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CLT UPDATE
Monday, January 14, 2013
The insatiable hordes are swarming
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Gov. Deval Patrick’s transportation financing
plan would pump $13 billion in capital investments over the next 10
years into the state’s infrastructure, highway and public transit
systems, relying on a smorgasbord of reforms and controversial
revenue options to make it happen....
Among the revenues options included is a 0.16
percent payroll tax for transportation; raising the gas tax or tying
it to inflation; increasing the sales tax; raising the state’s
income tax; establishing a “green” fee that would charge more for
drivers of vehicles that pollute more; a vehicle miles traveled tax;
regular increases in fees, fares and tolls; congestion pricing for
tolls and new tolls on highways; and maintaining tolls on the
Massachusetts Turnpike in the western part of the state past their
2017 sunset.
The plan does not recommend specific increases in
taxes, but does identify what it would take to raise $1 billion a
year in new revenue under each proposal, including a 30-cent gas-tax
hike, an increase in the income tax to 5.66 percent, or an increase
in the sales tax to 7.75 percent....
The report also suggests that the MassDOT board
will also recommend a number of fee increases to address budget
deficits in fiscal 2014, including an increase in registration fees
by $53; an increase in annual inspection fees by $19; an increase in
license fees by $86; an increase in I-90 tolls and MBTA fares by 5
percent; and $40 million in MBTA service cuts.
State House News Service
Monday, January 14, 2013
Patrick plan lists tax, other options to improve transportation
system
Members of a campaign that supports legislation
calling for a $1.37 billion tax increase, anchored around raising
the income tax from 5.25 percent to 5.95 percent, plan to gather at
the State House Tuesday to discuss their proposal and investments in
education, health care, transportation and economic development.
Organizers aligned with the Campaign for Our
Communities, which includes 120 statewide organizations, say the
revenue package will be outlined by teachers, nurses, small business
owners, construction workers, students, seniors and local officials.
Revenues from tax increases could help restore
government services cut during and since the recession, according to
the campaign, which supports raising tax exemptions to mitigate the
impact of the tax hike on low and middle income families. Their plan
also calls for an increase in the tax on investment income to 8.95
percent, according to their website.
Tax hike supporters envision an 18-month campaign
and are mobilizing activists, seeking support for municipal
resolutions, lobbying lawmakers and recruiting allies in business,
health care, transportation and education circles.
The campaign’s list of endorsers includes many
groups that provide public services funded with taxpayer money or
which represent individuals who rely on government services. A full
list is available
here.
State House News Service
Advances – Week of Jan. 13, 2013
Campaign to press major tax increase
(Tuesday, 11 a.m., Room 222)
Many local officials say the state’s
prevailing wage law is a burden on small-town construction
projects, leading to senseless overspending and unnecessary
paperwork....
If everyone must be paid the same, the
quality of work will go up, the theory goes, since there is no
incentive for contractors to hire cheaper, less-skilled workers
in order to come in with the lowest bid.
But critics of the law say that the wages set
are often too high and have created undue hardship on cities and
towns looking to get small projects done quickly and
efficiently.
“The prevailing wage law, especially with
such a squeeze on revenue available for public construction
projects, has become an issue,” said Geoffrey Beckwith,
executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
Since wages are often based on local
collective bargaining agreements, Beckwith said one union’s
negotiation can drive up prices for a whole region — and may not
even reflect the true prevailing wage for that service
statewide.
Beckwith said the MMA has pursued legislation
to exempt smaller projects from the law, but after years of
trying it has not gotten a response on Beacon Hill....
“No matter how this is presented, the
taxpayer always feels cheated,” said Weston Facilities Manager
Jerry McCarty, who said the law increases his costs on small
projects by about one-third.
Many local contractors won’t even take small
jobs, he said, because of the mountains of paperwork involved
and because they don’t want to have to pay their workers more on
one job and significantly less on the next....
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 18
states do not have prevailing wage laws, including New
Hampshire, which repealed its law in 1985.
The MetroWest Daily News
May 28, 2012
Prevailing wage law frustrates MetroWest officials
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Oh what a year we taxpayers have ahead if we are
to survive. Prepare to man the barricades.
The tax-borrow-and-spenders are coming at us
relentlessly from all directions.
Today the governor announced a plan to run
taxpayers off the road and into the trench of destitution.
That was just today.
Tomorrow the Gimme Lobby will stage one of its
usual jam-packed rallies of Takers at the State House demanding
even more from us.
Didn't they hear we working-class people who
provide for them all just got nailed with a two percent federal
payroll tax increase?
We'll have more details — and further background information
— for you tomorrow. I've been working
on it over the weekend.
FOX25-Boston satellite
trucks set up for
this evening's live broadcast with Barbara Anderson
in the "CLT compound" lot in Marblehead
Below, FOX 25's Maria
Stephanos talks with Barbara Anderson,
Executive Dir. for the Citizens for Limited Taxation
about MassDOT's billion dollar transportation plan, as well as its
taxation plan.
CLICK TO WATCH THIS EVENING'S INTERVIEW
In the meantime, consider how much Massachusetts
squanders on just the entrenched Prevailing Wage Law
— hundreds of millions of our tax
dollars that could have been and should be used to maintain the
commonwealth's critical "infrastructure" instead of profiting
politicians'
supporters.
Observe the roads and bridges in neighboring New
Hampshire, which repealed that obnoxious special interest law in
1985 — twenty-eight years ago, even
before Gov. Dukakis "temporarily" raised our income tax in '89.
Then consider that the "Live Free Or Die" state
just north of our border has no income tax and no sales tax
whatsoever.
How do the neighbors do it while our
"public servants" here can't — just keep
letting everything crumble around us, then raise taxes and make more
promises "never again, not any more, just trust us this time"?
Maybe it's because New Hampshire has a truly
part-time citizen legislature with lives and jobs away from their
state house and beyond politics . . . ? Maybe because it's not ruled
by one unaccountable political party . . . ?
More to follow, for sure.
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Chip Ford |
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State House News Service
Monday, January 14, 2013
Patrick plan lists tax, other options to improve transportation
system
By Matt Murphy and Andy Metzger
Gov. Deval Patrick’s transportation financing plan would pump $13
billion in capital investments over the next 10 years into the
state’s infrastructure, highway and public transit systems, relying
on a smorgasbord of reforms and controversial revenue options to
make it happen.
The long-awaited report, unveiled by Patrick at UMass-Boston, was
produced by the Department of Transportation and stops short of
recommending specific tax hikes. It does lay out a full “menu” of
options, including both reforms and potential revenue sources, many
of which have been aired before with public backing, and opposition,
from advocacy groups and some lawmakers. The plan also came with a
warning that without new revenues, MBTA fares will rise again and
services will be cut back.
Among the revenues options included is a 0.16 percent payroll tax
for transportation; raising the gas tax or tying it to inflation;
increasing the sales tax; raising the state’s income tax;
establishing a “green” fee that would charge more for drivers of
vehicles that pollute more; a vehicle miles traveled tax; regular
increases in fees, fares and tolls; congestion pricing for tolls and
new tolls on highways; and maintaining tolls on the Massachusetts
Turnpike in the western part of the state past their 2017 sunset.
The plan does not recommend specific increases in taxes, but does
identify what it would take to raise $1 billion a year in new
revenue under each proposal, including a 30-cent gas-tax hike, an
increase in the income tax to 5.66 percent, or an increase in the
sales tax to 7.75 percent.
“The plan released today is a stark, clear-eyed, non-partisan
presentation of the facts,” Patrick said in a statement. “If we are
serious about improving our transportation system for a generation,
then we have to be willing to make the necessary investments. We
must invest in transportation, not for the sake of transportation
itself, but for the jobs and economic opportunity it creates.”
The “potential” reforms include all-electronic tolling; online
Registry of Motor Vehicles transactions; reimbursement of utility
relocation to keep projects on schedule; selling or leasing unused
MBTA real estate; more performance management within MassDOT; a
modernized asset-management system; reforms in metropolitan planning
organizations; the establishment of a state infrastructure bank;
changes to MBTA retirement eligibility; an alternative vehicle-miles
traveled pilot program; “value capture” financing for transit
financing; and further partnerships with the Massachusetts Port
Authority.
MassDOT says in the report it will propose a vehicle-miles-traveled
pilot program allowing drivers to voluntarily pay a fee for each
mile they travel in their vehicle instead of paying the state gas
tax.
The report estimates that charging drivers 2.4 cents per mile
traveled in Massachusetts would generate $1 billion in new revenue.
Over the next 10 years, the Massachusetts Department of
Transportation, MBTA and regional transit authorities face a $684
million unfunded liability for operating costs alone, according to
the report.
The report also suggests that the MassDOT board will also recommend
a number of fee increases to address budget deficits in fiscal 2014,
including an increase in registration fees by $53; an increase in
annual inspection fees by $19; an increase in license fees by $86;
an increase in I-90 tolls and MBTA fares by 5 percent; and $40
million in MBTA service cuts.
The proposal envisions funding the South Coast rail extension ($1.8
billion) and the Green Line extension ($674 million), as well as
rail service between Springfield and Boston ($362 million), Boston
and Hyannis ($21 million) and a connection between Pittsfield and
New York City rail ($114 million). The $850 million expansion of
South Station is also included. Other projects such as the
connection between the Red and Blue Lines and a North-South rail
link on the East Coast do not appear to be funded.
The MetroWest Daily News
May 28, 2012
Prevailing wage law frustrates MetroWest officials
By Brad Petrishen
Many local officials say the state’s prevailing wage law is a burden
on small-town construction projects, leading to senseless
overspending and unnecessary paperwork.
Passed in 1914, the law requires towns or the companies they
contract to pay workers “prevailing wages” set by the state’s
Department of Labor Standards.
The law was passed at a federal level in 1868, and its general aim
is to ensure quality in public construction by taking wages out of
the question.
If everyone must be paid the same, the quality of work will go up,
the theory goes, since there is no incentive for contractors to hire
cheaper, less-skilled workers in order to come in with the lowest
bid.
But critics of the law say that the wages set are often too high and
have created undue hardship on cities and towns looking to get small
projects done quickly and efficiently.
“The prevailing wage law, especially with such a squeeze on revenue
available for public construction projects, has become an issue,”
said Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts
Municipal Association.
Since wages are often based on local collective bargaining
agreements, Beckwith said one union’s negotiation can drive up
prices for a whole region — and may not even reflect the true
prevailing wage for that service statewide.
Beckwith said the MMA has pursued legislation to exempt smaller
projects from the law, but after years of trying it has not gotten a
response on Beacon Hill.
The issue was put to a statewide vote in 1998, when the law was
upheld with 58 percent of the vote.
In 2010, then-state Sen. Richard Tisei filed an amendment to a
municipal relief bill calling for exemption of municipal
construction projects pegged at less than $1 million from the
prevailing wage law.
The amendment failed, and public officials say the impact of the law
on small jobs is particularly frustrating in the current economic
climate.
“No matter how this is presented, the taxpayer always feels
cheated,” said Weston Facilities Manager Jerry McCarty, who said the
law increases his costs on small projects by about one-third.
Many local contractors won’t even take small jobs, he said, because
of the mountains of paperwork involved and because they don’t want
to have to pay their workers more on one job and significantly less
on the next.
McCarty said a carpenter who would generally pay workers about $20
an hour would have to pay $56 an hour on a town job because of wage
and benefits requirements under prevailing wage.
The time and money McCarty said he’s forced to spend on paperwork
and other related administrative requirements “is bureaucracy at its
worst,” he said.
In Northborough, selectmen recently skewered state Sens. Jamie
Eldridge, D-Acton, and Harriette Chandler, D-Worcester, for what
selectmen said was repeated ignorance to their concerns about the
law.
Eldridge said Thursday that he generally supports the law because
workers “should be earning a living wage.” He also noted that some
public officials in his constituency, including Littleton Town
Administrator Keith Bergman, also support the law.
Diego Low, director of the MetroWest Workers Center in Framingham,
said the paperwork required by the law is important because it
requires contractors to record who is working and when.
“The law makes it a whole lot easier to have some control over
(proving) whether workers have been paid for their work, and whether
health and safety standards are respected,” he said.
Eldridge said he would not rule out possibly modifying the law to
make things easier on town and cities. He said eliminating some of
the paperwork might be one solution.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 18 states do not have
prevailing wage laws, including New Hampshire, which repealed its
law in 1985.
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
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