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Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
45 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Monday, January 7, 2019
2019 off
to a great start ― for Bacon Hill pols
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″‘Trickle-down economics’ Bay State style,”
said Chip Ford, executive director of Citizens for
Limited Taxation.
“Legislators grabbed a 5.83 percent pay
raise and another illicit hike in their ‘expenses’ of 8
percent. Then the governor and other constitutional officers
got theirs. Like water flowing downhill, cabinet secretaries
and the well-connected schooling downstream catch the scraps
from the feeding frenzy,” continued Ford.
“Meanwhile, taxpayers got trickled on: A
paltry .05 percent pay raise from the minuscule reduction of
the long-past-due rollback of the 3-decades old ‘temporary’
income tax hike. On Beacon Hill this passes for ‘pay
equity.’ Marie-Antoinette called it ‘Let them eat cake.’”
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week of Dec. 31, 2018 - Jan 4, 2019
Massachusetts Legislature convenes 2019-20
Salary hike for cabinet members and others
Lawmakers returning to Beacon Hill will see
bigger paychecks, with a raise that gives them the
sixth-highest salary of full-time state legislators.
Base pay for 200 representatives and
senators will increase 6.95 percent, or $3,709, to $66,256 a
year for the two-year legislative session that got underway
on Wednesday....
That doesn't include a second pay bump that
lawmakers will see from a 8.3 percent increase to their
office expense accounts, which range from $15,000 to
$20,000, depending on how far they commute to the
Statehouse....
Tax watchdogs have blasted the pay raises as
a cash grab, saying the voter-approved constitutional
amendment that requires legislative pay adjustments allows
lawmakers to duck a politically sensitive vote to give
themselves a raise.
"This is trickle-down economics, Bay State
style," said Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation. "They seize a 5.93
percent pay raise and another illicit hike in their expenses
of 8 percent and even more money for a multitude of
leadership positions, then the governor and other
constitutional officers swoop in for theirs."
"Like water flowing downhill, cabinet
secretaries and the well-connected schooling downstream
catch the scraps from the feeding frenzy," he added.
Previous raise sparked controversy
Two years ago, lawmakers sparked an uproar
by approving $18 million in pay raises for legislative
leaders, statewide elected officials and judges.
The vote was even more controversial given
that it was the first action of the new two-year legislative
session....
Leadership stipends for the House speaker
and Senate president positions increased from $35,000 to
$80,000, bringing each leader’s aggregate pay to $142,547.
Stipends for leadership and committee assignments were
bumped from about $25,000 to $60,000 a year...
Legislative leaders have defended the
raises, arguing that stipends for leadership and committee
posts were stagnant for more than 30 years. Many lawmakers
have jobs in the private sector to supplement their incomes.
The pay hikes keep the Massachusetts
Legislature — one of 10 full-time legislatures — among the
country's highest paid.
California pays its legislators $110,459 a
year, New York pays $110,000 a year, and Pennsylvania pays
$88,610, according to the National Conference of State
Legislatures.
In New Hampshire, part-time legislators get
stipends of $200 a year. Connecticut pays part-time
legislators $28,000 a year, Rhode Island $15,414 and Maine
up to $14,272.
The Salem News
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Beacon Hill gets pay boost as new session begins
During his inaugural address the other day,
Gov. Charlie “Tall Deval” Baker somehow neglected to mention
perhaps the biggest news in state government.
Namely, his $100,000 pay raise, and the fact
that he is now the highest paid governor in the United
States. His base pay went from $151,800 to $185,000, and now
he also pockets a “housing allowance” of $65,000 a year.
Of course, he had to take that extra $2,000
a week, don’t you know. It was a “statutory requirement,” as
he said last fall. I guess that means it would have been a
crime for Tall Deval not to take the extra two grand a week.
And it’s not like the taxpayers aren’t
getting good return on their “investment” (a word Tall Deval
used at least three times in the course of his interminable,
paralyzingly boring remarks).
After all, at the same time Gov. Faker and
the rest of the hacks at the State House are grabbing
megabucks, if your family makes around the median annual
income for Massachusetts households ($77,000), then under
the recent income-tax “cut” you are going to grab an extra
70 cents a week in your paycheck.
Seventy cents a week. Don’t spend it all in
one place.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Sorry Charlie: Baker takes fat pay hike
By Howie Carr
Elected officials should not be in politics
for its lucrativeness. Public servants are held in high
esteem because in theory they are making a sacrifice for the
benefit of the greater good. The fact that so many on Beacon
Hill are living lavishly, with built-in raises and stipends
galore, is a testament to the reputation they’ve earned as
backroom dealmakers and opportunists.
A Boston Herald editorial
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Lawmakers hit taxpayers for new raises
State budget writers agreed Monday to build
their fiscal year 2020 budget plans on the assumption that
state tax revenues will grow by 2.7 percent over the current
fiscal year.
Gov. Charlie Baker's budget chief and the
leaders of the House and Senate Ways and Means Committees
detailed a finalized accord on how much tax revenue the
state expects to collect in fiscal year 2020, which begins
on July 1. Budget watchers also upgraded their expectations
for tax revenue in fiscal 2019, upping the projected total
revenue by $200 million, to $28.529 billion.
The estimate of $29.299 billion in tax
revenues for fiscal 2020 amounts to $770 million more in
revenue than the updated projection for the current fiscal
year. The projected growth rate will serve as the basis for
Baker's budget, which is due on Jan. 23, and budget-building
exercises this spring and summer in the House and Senate.
Economic experts who offered their financial
forecasts at the annual consensus revenue hearing earlier
this month predicted state revenue collections will grow
somewhere between 2 percent and 3.4 percent in fiscal
2020....
In announcing the agreed-upon revenue figure
of 2.7 percent, budget officials used words like "modest"
"more moderate," and "responsible" to describe the forecast
of the state revenue picture that represents a slowdown from
the 3.5 percent revenue growth the officials had agreed to
for the current year.
Fiscal 2018 tax collections of $27.787
billion surged 8.3 percent above fiscal 2017 collections,
according to state records.
The slowdown in natural revenue growth comes
as lawmakers re-evaluate plans for major increases in
education, transportation and health care spending, and ways
to pay for those investments. Legislative leaders have not
ruled out tax increases in the new year and any proposals to
raise taxes would be considered as part of the annual budget
debate over the first half of 2019....
The 2.7 percent growth figure, the budget
managers said, assumes the state income tax rate will drop
from 5.05 percent to 5 percent on Jan. 1, 2020. Earlier this
month, Baker's office announced that all of the necessary
economic triggers had been hit and the income tax will fall
from 5.1 percent to 5.05 percent on Jan. 1, 2019. The
reduction will have a $175 million impact on the state over
a complete fiscal year.
State House News Service
Monday, December 31, 2018
Early accord on state revenues points to 2.7 percent growth
Add plunging state tax collections to a list
of concerns that has recently grown to include a volatile
stock market, rising interest rates and increasing talk
about when the next recession may hit.
Tax receipts for the month of December alone
missed the monthly benchmark by more than half a billion
dollars, erasing months of above-benchmark collections and
leaving collections $108 million behind their targets midway
through fiscal 2019, according to data released late Friday
by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
Income tax estimated payments totaled just
$121 million for December, $542 million or 81.7 percent
below benchmark and $575 million or 82.6 percent below
December 2017.
"We underestimated the shift of estimated
payments from December into January. Early indications are
that other states may be having a similar experience,"
Revenue Commissioner Christopher Harding said in a
statement.
Other key categories of receipts such as
withholding, sales, and corporate taxes are flowing into
state coffers near benchmarks, said Harding, and estimated
payments, which are not due until Jan. 15, are "likely to be
stronger in January as a result of the shift," Harding
predicted.
"In prior years, many taxpayers chose to pay
in December, to take advantage of the federal deduction for
state taxes," Harding said. "The 2017 federal tax reform
reduced this incentive to prepay, by placing a $10,000 limit
on the deduction for state and local taxes."
State House News Service
Saturday, January 5, 2019
State tax haul plunges in December but revenue chief sees
January rebound
The eight Democrats who voted “present”
instead of casting ballots in open session for House Speaker
Robert DeLeo didn’t have a lot to lose on Wednesday. Their
basement offices will be tiny, their staffs minimal and
their voices rarely heard in the coming two-year legislative
session.
So making the symbolic gesture allowed them
to register their displeasure with the stifling of a move
earlier in the day to have the vote for House speaker done
as a secret ballot, instead of openly, for all – including
DeLeo and the reps he appointed to leadership positions – to
see.
With the 119-31 party line vote (House
Republicans backed Minority Leader Brad Jones for speaker),
DeLeo began his sixth term leading the House, the longest
continuously serving speaker in state history.
Five of the eight reps who voted present had
earlier urged their colleagues in the Democratic caucus to
allow the secret ballot in the future. These representatives
and their colleagues should be working to reinstitute a term
limit for the speaker’s position, something DeLeo and his
lieutenants successfully quashed in 2015. That move, in
effect, made DeLeo speaker for life. His tenure is bolstered
even more by the requirement the vote for speaker be done in
public, so every representative who votes against him, or
votes “present,” is on record....
Lawmakers speak about transparency in
government, then spend months in closed-door committee
meetings before coming to an open session where they often
vote in line with the speaker’s wishes. Selectmen and city
councilors live within the requirements of the state Open
Meeting Law, the very law that legislators refuse to adopt
for themselves. Lawmakers talk about how voters they heard
from on the campaign trail wanted change on Beacon Hill,
then the overwhelming majority of Democrats vote to both
keep the election of the speaker public, and vote the
speaker in for another two-year term. Bills by the score are
sent into House committees, most only coming back into the
light if the speaker agrees and wants a vote....
One of the dissidents on Wednesday, newcomer
Tami Gouveia, an Acton Democrat, said when she was out
campaigning “what I kept hearing over and over and over
again is the need for greater access and transparency in
government.
“And so my vote was about looking forward to
what’s the kind of government that we want to have and
what’s the kind of government that voters are demanding,”
she said. Gouveia voted present, and, we assume, then went
to her tiny basement office to ponder her uphill fight to
have any voice at all on Beacon Hill.
A Salem News editorial
Friday, January 4, 2019
Disappointing tradition continues in Mass. House
After a five months spent mostly campaigning
or in recess, the Legislature stirred back to life this week
with a blast of lame-duck legislating and proclamations of
their readiness to start proposing, vetting and passing laws
in the new session. But don't expect too much to happen too
quickly.
The first orders of business are internal in
nature and it often takes legislative leader weeks to work
through them. Office assignments depend on where lawmakers
fall in the leadership hierarchy and those structures, from
the most powerful who are backed by larger staffs to
backbenchers who serve on only a couple of committees and
work with a single aide, will not be determined for weeks by
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka.
Before making their many choices, the
leaders in each branch usually take stock during biennial
rules reform debates of where allegiances lie among the
members - are they taking positions favored by leadership,
for instance, or advocating for a break from the usual
practices. And leadership assignments this session in
particular will dictate more than just which policy areas
lawmakers will be tasked with reviewing.
Lawmakers in 2017 passed big increases in
the stipends attached to leadership assignments and included
in that law triggers that this year are increasing those
stipends at a faster rate than the base pay of legislators.
That means the income inequality that lawmakers built into
their own pay structure is growing, and DeLeo and Spilka
will decide which of their colleagues are on either side of
that equation....
State House News Service
Friday, January 4, 2018
Advances - Week of Jan. 6, 2018
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
In summarizing the first week of this
new legislative session on Beacon Hill the State House News Service
observed:
"After a five months spent mostly
campaigning or in recess, the Legislature stirred back
to life this week with a blast of lame-duck legislating
and proclamations of their readiness to start proposing,
vetting and passing laws in the new session. But don't
expect too much to happen too quickly."
Some things in the Legislature can be
counted on to happen very quickly and with polished
regularity.
Just as we saw at the start of the
last two-year legislative session in January of 2017,
after months of taxpayer-funded vacationing and plenty
of leisure time for scheming and plotting the session
opened with scandalous, self-serving, obscene pay
raises. Modeled after legislators' automatic pay
raises deceptively snuck into the state constitution in
1998 (See: "Come
hell or high water, legislators still get their pay
raise," by Barbara Anderson, Jan. 13, 2003), two
years ago they created automatic "stipend" and
"leadership" increases.
Nobody will ever
again have their fingerprints on the heists and none
will ever need to vote for the larceny. Perpetual
pay hikes are now on auto-pilot. Gov. Charlie
Baker took his huge increase, calling it a “statutory
requirement.”
See how it works? It's now "the
law" and laws need to be unquestionably obeyed
― when they benefit the
pols. If it's a law they don't like (e.g.,
deportation of illegals), then not so much.
Just two years later after the last
heist another two-year
legislative session once again opens with "The Best
Legislature Money Can Buy" becoming even wealthier on
the backs of beleaguered taxpayers. The Bacon Hill pols expect voters to forget their self-serving greed by
the time they run for re-election in two years. In
Massachusetts that's probably a smart bet, demonstrated
again just a couple of months ago at polling places
across the state. Why change a winning strategy?
But what a difference a mere week can
undergo.
Last Monday the State House News Service
reported:
"The
estimate of $29.299 billion in tax revenues for
fiscal 2020 amounts to $770 million more in revenue
than the updated projection for the current fiscal
year. The projected growth rate will serve as the
basis for Baker's budget, which is due on Jan. 23,
and budget-building exercises this spring and summer
in the House and Senate."
By Saturday, it reported that
rosy scenario had done a reversal, back-flip and headstand:
"Add plunging
state tax collections to a list of concerns that has
recently grown to include a volatile stock market,
rising interest rates and increasing talk about when
the next recession may hit.
"Tax receipts
for the month of December alone missed the monthly
benchmark by more than half a billion dollars,
erasing months of above-benchmark collections and
leaving collections $108 million behind their
targets midway through fiscal 2019, according to
data released late Friday by the Massachusetts
Department of Revenue."
This could well be the setup gambit for
tax increases ahead. (What, me cynical?
How could that be possible?) When was the
last time Beacon Hill pols reduced spending in the face
of reduced revenue? Nope, "The Solution" always is
to increase revenue so the spending binge can continue.
The State
House News Service further reported:
"The governor and legislative leaders have
already agreed on baseline tax revenues they
believe will be available for the fiscal 2020
budget, although the Legislature and Baker have
not made any determinations about possible
sources of new revenue. New revenues are on the
table unless and until lawmakers, often House
leaders in recent years, rule them out of the
mix."
For sure, 2019 is off to a good start
for pols on Beacon Hill, but not so much for taxpayers
who fund every cent they take and squander.
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week of Dec. 31, 2018 - Jan 4, 2019
Massachusetts Legislature convenes 2019-20
Salary hike for cabinet members and others
By Bob Katzen
The nine cabinet secretaries under the governor
have received a 5.5 percent pay hike.
The increase of $8,883 will raise their pay from
$161,522 to 170,405.
Executive agency heads and commissioners and
employees of the governor’s office will also
receive the 5.5 percent hike.
This hike comes only days after a total of $1.2
million in salary hikes per year was given last
week to the governor, the other five
constitutional statewide officers, 40 senators
and 160 representatives. These hikes ranged from
a low of $3,709 to a high of $80,000.
Supporters say that this raise is a fair and
reasonable one for the people who hold these
important positions. They note the governor’s
staff did not receive merit pay increases that
executive branch managers have received over the
past four years.
″‘Trickle-down economics’ Bay State style,” said
Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“Legislators grabbed a 5.83 percent pay raise
and another illicit hike in their ‘expenses’ of
8 percent. Then the governor and other
constitutional officers got theirs. Like water
flowing downhill, cabinet secretaries and the
well-connected schooling downstream catch the
scraps from the feeding frenzy,” continued Ford.
“Meanwhile, taxpayers got trickled on: A
paltry .05 percent pay raise from the minuscule
reduction of the long-past-due rollback of the
3-decades old ‘temporary’ income tax hike. On
Beacon Hill this passes for ‘pay equity.’
Marie-Antoinette called it ‘Let them eat cake.’”
The Salem News
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Beacon Hill gets pay boost as new session begins
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
Lawmakers returning to Beacon Hill will see
bigger paychecks, with a raise that gives them
the sixth-highest salary of full-time state
legislators.
The state Constitution requires the governor to
adjust lawmakers' pay every two years based on
changes in median household income. Base pay for
200 representatives and senators will increase
6.95 percent, or $3,709, to $66,256 a year for
the two-year legislative session that got
underway on Wednesday.
Median household income in Massachusetts
increased from $73,052 in 2015 to $77,385 in
2017, according to the state Department of
Revenue.
That doesn't include a second pay bump that
lawmakers will see from a 8.3 percent increase
to their office expense accounts, which range
from $15,000 to $20,000, depending on how far
they commute to the Statehouse.
Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who will be
sworn into a second term on Thursday, is also in
line for a hefty pay increase, with a salary
growing from $151,800 to $250,000, including a
housing allowance of $68,854. Baker and his
wife, Lauren, own a home in Swampscott valued at
more than $1.1 million.
Baker's pay raise is bigger, in part, because he
turned down a raise during his first term in
2017 that would have increased his salary from
$151,800 to $185,000 after the
Democrat-controlled Legislature overrode his
veto of the pay raise package. He also
previously rejected the housing stipend.
Baker's cabinet, including department
secretaries, agency heads, commissioners and
members of the governor's office, will get a 5.5
percent raise this year.
Other top elected officials — including
Secretary of State William Galvin, Attorney
General Maura Healey and Treasurer Deb Goldberg
— are also in line for raises.
Tax watchdogs have blasted the pay raises as a
cash grab, saying the voter-approved
constitutional amendment that requires
legislative pay adjustments allows lawmakers to
duck a politically sensitive vote to give
themselves a raise.
"This is trickle-down economics, Bay State
style," said Chip Ford, executive
director of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
"They seize a 5.93 percent pay raise and another
illicit hike in their expenses of 8 percent and
even more money for a multitude of leadership
positions, then the governor and other
constitutional officers swoop in for theirs."
"Like water flowing downhill, cabinet
secretaries and the well-connected schooling
downstream catch the scraps from the feeding
frenzy," he added.
Previous raise sparked controversy
Two years ago, lawmakers sparked an uproar by
approving $18 million in pay raises for
legislative leaders, statewide elected officials
and judges.
The vote was even more controversial given that
it was the first action of the new two-year
legislative session.
Baker vetoed the raises but lawmakers voted —
mostly along party lines, with GOP lawmakers
opposed — to override his veto.
The new law also substantially increased the
compensation paid to House and Senate leaders
and chairpersons of legislative committees.
Leadership stipends for the House speaker and
Senate president positions increased from
$35,000 to $80,000, bringing each leader’s
aggregate pay to $142,547. Stipends for
leadership and committee assignments were bumped
from about $25,000 to $60,000 a year.
The additional compensation means House Speaker
Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, and Senate President
Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, will bring home nearly
$170,000 a year each.
Legislative leaders have defended the raises,
arguing that stipends for leadership and
committee posts were stagnant for more than 30
years. Many lawmakers have jobs in the private
sector to supplement their incomes.
The pay hikes keep the Massachusetts Legislature
— one of 10 full-time legislatures — among the
country's highest paid.
California pays its legislators $110,459 a year,
New York pays $110,000 a year, and Pennsylvania
pays $88,610, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures.
In New Hampshire, part-time legislators get
stipends of $200 a year. Connecticut pays
part-time legislators $28,000 a year, Rhode
Island $15,414 and Maine up to $14,272.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Sorry Charlie: Baker takes fat pay hike
By Howie Carr
During his inaugural address the other day, Gov.
Charlie “Tall Deval” Baker somehow neglected to
mention perhaps the biggest news in state
government.
Namely, his $100,000 pay raise, and the fact
that he is now the highest paid governor in the
United States. His base pay went from $151,800
to $185,000, and now he also pockets a “housing
allowance” of $65,000 a year.
Of course, he had to take that extra $2,000 a
week, don’t you know. It was a “statutory
requirement,” as he said last fall. I guess that
means it would have been a crime for Tall Deval
not to take the extra two grand a week.
And it’s not like the taxpayers aren’t getting
good return on their “investment” (a word Tall
Deval used at least three times in the course of
his interminable, paralyzingly boring remarks).
After all, at the same time Gov. Faker and the
rest of the hacks at the State House are
grabbing megabucks, if your family makes around
the median annual income for Massachusetts
households ($77,000), then under the recent
income-tax “cut” you are going to grab an extra
70 cents a week in your paycheck.
Seventy cents a week. Don’t spend it all in one
place.
While the RINO governor collects an extra
hundred grand a year – this is what Gov. M.
Stanley Dukakis used to call “good jobs at good
wages.” And for Tall Deval, at age 62, it gets
even better, because, as one of Whitey Bulger’s
pals, Fat Harry Johnson, once noted: “Behind the
salary comes the pension.”
The governor’s office was asked Friday about his
pension status. I mean, he’s been feeding at the
public trough off and on practically since he
was a child. But his coat holders declined to
answer the question if he’s vested, so we can
assume he is.
However, I have some very bad news to share with
Tall Deval. In fact, I would call it
“disappointing,” as he always describes any
actions by President Donald J. Trump.
More than a decade ago, Billy Bulger, the
Corrupt Midget, sued to have his “housing
allowance” from UMass included in his pension —
$200,000-plus a year since 2003, by the way. And
some people still say crime doesn’t pay. It’s
one thing to slop at the trough, it’s another
thing to lick the plate – just ask the Corrupt
Midget.
The courts, as rotten as the rest of state
government, OK’d the Corrupt Midget’s extra
money grab. But Friday, I made a call to the
state treasurer, who oversees the Retirement
Board. I was shocked to learn that the
regulations were amended in 2009 so that “wages
shall not include, without limitation, indirect,
in-kind or other payments for such items as
housing.”
In other words, Tall Deval is NOT going to be
able to grab an extra four grand a month in his
state kiss in the mail based on his “housing
allowance.”
Not that he’ll be subsisting on pet food in his
dotage up in his $1.1 million mansion in
Swampscott. Let’s say Tall Deval, career payroll
patriot, grabs 80 percent, or close to it – 0.8
times $185,000 is still $148,000 a year.
Is your pension going to be $148,000 a year?
The swearing-in was attended of course by Tall
Deval’s family – his wife, his father, and his
three kids, one of whom, A.J., was accused last
summer of groping a female passenger on a Jet
Blue flight to Logan. That case has been
effectively broomed.
As Tall Deval noted in his address, without
elaboration:
“We have also made progress on criminal justice
… Nobody wants to see someone’s life ruined over
a small-time lapse in judgment.”
Anyone in particular you’re referring to, Tall
Deval?
One of the more humorous moments came when
Senate President Karen Spilka, presiding over
the proceedings, announced that “at this time I
would invite” the governor’s family up to the
podium for the swearing-in.
Tall Deval was out of his seat like a rocket. He
rushed up to Spilka and leaned over her shoulder
at the podium.
“Just my dad,” he said.
“Oh,” said the Senate president. “OK.”
“Just my dad,” he repeated.
The Baker spalpeens, for the record, were seated
just in front of a number of uniformed cops –
Boston brass, it looked like to me, which was a
good decision by somebody, considering that the
ultra-corrupt State Police have already broomed
at least one case against the governor’s son.
Meanwhile, Kevin Spacey is due in court down on
Nantucket tomorrow to answer to charges of
sexual assault.
“Your Honor,” he should say, “I ask for no
special treatment from this court. Just treat me
like Tall Deval’s son.”
Howie’s new book, “Kennedy Babylon Vol. 2,”
is now available for immediate shipment at
howiecarrshow.com.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, December 29, 2018
A Boston Herald editorial
Lawmakers hit taxpayers for new raises
Our elected leaders in Massachusetts must be
doing something right because they are about to
get a near 6 percent raise. The new year will
see state lawmaker salaries bump up from $62,547
to $66,256.
If it seems like the legislature just recently
got a pay raise that’s because they did. In fact
they get one every two years — it’s written into
the Massachusetts Constitution that their pay
correlate with the state’s median household
income.
Many in the legislature also received a fattened
paycheck when they voted themselves another hike
in 2017. That gave the President of the Senate
and the Speaker of the House a 40 percent pay
raise, each. Many others in “leadership roles”
also benefited — and there are a lot of
leadership roles on Beacon Hill. Leadership
positions and committee chairmanships will also
see a bigger payday in 2019.
Some lawmakers have historically defended their
pay raises by contending that if their
compensation is not commensurate with that in
the private sector, only the very rich will have
the financial resources to enter politics.
First, plenty of politicians working on Beacon
Hill also hold jobs elsewhere and the schedule
of a legislator is far from rigorous. Second,
there is no need for Massachusetts to have a
full-time legislature, only a small number of
states do. Ideally our representatives would
primarily be working in the real world and would
only convene a handful of times — at most —
every year.
It’s not just the legislature. As the Herald’s
Joe Battenfeld reported, Gov. Baker will also
accept a pay raise taking a 67 percent boost in
compensation — including a $68,854 “housing
allowance” even though he lives in a $1.1
million manse in Swampscott. Baker’s total
compensation will skyrocket from $151,800 to
$253,854 — starting Jan. 1.
Elected officials should not be in politics for
its lucrativeness. Public servants are held in
high esteem because in theory they are making a
sacrifice for the benefit of the greater good.
The fact that so many on Beacon Hill are living
lavishly, with built-in raises and stipends
galore, is a testament to the reputation they’ve
earned as backroom dealmakers and opportunists.
State House News Service
Monday, December 31, 2018
Early accord on state revenues points to 2.7
percent growth
By Colin A. Young
State budget writers agreed Monday to build
their fiscal year 2020 budget plans on the
assumption that state tax revenues will grow by
2.7 percent over the current fiscal year.
Gov. Charlie Baker's budget chief and the
leaders of the House and Senate Ways and Means
Committees detailed a finalized accord on how
much tax revenue the state expects to collect in
fiscal year 2020, which begins on July 1. Budget
watchers also upgraded their expectations for
tax revenue in fiscal 2019, upping the projected
total revenue by $200 million, to $28.529
billion.
The estimate of $29.299 billion in tax revenues
for fiscal 2020 amounts to $770 million more in
revenue than the updated projection for the
current fiscal year. The projected growth rate
will serve as the basis for Baker's budget,
which is due on Jan. 23, and budget-building
exercises this spring and summer in the House
and Senate.
Economic experts who offered their financial
forecasts at the annual consensus revenue
hearing earlier this month predicted state
revenue collections will grow somewhere between
2 percent and 3.4 percent in fiscal 2020.
In announcing the agreed-upon revenue figure of
2.7 percent, budget officials used words like
"modest" "more moderate," and "responsible" to
describe the forecast of the state revenue
picture that represents a slowdown from the 3.5
percent revenue growth the officials had agreed
to for the current year.
Fiscal 2018 tax collections of $27.787 billion
surged 8.3 percent above fiscal 2017
collections, according to state records.
The slowdown in natural revenue growth comes as
lawmakers re-evaluate plans for major increases
in education, transportation and health care
spending, and ways to pay for those investments.
Legislative leaders have not ruled out tax
increases in the new year and any proposals to
raise taxes would be considered as part of the
annual budget debate over the first half of
2019.
"The FY20 forecast reflects modest growth in the
Commonwealth's economy, consistent with
testimony we have heard from economic experts,"
Administration and Finance Secretary Michael
Heffernan said in a statement. "Reaching
agreement on a consensus revenue forecast is a
critical first step in developing a fiscally
responsible budget for FY20."
Sen. Joan Lovely, who serves as vice chair of
the Senate Ways and Means Committee but has led
the committee since Chairwoman Karen Spilka
became Senate president, said the 2.7 percent
growth estimate will be enough to invest in
programs and to stash money away in the
stabilization fund.
"Given the Consensus Revenue testimony that
forecast more moderate growth for the next
fiscal year, I believe that this number will
give us a firm foundation on which to craft a
budget that makes necessary prudent investments
in both the needs of the people of the
Commonwealth and the Rainy Day Fund," she said
in a statement.
House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Jeffrey
Sanchez, who is leaving the Legislature this
week after losing his November re-election bid,
said the agreement leaves the state in good
fiscal hands.
"Through engaging economists and other fiscal
experts, we've come to a responsible FY20
Consensus Revenue agreement that sets the stage
for the next budget process," he said. "Thank
you to Secretary Heffernan and Vice Chair Lovely
for the thoughtful collaboration in coming to
this agreement. It's through this cooperation
that Massachusetts continues its strong economic
growth and is why Massachusetts is well
positioned for what may lie ahead."
The 2.7 percent growth figure, the budget
managers said, assumes the state income tax rate
will drop from 5.05 percent to 5 percent on Jan.
1, 2020. Earlier this month, Baker's office
announced that all of the necessary economic
triggers had been hit and the income tax will
fall from 5.1 percent to 5.05 percent on Jan. 1,
2019. The reduction will have a $175 million
impact on the state over a complete fiscal year.
Heffernan, Sanchez and Lovely also agreed Monday
on a transfer of $1.077 billion to the
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, a
$917 million transfer to the Massachusetts
School Building Authority, and $25 million to
the Workforce Training Fund.
There will also be a $2.841 billion transfer to
the state pension fund -- an increase of $233
million over the fiscal 2019 contribution --
which is expected to keep Massachusetts on track
to fully fund its pension liability by 2036.
After a total of $5.080 billion in transfers,
the maximum amount of tax revenue available for
the fiscal 2020 budget will be $24.219 billion,
the officials agreed. The state budget, which
totals about $41.7 billion this fiscal year, is
supplemented by federal revenues along with
non-tax revenues like fees.
Neither the fiscal 2019 revenue estimate
adjustment nor the fiscal 2020 estimate
announced Monday include projections of
non-medical marijuana revenue. Five retail
marijuana stores have opened in Massachusetts
and regulators expect a handful more to come
online each month. Marijuana sales are subject
to a 10.75 percent excise tax and the state's
6.25 percent sales tax, as well as a local tax
of up to 3 percent.
"With the industry at its beginning stages, the
three branches decided to set aside the
marijuana forecast so that the Administration,
House, and Senate can make independent decisions
on marijuana revenue for FY20 based on available
information as each goes to print their budget
proposals," the administration wrote in a press
release Monday.
The Department of Revenue is still forecasting
that Massachusetts will take in between $44
million and $82 million in marijuana taxes this
fiscal year and could bring in as much as $172
million in fiscal year 2020, Revenue
Commissioner Christopher Harding told lawmakers
in early December.
Also Monday, Heffernan, Sanchez and Lovely
agreed to a 3.6 percent rate of potential gross
state product growth for calendar year 2019, the
same figure that has been used the past four
years to set up a health care cost growth
benchmark under the 2012 cost containment law.
State House News Service
Saturday, January 5, 2019
State tax haul plunges in December but revenue
chief sees January rebound
By Michael P. Norton
Add plunging state tax collections to a list of
concerns that has recently grown to include a
volatile stock market, rising interest rates and
increasing talk about when the next recession
may hit.
Tax receipts for the month of December alone
missed the monthly benchmark by more than half a
billion dollars, erasing months of
above-benchmark collections and leaving
collections $108 million behind their targets
midway through fiscal 2019, according to data
released late Friday by the Massachusetts
Department of Revenue.
Income tax estimated payments totaled just $121
million for December, $542 million or 81.7
percent below benchmark and $575 million or 82.6
percent below December 2017.
"We underestimated the shift of estimated
payments from December into January. Early
indications are that other states may be having
a similar experience," Revenue Commissioner
Christopher Harding said in a statement.
Other key categories of receipts such as
withholding, sales, and corporate taxes are
flowing into state coffers near benchmarks, said
Harding, and estimated payments, which are not
due until Jan. 15, are "likely to be stronger in
January as a result of the shift," Harding
predicted.
"In prior years, many taxpayers chose to pay in
December, to take advantage of the federal
deduction for state taxes," Harding said. "The
2017 federal tax reform reduced this incentive
to prepay, by placing a $10,000 limit on the
deduction for state and local taxes."
Suffolk University professor of economics David
Tuerck said the December numbers, however
disappointing, "should come as no surprise."
"After a very strong recovery in FY 2018,
revenue growth is headed downward, in line with
historical averages," he said.
Tuerck, the president of the Beacon Hill
Institute, said he stands by the institute's
prediction that fiscal 2019 tax revenues will
grow by 6.6 percent but also noted the
institute's projection that tax revenue growth
in fiscal 2020 will slow to 2.4 percent.
"The December numbers are just an early
indication of this downward trend," he said.
Total December collections were $440 million or
14.6 percent less than collections in December
2017. Revenue collections of $13.312 billion
over the first six months of fiscal 2019 are
$108 million or nearly 1 percent below the
year-to-date benchmark and $387 million or 3
percent greater than the same fiscal
year-to-date period in 2017.
The original benchmark for fiscal year 2019 was
$28.392 billion, but state officials on New
Year's Eve, just four days before reporting the
huge drop in December receipts, raised it to
$28.529 billion, citing "current year-to-date
revenues and economic data" and backing off the
books an estimate of $63 million in marijuana
tax revenues.
The estimate that collections midway through
fiscal 2019 are running $108 million behind
benchmark is based on the original benchmark, an
administration official said.
House Minority Leader Brad Jones told the News
Service on Friday night that the December
revenue drop "shows that more people are
realizing there are reduced tax benefits to
paying estimates by the end of December, as the
federal deductibility has been limited under the
2017 tax law changes."
"This absolutely demands close daily scrutiny
moving forward," said Jones. "It also means the
mid-January numbers may take on a little more
importance than usual, and the numbers for the
month of January as a whole certainly will. This
should also serve as a reminder that the
Legislature needs to continue to exercise fiscal
restraint and not use the recent trend of rising
revenues as an excuse for excessive spending
increases that could prove to be unsustainable."
December is the fifth largest month of the year
for tax collections and revenues for the month
totaled $2.568 billion.
Fiscal 2018 tax collections of $27.787 billion
surged 8.3 percent above fiscal 2017
collections, following several years in which
collections tailed off during the final six
months of the fiscal year.
Gov. Charlie Baker, who has opposed broad-based
tax hikes while eliminating budget deficits and
building the state rainy day fund, this month
plans to file his fiscal 2020 budget proposal.
If natural growth in tax collections erodes,
major investments in priority areas like
education, health care and transportation will
become more difficult.
State budget writers agreed Monday to build
their fiscal year 2020 budget plans on the
assumption that tax revenues will grow by 2.7
percent over the current fiscal year.
In his inaugural address Thursday afternoon, a
day before the December numbers were released,
Baker described the state economy as "booming."
"We have more people working than at any time in
state history," Baker said. "Over 200,000 jobs
have been created since we took office. Our
labor force participation rate is at an all-time
high. And people are moving to Massachusetts
because we offer good jobs and opportunity."
The Salem News
Friday, January 4, 2019
A Salem News editorial
Disappointing tradition continues in Mass. House
The eight Democrats who voted “present” instead
of casting ballots in open session for House
Speaker Robert DeLeo didn’t have a lot to lose
on Wednesday. Their basement offices will be
tiny, their staffs minimal and their voices
rarely heard in the coming two-year legislative
session.
So making the symbolic gesture allowed them to
register their displeasure with the stifling of
a move earlier in the day to have the vote for
House speaker done as a secret ballot, instead
of openly, for all – including DeLeo and the
reps he appointed to leadership positions – to
see.
With the 119-31 party line vote (House
Republicans backed Minority Leader Brad Jones
for speaker), DeLeo began his sixth term leading
the House, the longest continuously serving
speaker in state history.
Five of the eight reps who voted present had
earlier urged their colleagues in the Democratic
caucus to allow the secret ballot in the future.
These representatives and their colleagues
should be working to reinstitute a term limit
for the speaker’s position, something DeLeo and
his lieutenants successfully quashed in 2015.
That move, in effect, made DeLeo speaker for
life. His tenure is bolstered even more by the
requirement the vote for speaker be done in
public, so every representative who votes
against him, or votes “present,” is on record.
Rep. John Rogers, a Norwood Democrat who lost to
DeLeo in a bid for the speaker’s seat in 2009,
said he voted “present” on Wednesday because he
still believed the speaker’s position should be
a limited term.
The argument for an open election of the speaker
is that constituents deserve to hear where
lawmakers stand on every vote. According to
State House News Service, Rep. Tackey Chan, a
Quincy Democrat, said “a secret ballot defies a
republic,” although that is in contrast to the
fact all Massachusetts voters cast a secret
ballot every time they’re in the voting booth.
But being a representative of the people,
elected at the ballot box, should mean every
vote you cast is done in public.
Lawmakers speak about transparency in
government, then spend months in closed-door
committee meetings before coming to an open
session where they often vote in line with the
speaker’s wishes. Selectmen and city councilors
live within the requirements of the state Open
Meeting Law, the very law that legislators
refuse to adopt for themselves. Lawmakers talk
about how voters they heard from on the campaign
trail wanted change on Beacon Hill, then the
overwhelming majority of Democrats vote to both
keep the election of the speaker public, and
vote the speaker in for another two-year term.
Bills by the score are sent into House
committees, most only coming back into the light
if the speaker agrees and wants a vote.
In her farewell speech on the House floor a
month ago, Rep. Cory Atkins, a Democratic House
member since 1998 from Concord, lamented the
power shift on Beacon Hill as DeLeo’s stature
has grown.
Atkins criticized DeLeo for his tight control of
access to leadership and on trying to control
how lawmakers vote. She said in her early years
on Beacon Hill, a representative could get a
meeting with the speaker within a day, and he
would ask for members’ votes “rather than
expecting me to offer a pledge.”
One of the dissidents on Wednesday, newcomer
Tami Gouveia, an Acton Democrat, said when she
was out campaigning “what I kept hearing over
and over and over again is the need for greater
access and transparency in government.
“And so my vote was about looking forward to
what’s the kind of government that we want to
have and what’s the kind of government that
voters are demanding,” she said. Gouveia voted
present, and, we assume, then went to her tiny
basement office to ponder her uphill fight to
have any voice at all on Beacon Hill.
State House News Service
Friday, January 4, 2018
Advances - Week of Jan. 6, 2018
After a five months spent mostly campaigning or
in recess, the Legislature stirred back to life
this week with a blast of lame-duck legislating
and proclamations of their readiness to start
proposing, vetting and passing laws in the new
session. But don't expect too much to happen too
quickly.
The first orders of business are internal in
nature and it often takes legislative leader
weeks to work through them. Office assignments
depend on where lawmakers fall in the leadership
hierarchy and those structures, from the most
powerful who are backed by larger staffs to
backbenchers who serve on only a couple of
committees and work with a single aide, will not
be determined for weeks by House Speaker Robert
DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka.
Before making their many choices, the leaders in
each branch usually take stock during biennial
rules reform debates of where allegiances lie
among the members - are they taking positions
favored by leadership, for instance, or
advocating for a break from the usual practices.
And leadership assignments this session in
particular will dictate more than just which
policy areas lawmakers will be tasked with
reviewing.
Lawmakers in 2017 passed big increases in the
stipends attached to leadership assignments and
included in that law triggers that this year are
increasing those stipends at a faster rate than
the base pay of legislators. That means the
income inequality that lawmakers built into
their own pay structure is growing, and DeLeo
and Spilka will decide which of their colleagues
are on either side of that equation.
Two of the highest paying and most powerful
positions in the Legislature, the House and
Senate Ways and Means chairmanships, are both
vacant, a highly unusual occurrence, especially
in budget season. DeLeo and Spilka both ran Ways
and Means before rising to the top, and their
picks for those posts will instantly be in the
conversation, as all Ways and Means chairs are,
as potential successors....
Gov. Charlie Baker on Jan. 23 will file his
annual state budget to kick off fiscal 2020
deliberations that will run through June, at
least. Negotiations over major changes in public
education funding broke down last summer among
Democrats, and Baker in his inaugural address
signaled that he's ready to put that issue on
the early session agenda.
State tax collections in Massachusetts in
December fell nearly 15 percent lower than
collections last December, state revenue
officials announced after 5 p.m. Friday.
Collections are now suddenly running about 1
percent under benchmark midway through fiscal
2019.
The governor said he would feature updates to
the K-12 education funding formula in his annual
budget. A coalition that supports new revenues
to significantly boost education spending is
clamoring for action on the issue early this
year. If that happens, then significant new
investments could show up in the public schools
in time for the 2019-2020 academic year.
A big question is whether Beacon Hill will just
adopt a funding schedule to cover previously
identified unfunded special education and health
insurance costs or whether they will go beyond
that benchmark and deliver even more funding in
an attempt to shrink gaps in the quality of
education from community to community.
Another important housekeeping question: will
education funding and formula changes be
incorporated into the annual budget, which has a
July 1 deadline, or will the Legislature decide
to tackle that major issue in standalone
legislation? It could be a blend, with extra
funding in the budget and a reform bill moving
separately from the budget.
The governor and legislative leaders have
already agreed on baseline tax revenues they
believe will be available for the fiscal 2020
budget, although the Legislature and Baker have
not made any determinations about possible
sources of new revenue. New revenues are on the
table unless and until lawmakers, often House
leaders in recent years, rule them out of the
mix.
Speaker DeLeo was among the lawmakers who
cheered the governor when in his inaugural
address he cited progress without raising taxes.
For the record though, new taxes and fees have
cleared Beacon Hill under the current leadership
structure in connection with the new paid family
and medical leave program, marijuana sales,
short-term rentals, and municipal police
training so it's hardly like the powers that be
have an ironclad rule against building on
revenues. |
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Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
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