculated on average lifetime
earnings.
Public hearings on pension reform will begin in April. But the public
has heard plenty on the subject already, and none of it to its liking.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Turning talk into action on pension reform
By Scot Lehigh
One critical function newspapers serve is alerting taxpayers to
public-sector rip-offs.
In the last year or so, the Globe has exposed a number of maddening
public pension abuses, many of them courtesy of Sean Murphy's determined
reporting.
Too often, political inertia trumps public anger.
But this year, the stars may finally be aligned for action. Beacon
Hill's Big Three have all vowed to curb the most egregious excesses -
and a Special Commission on Pension Reform is about to start work on a
broader overhaul.
Myself, I'd prefer a panel armed with subpoena power - and a
determination to shine a spotlight on the abusers. Call it, say, the
Special Commission Redressing Unmerited Benefits, or SCRUB.
SCRUB could haul in Michael Lewis, former Big Dig project director, and
press him on whether it's fair that his pension went from $23,000 to
$72,578 a year - and started at age 46 - because his job was eliminated
as the project wound down. Lewis, you see, reaped the benefits of an
obscure law meant to protect longtime public employees from politically
motivated firings. In the last half-decade, that law has burdened state
and local governments with an estimated $115 million to $235 million in
additional pension costs.
SCRUB could grill former state senator Jack Brennan about the shameless
way he managed to boost his state pension from about $19,000 to around
$41,000 by factoring in his 19 years of unpaid service as a trustee of
the Malden Public Library. And it could ask Robert Lamere and Michael
Curran, the former Town Meeting moderators in Milton and Canton, how
they rationalize using their light voluntary service to win substantial
pension enhancements.
It could have an edifying session with that high-minded scholar William
M. Bulger, who felt no responsibility to help law-enforcement
authorities apprehend his murderous brother, but deemed it "a matter of
principle" to pursue a public pension pig-out. When he left the
Legislature after 35 years, Bulger was earning $81,400 from the state.
After seven-plus years as UMass's well-paid president, he now receives
$197,845 in yearly pension benefits, an amount boosted by about $17,000
as a result of his successful legal fight to count a housing allowance
as income. Bulger wanted to hike his pension still higher by counting an
annuity as well, but there, at least, the Supreme Judicial Court said
no.
SCRUB could question Boston firefighters who have claimed career-ending
injuries while filling in for superiors at higher pay, thus letting them
increase already tax-free disability pensions.
It could ask the MBTA why it's fair to taxpayers and riders that many T
workers can bang out with close to maximum pension benefits after a mere
23 years of service.
It could delve into Massport's practice of buying back up to three weeks
of (supposedly) unused vacation time each year from its employees, with
that added income then boosting their pensions.
In other words, it could bring both sunlight and shame to bear on the
special arrangements, scams, and abuses this state suffers from.
Of course, we'd probably hear the same justification the Globe's Murphy
got from Canton's former moderator: "If the system exists, you have the
right to take advantage of it."
That's exactly what some people have been doing: taking advantage - of
us.
Now, most public employees don't. Still, taxpayers are right to be
outraged by those who do - and to hold Beacon Hill accountable for
fixing things.
Governor Deval Patrick has just outlined his pension-reform priorities,
which include disallowing Bulgeresque add-ons; ending Brennan-ite use of
unpaid service; cracking down on the higher-if-you're-fired pension
enhancements; reforming the T's "23 and out" policy; and ending the
opportunity to obtain a higher pension by claiming a disabling injury
while filling in for a superior.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray both
promise real pension reform this year.
"It's a top priority of mine and the House's," says DeLeo.
"We are definitely going to do it," says Murray. "Crisis breeds
opportunity."
Yes it does. But let's be clear. The governor's list is a strong start -
but to end the outrage, we'll need an equally strong legislative finish.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Deval Patrick tanks in new poll
By Joe Dwinell
A wave of voter disgust at business as usual on Beacon Hill has swamped
Gov. Deval Patrick, dealing the first-term governor a devastating
credibility blow that leaves his re-election hopes shaken, a new 7News
poll has found.
Patrick’s standing with voters is so weak that he is locked in a dead
heat with his main political rival, scoring 30 percent to state
Treasurer Tim Cahill’s 35 percent if the general election were held
today - even though Cahill hasn’t even said he’s running.
Thirty percent were undecided in the Patrick-Cahill matchup, while five
percent opted for “other” candidates.
The survey of 400 registered voters - Democrats, Republicans and
unenrolled alike - shows angry Bay Staters quickly losing faith in the
state government, with Patrick taking the biggest hit.
Only 34 percent of those surveyed in the poll conducted for 7News by
Suffolk University say the governor deserves re-election, while a
stunning 47 percent say it is “time to elect someone else.”
Voters gave Patrick a 43 percent unfavorable rating and a 44 percent
favorable rating. The rest are undecided.
Cahill, meanwhile, had only an 8 percent unfavorable rating and 40
percent favorable. One caveat: The poll was conducted before headlines
this week that the treasurer faces an ethics probe over a Lottery
contract.
Asked about Patrick’s job performance, 49 percent disapproved, 40
percent approved and 11 percent were undecided.
Cahill outpolled fellow Democrat Patrick in a general election match
among Republicans and independents and among voters in all age groups
except 18-35, and easily defeated him among male voters - yet 23 percent
of voters surveyed said they have never heard of the treasurer.
“The wiseguys always say you can’t beat somebody with nobody,” said Andy
Hiller, chief political reporter for 7News. “Now nobody has a name . . .
and it’s Tim Cahill.”
Patrick’s dismal poll numbers come after battering in the press over his
naming of a senator pal to a costly plum post, raises for sheriffs,
addition of two pricey staffers to the Pike payroll, embarrassing
comments by his transportation secretary and his own dismissal of the
controversies as “trivial.”
Voters, the 7News poll shows, appear to have had it with Beacon Hill
politics, with a whopping 72 percent calling for the state to add a
recall vote for “underperforming” pols.
Some 51 percent believe the state is on the wrong track. Worse, 71
percent say Massachusetts will become “Taxachusetts” once again with
only 5 percent expecting an economic recovery this year.
The poll, conducted March 17-20, has a margin of error of plus/minus 4.9
percent.
Other poll highlights include:
• 47 percent say the level of ethics and honesty in state government has
decreased.
• 50 percent believe bribery in state government is alive and well as it
was in the past, while 32 percent say it is more common.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Highs, lows on Beacon Hill
By Joe Dwinell
A dark cloud of voter dissatisfaction hangs over Beacon Hill as
taxpayers slam Gov. Deval Patrick and other pols over everything from
soaring taxes to out-of-control ethics abuses, a new 7News survey shows.
Some politicians fare better than others, however. Former U.S. Rep.
Joseph Kennedy and state Attorney General Martha Coakley scored
favorability ratings of 67 percent and 56 percent, respectively.
But others have a ways to go to introduce themselves to voters.
35 percent of voters have never heard of Lt. Gov. Tim Murray.
33 percent have never heard of Christy Mihos, a 2006 and likely 2010
gubernatorial candidate.
59 percent have never heard of GOP star Charlie Baker. The Harvard
Pilgrim boss is being floated as Republicans’ top hope for governor.
In other results:
62 percent were undecided on who should fill in for U.S. Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy if he were to leave office. His nephew, Joe, got 8 percent of
votes while Mitt Romney and Coakley registered 6 percent.
61 percent favor casino gambling in the Bay State.
32 percent back hiking the sales tax - over tolls or a gas tax - to help
bail out the state.
SOURCE: 7News poll of 400 registered Massachusetts voters conducted
March 17-20 by Suffolk University. Margin of error plus/minus 4.9
percent.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Deval Patrick takes flak from
GOP for tapping UMass dean to study pay
By Hillary Chabot
Senate Republicans blasted Gov. Deval Patrick’s choice of UMass dean
Stephen P. Crosby to review salaries at the state’s 52 quasi-independent
agencies yesterday, saying somebody “more independent” is needed.
Patrick tapped Crosby - a former secretary of administration and finance
to GOP Govs. Paul Cellucci and Jane M. Swift - for the 90-day study
after the flap over Sen. Marian Walsh’s $175,000 job at an obscure
funding agency.
“Is this something the governor is doing as damage control or is this a
legitimate effort?” asked Senate Minority leader Richard R. Tisei
(R-Wakefield).
Crosby earns $170,000 as dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy
Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
“Given the fact that Mr. Crosby’s institute is dependent on state
funding to operate, any conclusion that he comes to regarding salary
levels will lack the credibility and independence necessary to gain the
public’s trust,” wrote the state’s five GOP senators in a letter to
Patrick yesterday.
Crosby, who described himself as a strong fiscal conservative, called
the letter “silly.”
“I don’t think there should be any concern that the commission of five
people will have anything other than an objective view,” Crosby said.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Senate backs bill to merge T, Pike
State expects savings under mega-agency
By Noah Bierman
As credit analysts issued their latest warning about the Massachusetts
Turnpike Authority, the state Senate yesterday passed a bill that
leaders promised would fundamentally change the state's transportation
system and lay the groundwork for repairing its dilapidated finances.
The bill would eliminate the Turnpike Authority and the Massachusetts
Bay Transportation Authority, which is also in a fiscal crisis, and
replace them with a new mega-agency that would oversee all roads,
bridges, tunnels, subways, trains, and buses. Despite months of
discussion leading up to the vote, lawmakers spent little time publicly
debating the 278-page bill, working out most of the issues behind closed
doors.
The most heated debate yesterday revolved around a last-minute amendment
to require the MBTA to get local zoning approval before erecting new
billboards on its property, a response to the T's announcement earlier
this week that it would ramp up its ad revenue by auctioning off 60 new
billboards in Eastern Massachusetts. The amendment failed 12 to 26.
Transportation has become one of the most contentious issues on Beacon
Hill this session, as the Turnpike Authority and the T contemplate
substantial toll and fare increases and the state highway system
struggles to repair decrepit bridges. The system is billions of dollars
in debt, due in large part to the Big Dig. The Senate bill delayed a
discussion of how to raise money to pay that debt, though lawmakers are
hoping to find long-term savings through restructuring.
"This is a fundamental overhaul of how we deliver transportation
services in the Commonwealth," said Senator Steven A. Baddour, a Methuen
Democrat who co-chairs the Joint Transportation Committee.
Yesterday, senators scrupulously avoided discussing Governor Deval
Patrick's plan to raise the gas tax by 19 cents to avoid toll and fare
hikes. Key legislators have so far balked at Patrick's figure, but many
have agreed they will have to come up with another source of money.
Senate President Therese Murray noted after yesterday's vote that as the
Legislature discusses new sources of revenue, lawmakers will need to
address not only the state's transportation problems, but its "entire
economic decline."
With this bill, which the House is expected to debate next week,
lawmakers are emphasizing that they are focusing on making the system
more efficient before asking taxpayers for more money. They are expected
to debate the gas tax proposal in coming weeks, after sending Patrick
the restructuring bill.
The Senate bill shares some similarities with Patrick's restructuring
proposal. Both, for example, would reduce fringe benefits for transit
workers, now some of the most generous perks in the country. Under the
bill, newly hired MBTA workers would not be able to retire with full
pensions after 23 years, regardless of age. They would need to be 55 or
older and have worked at least 25 years at the MBTA, the same rules that
apply to other state workers. The bill would also put their healthcare
costs more in line with other state workers, a change that could save as
much as $50 million a year.
The Senate said yesterday that the total savings could be as high as
$6.5 billion over the next 20 years, but that figure, based on an
analysis by consultant Deloitte & Touche, has not been heavily
scrutinized. Murray's office acknowledged last month that the savings
might be closer to $2.5 billion. A special commission two years ago
estimated that the state was facing something close to $19 billion in
unmet transportation needs over the next two decades.
Baddour said there will be more analysis of how much can be saved
through restructuring once Patrick signs a bill into law.
The Senate expects its new transportation agency to generate a surplus
of $71.7 million in its first year and $25.5 million in its second year.
But there also may be unanticipated costs that come from merging
operations and reassigning employees. Baddour said that he did not know
how many employees would be eliminated and that larger savings may take
time.
"We're not going to wake up the day this is signed and have immediate
savings," he said.
Yesterday's report from Fitch Rating, one of two agencies that evaluates
the Turnpike Authority's credit, underscored the urgency of fixing the
problem. Fitch warned the authority that its weak credit rating is in
danger of getting worse, because its board decided Monday to delay a
toll increase that had been scheduled to take effect this Sunday.
Fitch Rating placed the authority on "negative watch" for a credit
downgrade, citing the political pressures on the authority to delay toll
hikes. Fitch had removed the "negative watch" label from the authority
last month, after it initially passed the toll increase. The authority
will now draw money from its rainy-day fund to plug its budget gap.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Deval Patrick’s initiation is finally complete
By Michael Graham
“Uncle, uncle,” - Gov. Deval Patrick
Why are you crying “Uncle,” Gov. Patrick? It’s the taxpayers who are
getting the wedgie.
So a reporter asks you about your bone-headed comment about make-work
jobs for your feel-good friends and you say “uncle.” But last I checked,
we taxpayers are still on the hook for Carol Aloisi’s salary.
And while paying Sen. Marian Walsh $120,000 is better than paying her
$175,000, the fact remains that when you took office, Governor, the
assistant executive director of the Health and Education Facilities
Authority was costing us zero.
So you get away with keeping a hack friend happy - and you’re the one
complaining?
Wow. You really have sold out, haven’t you?
Some Massachusetts voters, the ones who are by nature more trusting and
generous of spirit, have spent the last two years telling themselves
that you really are trying to do the right thing. They want to believe
that you are just a bit, well, naive. Kind of a “Mr. Smith Goes To
Washington . . . and Screws Everything Up Out Of Sheer Cluelessness”
kind of governor.
But for those of us paying attention, the Marian Walsh saga tells the
real story. You couldn’t beat them, so you joined them.
You’re not the idealistic leader making low-rent deals to forward your
high-minded agenda. You’re a shipwrecked pol, adrift and at sea,
clinging to any bit of political flotsam you can find.
You weren’t clever enough to get reform, so you left the driving to Jim
Aloisi. You weren’t tough enough to take on the unions, so you let them
roll you on perks and pensions. You didn’t have the character to laugh
the math-challenged Maid Marian out of the room when she asked for the
HEFA job, so you left for Jamaica and left her the keys to the cashbox.
And you know whose cash is in there, don’t you? It sure ain’t from
Obama’s stimulus package.
It must warm the hearts of the “cheap suit and bad rug” crowd on Beacon
Hill to watch you stumble your way toward irrelevance.
During your campaign, and for nearly two years after, the pols who run
this state had to listen to your self-righteous declarations of war on
how they do business. “We’re going to change the culture!” you crowed.
And they nodded their heads and clapped for the cameras, but off the air
they just rolled their eyes. “He’ll come around,” they said.
And they were right. The war to put the public back into “public
service” is over. And, as usual, the public lost.
The Marian Walsh job was the final step.
As HEFA board member Marvin Gordon put it, “She may have qualifications
for some other job which merits that salary. But this job does not
exist, is unneeded, and the salary is ludicrous.”
Gordon also told New England Cable News that when he asked to see the
correspondence between HEFA and the governor’s office related to Walsh’s
hire, he was told to file a Freedom of Information request - the first
time he’s ever had to do so as a board member.
The “Walsh Job” was the last act of your initiation into the Brotherhood
of Business As Usual. Thanks to this you’re now a “made guy” in the
family of hacks.
Now they know they can trust you. And we taxpayers know - as if we
didn’t already - that we can’t.
Michael Graham hosts a talk show on 96.9 WTKK
The Eagle-Tribune
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Three selectman candidates sign no tax override pledge
By Crystal Bozek
NORTH ANDOVER — All five candidates for selectman in next week's
election said they would oppose any property tax override this year.
Three of the contenders are going one step further.
Candidates Dan Lanen, Donald Stewart and Joe Edward Smith have signed a
pledge to oppose Proposition 2½ overrides for their entire three-year
terms, if elected.
"People are losing jobs, home foreclosures are up. The economy is
hurting right now," said Lanen, the only incumbent in the race. "People
don't need an override on top of that. It would exacerbate an already
bad condition."
The North Andover Taxpayers Association put out the Taxpayer Protection
Pledge this month, something it's been doing for five years. The pledge
is based on the Citizens for Limited Taxation pledge given to state
candidates.
A Proposition 2½ override raises the property tax rate above the
state-set limit. The last time North Andover voters passed an override
was in 2007, when they voted to raise an extra $1.65 million that mostly
went to the schools.
Residents voted down overrides in 2005 and 2002.
Candidates Daniel Braese and Bill Gordon did not sign the pledge, citing
the lack of flexibility it gave them.
"An effective leader shouldn't lock themselves into pledges over any
extended period of time," Braese said.
He explained that things change, and proposed a scenario where the
pledge would not work.
"What happens if the state eliminates all funding to the town. We lose
millions in our budget," Braese said. "There's an upswell from residents
to protect schools, seniors, jobs, but I promised to vote no.
"Then you've locked yourself in even though people want it," he said.
Gordon agreed.
"I don't know how you can say you won't support an override in three
years," Gordon said. " You can't see what's going to happen down the
road."
Stewart, a former selectman, said he never signed the pledges before,
but with the downward spiraling economy he said he felt it was the right
thing to do now.
"Why be a phony? You have to say what you mean," Stewart said. "At this
point we cannot even look at an override. I can't afford it and I know
the rest of the community can't afford it. Why be a phony? Be who you
are."
Smith did not return calls for comment.
Elections are March 31 at North Andover High School. Polls are open from
7 a.m. to 8 p.m. There are five candidates running for two three-year
terms on the Board of Selectmen. Laurie Burzlaff and Karin Rhoton are
running unopposed for School Committee.
Ted Tripp, president of the North Andover Taxpayers Association, said he
offers candidates three different pledges they can sign every year.
Candidates can pledge to forgo support for all overrides; general
overrides that raise taxes for the operating budget permanently; or debt
exclusions that raise taxes for a set period of time for specific
projects like a school or fire station.
Last year, only one candidate — Joe Edward Smith — signed the pledge.
"It doesn't surprise me that we have three this year," Tripp said. "The
economy is in a lot less better shape. I think they see with the economy
so bad, nobody will go for one."
This year the average single-family tax bill in North Andover is $5,896.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The truth behind the triviality
By Marvin Gordon and Robert J. Ciolek
In recent statements about a lucrative $175,000 position for Senator
Marian Walsh, Governor Deval Patrick characterized critics as harping on
a "trivial" matter. The announcement yesterday that the pay would be cut
to $120,000 shows that the governor's tuning fork has finally alerted
him to public outrage. Still, the appointment is outrageous.
Walsh, who was named assistant executive director of the Massachusetts
Health and Educational Facilities Authority, has no experience in the
world of bond finance. She would be filling a position that is vacant,
purposeless, and unneeded. In order to pay her salary, the authority may
charge it to the nonprofits it serves, or reduce its charitable facility
grants to various Commonwealth Health Centers serving our needier
citizens. The authority's board of directors knows this, but its duty to
the institutions it serves is apparently trumped by its fealty to the
governor. Patrick should withdraw his support and the board should - in
a more public manner than its last vote - rescind the offer of
employment, which will send an important message to the institutions,
the bond rating agencies, and the marketplace that prices HEFA bonds.
The Health and Educational Facilities Authority was created 40 years ago
to assist Massachusetts nonprofit institutions, such as hospitals,
colleges, health clinics, and cultural groups, in accessing the
tax-exempt bond market. The purchase of these bonds by private investors
permits the institutions to build dormitories, hospital facilities, and
museums, and to acquire capital equipment.
The basis for establishing the authority as an independent entity was
the Legislature's understanding that it could perform the work and meet
the requirements of the federal tax code at no cost to taxpayers. And
while the staff of the authority is small - only 15 - its bond issuances
are large, given the significant number of nonprofits in the state. To
put it in perspective, there are about 8,000 entities with the power to
issue tax-exempt bonds, and the Health and Educational Facilities
Authority last year ranked sixth nationwide. Issuing bonds is what it
does. And, it does it well.
But, the present situation at the authority is of deeper concern. The
governor's plan is to put the authority out of business by folding it
into another state authority, the Massachusetts Development Finance
Authority.
The Development Finance Authority is an agency within the Office of
Administration and Finance and, although legally independent, it is
structurally much less independent than the Health and Educational
Facilities Authority. With overlapping power to issue tax-exempt bonds
for certain nonprofit institutions, the two authorities compete for
clients. This competition provides a benefit to those nonprofit
entities, in that each authority competes with the other by reducing
fees for bond issuances by hundreds of thousands of dollars. So why
would the governor now want to force a merger? The Development Finance
Authority, as the governor's development agency, has been asked to be
many things to many people. And it needs funding to do those things,
preferably money not from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. By becoming
the only issuer of bonds, the Development Finance Authority would be
able to end competition and, in all likelihood, raise the fees paid by
hospitals, clinics, and colleges for bond issuances. Worse, it could
raid funds controlled by the Health and Education Facilities Authority
for millions of dollars, currently held in Trust for the benefit of
charitable tax-exempt institutions. It is our hope that the charities
division of the attorney general's office reviews such an effort.
At its last meeting, the Board of Health and Education Facilities
Authority voted to create a committee "to reach out to (MDFA), to
identify efficiencies and cost savings that might be gained by working
together." That is code for putting the Health and Education Facilities
Authority out of business. It is instructive that no one from any
nonprofit institution to our knowledge has yet to be asked to serve on
that committee. These issues are being kept out of the public view.
In the end, it all comes down to money - not principle, not public
policy, and certainly not reform. It is often said that actions speak
louder than words, but sometimes words are far more illuminating than
actions. In this instance, the governor's version of "transparency" is
really a smoke-and-mirrors clouding of the public's view of the
political version of trivial pursuit.
Marvin Gordon is vice chairman and Robert J. Ciolek is former
executive director of the Health and Education Facilities Authority.
State House News Service
Thursday, March 25, 2009
Revenue Committee to hold briefings on tax policies
By Gintautas Dumcius
As state tax collections spiral downwards, federal funds pour in, and
talk persists of raising taxes – the gas tax, sales tax and several
others - some four dozen lawmakers and aides met on Wednesday in the
first of a series of briefings on issues surrounding the state’s complex
tax policies.
A hand-out distributed by Committee on Revenue aides starts with basics,
like what is a tax (an “across-the-board levy on a base, such as income,
to which a specific rate applies and which no modifications exist”) the
types of state taxes (personal income, corporate excise, property, sales
and use), and miscellaneous excises and taxes (annual motor vehicle
excise, transfer of hotel/motel rooms, sale of gasoline, cigarettes,
alcohol and decedent’s estate).
“There is no topic that is off-limits for these seminars,” Rep. Jay
Kaufman, House chair of the Joint Committee on Revenue, told the small
crowd gathered in the House Lobby.
That includes Proposition 2½, Kaufman said, calling the voter law a
“third rail” in politics. That law limits the total taxes that can be
assessed every year on the real and personal property of each
municipality to not more than 2½ percent of the “full and fair” cash
value of the property. Communities are able to exceed the limit or deny
pushes to raise property taxes beyond the threshold through so-called
override votes.
Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat, said the seminars were an effort to
educate himself and other committee members as he considers tax policy
reforms. “Most of us are not experts in tax policy,” said Kaufman, a
veteran House member who is serving his first term as chair of the
panel.
He added that the committee, co-chaired by Sen. Benjamin Downing
(D-Pittsfield), will invite experts to the briefings, which will be
generally held on Wednesdays in Room B-2. “We’re casting a fairly wide
net,” he said.
The seminars come as the committee prepares to formally accept input on
Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposed tax hikes on candy, sugared drinks, and
alcohol.
The committee will also consider Patrick’s re-filing of state and local
options taxes on meals and hotel rooms, and eliminating an exemption for
telecommunications companies, proposals that failed to advance last
session.
The committee has scheduled a hearing on Patrick’s tax plans for April 7
in Gardner Auditorium at 10 am.
Kaufman said he expects Patrick’s proposals will be taken up by the
House before the House debates the fiscal 2010 budget the last week of
April. “We’re assuming a short leash,” he said.
Lawmakers who attended the Wednesday briefing included Reps. Lori
Ehrlich (D-Marblehead), Steven D’Amico (D-Seekonk), Jim Arciero
(D-Westford), Jim Cantwell (D-Marshfield), Carl Sciortino (D-Somerville)
Alice Peisch (D-Wellesley) and Jay Barrows (R-Mansfield).
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