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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
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Will
Proposition 2½ still stand next week or be
weakened?
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House leaders this
week stripped off the fall agenda one of the most important
and controversial bills in the mix, and the agenda for the
close of formal sessions for 2019 is now a little clearer.
With
transportation tax and fee proposals idling in the breakdown
lane for now, lawmakers appear to instead be working toward
finishing work on legislation pledging $1.5 billion in new
state aid for K-12 education over seven years and wrapping
up work on a more than $700 million bill that spends most of
the fiscal 2019 surplus while making a big deposit into the
state rainy day fund.
Education bill
negotiators Rep. Alice Peisch and Sen. Jason Lewis face
pressure to deliver in the coming days on what would be the
largest major accomplishment for the Legislature in 2019.
Similarly, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Michael Rodrigues
are under the gun to reconcile their differences over fiscal
2019 spending before debate starts in a few weeks on fiscal
2021 spending plans....
The House and
Senate meet in informal sessions on Monday and under joint
rules, they will then have just Tuesday and Wednesday to
hold formal sessions.
Conference
committees are supposed to file compromise bills by 8 p.m.
the night before their proposals go before the House and
Senate, though lawmakers have suspended that fair-notice
rule in the past.
Starting on
Thursday and until January, the branches will meet in
informal sessions where important business is sometimes
still conducted, although any single member can block the
advancement of any bill during informals.
State House News Service
Friday, November 15, 2019
Advances - Week of Nov. 17, 2019
With just days
remaining until the Legislature recesses until 2020, House
Speaker Robert DeLeo said Thursday he's decided to push back
his timeline for a hotly anticipated debate over new revenue
for transportation until next year.
DeLeo and Ways and
Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz told the News Service that
their commitment to passing legislation to raise new funding
for transportation infrastructure has not waned.
The goal set by
DeLeo for a fall debate, however, would require decisions on
how to generate and spend new revenues that the Democratic
leaders are not quite ready to make.
"After reviewing
this with myself, the chairman (Michlewitz), Chairman (Mark)
Cusack and Chairman (William) Straus, we decided that it's
better that we try to get this right than to try to comply
with, I guess you could say, a somewhat arbitrary deadline,"
DeLeo told the News Service.
The Legislature is
set to recess on Nov. 20, and resume formal sessions in
January. While the House and Senate will continue to meet in
informal sessions through December, anything that requires a
roll call vote must wait....
The Winthrop
Democrat said he's "shooting for January now" to produce and
vote on a revenue bill in the House, acknowledging that some
legislators will be unhappy about the prospect of voting for
tax increases in an election year....
DeLeo said he
knows some House members will say delaying the debate until
2020 "makes the whole thing a little more difficult," but
he's confident that the support for action will still be
there....
Second Assistant
Majority Leader Paul Donato presided over the House's brief
Thursday session.
After the House
adjourned until Monday, Donato said the education bill and a
more than $700 million fiscal 2019 surplus spending bill are
the two biggest priorities to get done by Wednesday.
"My understanding
from both chairs on the Senate and the House side is that
they're very very close," Donato said of the education
negotiations.
State House News Service
Thursday, November 14, 2019
House Kicking Transportation $$$ Debate Into 2020
House Speaker
Robert DeLeo is putting off a debate over tax legislation to
fund transportation improvements until next year, throwing
into doubt whether anything will happen in an area that
advocates and business groups say is in desperate need of
more funding.
After expressing
some uncertainty Wednesday about his plans to take up the
tax bill this fall and as word began to leak out on
Thursday, DeLeo and House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron
Michlewitz told the State House News Service that they were
postponing the debate.
“We decided that
it’s better that we try to get this right than to try to
comply with, I guess you could say, a somewhat arbitrary
deadline,” said DeLeo, who insisted most House lawmakers are
committed to addressing transportation needs.
The delay pushes
the entire legislative process into an election year, when
lawmakers tend to be more sensitive about taking politically
risky votes. It may also signal some reluctance to raise
taxes to finance transportation improvements overall....
DeLeo said his new
target is to put a bill out in January.
“Our commitment to
the issue is still very strong, is still there. Our timeline
is just going to be a little different than we initially
perceived it to be,” said Michlewitz....
After DeLeo’s
announcement, the [Mass.] High Tech Council issued a
statement saying it was wise “to avoid any rush to revenue…
The size of the tax, toll, and fee proposals advanced by
some advocates are too large and the scope of their
potential impact is too broad to move forward in anything
but a methodical and data-driven way....
Stephen Brewer,
who was chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee
during the last major tax debate in 2013, said in a phone
interview that legislative leaders will need to count votes,
and it is especially important to have adequate support to
override the governor if he is inclined to veto the bill.
“There’s nothing
worse than taking a tax vote and not having it become law,”
Brewer said. “It’s tough enough to take one. But if you take
one and you’re on record and you didn’t get the revenues for
it, then you lose twice.” ...
As the House put
off action on a transportation bill, a new poll indicates 71
percent of voters think “action is urgently needed to
improve the state’s transportation system” and 77 percent
support new revenues to invest in transportation.
CommonWealth Magazine
Thursday, November 14, 2019
DeLeo calls off transpo tax debate —
for now
Cities and towns
across Massachusetts are about to feel a real consequence of
the Legislature's inability to close the books on the fiscal
year that ended in June.
On Friday, the
Department of Revenue is due to make its annual distribution
of matching funds to cities and towns that raise revenue
through the Community Preservation Act but an extra $20
million that the Legislature directed to the CPA Trust Fund
won't be part of the payout.
When it passed a
compromise fiscal 2020 budget in July, the Legislature
included a provision directing the state comptroller to
transfer $20 million from the fiscal 2019 surplus to the CPA
Trust Fund as a way to bridge the gap until new, higher fees
funding the CPA Trust Fund kick in next year.
But because the
House and Senate have not been able to resolve their
differences on a supplemental budget that would allow the
comptroller to finalize surplus transfers, that $20 million
has not yet been deposited into the trust and CPA
communities will instead receive a state match of just 11
percent of what they raised in property tax surcharges....
The more-than-$700
million supplemental budget bill has been hung up between
the House and Senate for weeks and neither side has shed
insight on the holdups or when a final bill might emerge.
Whenever it does get done, this year's close-out bill will
be finalized later than any year since at least 1995.
State House News Service
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Budget Holdup Blocking $20 Mil CPA Fund Distribution
Having watched
another week go by without finalizing budget work left over
from fiscal year 2019, the House and Senate now stand to
forfeit more than $1 million in interest that the state
could have earned had lawmakers completed their work on
time.
The Legislature's
inability to agree on a bill closing the books on the fiscal
year that ended in June is keeping Comptroller Andrew Maylor
from filing an annual report, which he was statutorily due
to file by Oct. 31. And with the branches at loggerheads
over the supplemental budget, hundreds of millions of
dollars in fiscal 2019 surplus funds are sitting in the
General Fund waiting to be transferred to the Stabilization
Fund.
In late October,
Maylor told the Legislature that if he was able to file his
report by Friday, Nov. 15, the state will have lost out on
more than $500,000 in interest and would lose out on at
least $30,000 more each day after the 15th until he is able
to file the report and make the transfer.
But it will take
Maylor's office about 14 days -- or $420,000 in foregone
interest -- from the time Gov. Charlie Baker eventually
signs the supplemental budget bill to be ready to file his
report, he said. So if the Legislature enacts the bill at
the next chance it has, Monday, and the governor signs it
immediately, Massachusetts will have lost out on $1.01
million in interest payments by the time all is said and
done.
"I realize that in
the context of the state government spending that this
amount may not seem important, but as a taxpayer and someone
who spent more than 25 years in local government, that sum
is meaningful," the comptroller wrote to the governor and
Legislature in late October, when the estimate of forfeited
interest was only $500,000....
Lawmakers have
appeared unfazed by the inability to wrap up the fiscal year
that ended 138 days ago, although the protracted process is
cutting into the amount of time legislative leaders have to
focus on other issues. The Legislature often procrastinates,
leaving many important decisions to be made in a frenzy
every other July.
State House News Service
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Cost of Budget Delay Surpassing $1 Million
Massachusetts
voters support raising new revenue to make transportation
investments, but a new poll shows they are divided over some
of the key methods that lawmakers are weighing to generate
funding....
While registered
voters showed some support for other strategies such as
increasing fees on ride-share services, a poll of 600
registered voters, released Friday by the MassINC Polling
Group, revealed a split reception to a phased-in gas tax
hike and majority opposition for a larger, all-at-once
increase.
House leaders, who
this week agreed to delay their planned fall debate until at
least January, have said bumping up the state's
24-cent-per-gallon gas tax will likely be a central
component of the eventual package, arguing that every penny
increase leads to another $35 million in revenue....
Despite their lack
of enthusiasm for gas tax hikes and for expanding roadway
tolls to highways that do not currently have them, voters
surveyed backed several revenue-generating ideas that have
been floated on Beacon Hill....
MassINC's poll
found 71 percent of respondents agreed that "action is
urgently needed to improve the state's transportation
system." Seventy-seven percent strongly or somewhat
supported the general push for new transportation revenue
compared to 15 percent who were opposed.
However, 49
percent of respondents also said they believe the state has
the money it needs for transportation and only needs to
spend it well compared to 39 percent who said more money is
necessary regardless.
[See graphic below for poll
results]
State House News Service
Friday, November 15, 2019
Poll: Voters Split on Key Transpo Revenue Ideas
In the Veterans
Day shortened week, House and Senate Democrats got no closer
to agreeing on how to spend over $700 million in surplus
revenue from fiscal 2019, which ended July 1. But with three
days of sessions left, House Speaker Robert DeLeo did
lighten the pre-recess load in one big way.
The speaker said
he's decided to push off a debate over new transportation
revenues until January, requiring more time to take feedback
from members and outside interest groups before deciding on
a package that is widely expected to include a hike in the
gas tax....
State House News Service
Friday, November 15, 2019
Weekly Roundup - Changing Minds
Congratulations,
fellow Massachusetts taxpayers: We’re millionaires.
At least that’s
how state agencies see us — deep-pocketed and willing to
foot $75B worth of overhauling, repairing, maintenance and
improvement transportation projects.
As the Herald’s
Sean Philip Cotter reported, the state’s letter to Santa
includes a potential $28.5 billion option to overhaul the
Commuter Rail that already got a partial high sign from the
MBTA’s oversight board; the Green Line extension; and
billions in long-overdue maintenance fixes to get the
Department of Transportation and the MBTA up to a normal
state of repair. There’s a plan to straighten the Pike in
Allston for $1.2 billion, and other highway fixes aimed at
reducing congestion and repairing neglected roads and
bridges.
We’re Santa....
“There is no
foreseeable way that Massachusetts would be able to spend
$75 billion on transportation over the next decade,” said
former Inspector General Greg Sullivan, now of the Pioneer
Institute. “We have to be thinking about dollars and cents —
including common sense — in terms of how to ameliorate
traffic congestion.”
Paul Craney of the
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance said, “The number is so high
that it’s hard to fathom — it’d make the Big Dig look
minuscule.”
The Boston
business group A Better City is pushing for $50 billion in
spending over the next 20 years, including several of the
above-mentioned projects — and they have ideas on how to get
the money.
A Better City is
advocating pumping up the gas tax by 11.5 cents a gallon — a
46% increase — along with new fees on ride-hailing services
and toll increases. The group also advocated for rising
Registry of Motor Vehicle fees and adding new taxes on
traded-in vehicles.
And where is the
plan to increase the paychecks of Massachusetts taxpayers?
Has someone devised a strategy to lower the cost of food,
rent, utilities and other expenses Bay State residents have
to pay, in addition to these new taxes and fees?
Santa doesn’t
always bring presents, and Massachusetts taxpayers can also
deliver our own lumps of coal — at the voting booth.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Taxpayers shouldn’t be on hook for T plans
Massachusetts
voters have had enough of the corruption that exists on
Beacon Hill; therefore, it was a wise move by the
legislative leadership to delay a vote on a hefty gas tax
increase until after the holidays....
WBSM AM-1420
Friday, November 15, 2019
Vote on gas hike wisely delayed
By Barry Richards
Massachusetts lawmakers do the work of the
people — and we are very lenient employers, apparently.
Who else would let workers put in light days
and leave tasks unfinished?
The House has until next Wednesday to wrap
up pending legislation before it breaks for winter recess,
but you wouldn’t know an important deadline was looming if
you sat in at yesterday’s session....
The Legislature is set to recess on Nov. 20,
and resume formal sessions in January. And it’s possible
that when it meets early next week it could pull
all-nighters and hammer out significant legislation. You
never know....
Legislation isn’t like wine — it isn’t
supposed to age until its flavor develops. Doing the work of
the people means delivering results in a timely manner.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, November 15, 2019
Lawmakers in no rush to vote
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
The State
House News Service reported:
"Under joint
rules governing the branches, lawmakers must conclude
all formal business for 2019 by Wednesday, Nov. 20.
Informal sessions will continue through December, with
formal sessions resuming in January."
Major
legislation — languishing
on Beacon Hill for months with the clock running out
while the Legislature preoccupied itself with irrelevant
and whimsical feel-good bills —
has become so jammed up that House Speaker DeLeo had to
backtrack on his vow to pass his long-threatened
Transportation Revenue scheme before their end-of-year
recess. Months of do-nothing procrastination by
alleged "full-time" legislators of "The Best Legislature
Money Can Buy" has forced DeLeo's tax hike abomination
to be postponed. That astronomical tax grab is off
the table for now, awaiting the coming new year, 2020.
Now we can
fully focus our attention on the latest threat to
Proposition 2½ — the "mitigate
the constraints of Propositon 2½" amendment — and
whether the Education Finance Reform conference
committee put it back into the education funding bill.
(It was included in the Senate version but dropped from
the House's version.) In the
CLT letter delivered to the committee last week we
pointed out that it was completely unnecessary, beyond
the scope of the legislation, and should not be
included.
I've done a number of interviews
this week on the latest stealth assault on our
Proposition 2½. The latest
was this morning at 8:00 AM, a half hour with Brian
Thomas of WBSM AM-1420 in New Bedford. On Thursday
I was interviewed by Alan Zarek of WSAR AM-1480 in Fall
River for his daily "Newsroom" program at noon.
We're getting the word out but the clock is running
down.
In last week's
CLT Update (November 10), "The
Massive Tax Hikes Surge Is On," I wrote:
As
always, critically important votes on massive policy
changes and major tax hikes will come up in the last
moments of the eleventh hour in the middle of the
night in the final day or two before Beacon Hill
denizens again disappear on another extended
vacation. This has become increasingly more common,
an apparent leadership strategy. Treat the citizenry
like nuisance mushrooms: Keep them in the dark and
well-fertilized. And keep legislative sheep equally
in the dark until they must vote on whatever is
dropped in front of them just moments before. They
can be relied on to do as they are told — not by
their constituents, but by their leaders who sign
their pay checks.
That eleventh
hour marathon session will be upon us this week.
It will arrive on Wednesday night, probably around
midnight if not going into Thursday early morning.
Last year, a
day before the Legislature broke for its extended summer
vacation, we were still awaiting a vote to find out if
the last assault on Proposition 2½
would survive in the massive Economic Development bill,
or if we managed to defeat it. We didn't have an
answer until the following day.
We
managed to save Proposition 2½ from the threat of "Community Benefits Districts" in
that eleventh hour — actually twelfth hour-plus
despite the imposed deadline. The Legislature last
year simply ignored the deadline and didn't pass the law
(without assaulting Prop 2½)
until 1:12 AM the next morning. I know. I
was still awake and watching!
Let's all hope we can do it again.
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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State House News Service
Friday, November 15, 2019
Advances - Week of Nov. 17, 2019
House leaders this week stripped off the fall
agenda one of the most important and
controversial bills in the mix, and the agenda
for the close of formal sessions for 2019 is now
a little clearer.
With transportation tax and fee proposals idling
in the breakdown lane for now, lawmakers appear
to instead be working toward finishing work on
legislation pledging $1.5 billion in new state
aid for K-12 education over seven years and
wrapping up work on a more than $700 million
bill that spends most of the fiscal 2019 surplus
while making a big deposit into the state rainy
day fund.
Education bill negotiators Rep. Alice Peisch and
Sen. Jason Lewis face pressure to deliver in the
coming days on what would be the largest major
accomplishment for the Legislature in 2019.
Similarly, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen.
Michael Rodrigues are under the gun to reconcile
their differences over fiscal 2019 spending
before debate starts in a few weeks on fiscal
2021 spending plans.
Legislation banning flavored tobacco products
and taxing vaping products is making a late-2019
surge as well and is expected to clear the
Senate Wednesday after passing the House this
week on a 126-31 vote.
Also still in the mix: the stalled driving
safety bill, a children's wellness bill that's
in conference committee, and campaign finance
reporting legislation that has cleared both
branches in different forms.
The House and Senate meet in informal sessions
on Monday and under joint rules, they will then
have just Tuesday and Wednesday to hold formal
sessions.
Conference committees are supposed to file
compromise bills by 8 p.m. the night before
their proposals go before the House and Senate,
though lawmakers have suspended that fair-notice
rule in the past.
Starting on Thursday and until January, the
branches will meet in informal sessions where
important business is sometimes still conducted,
although any single member can block the
advancement of any bill during informals.
State House News Service
Thursday, November 14, 2019
House Kicking Transportation $$$ Debate Into
2020
By Matt Murphy
With just days remaining until the Legislature
recesses until 2020, House Speaker Robert DeLeo
said Thursday he's decided to push back his
timeline for a hotly anticipated debate over new
revenue for transportation until next year.
DeLeo and Ways and Means Chairman Aaron
Michlewitz told the News Service that their
commitment to passing legislation to raise new
funding for transportation infrastructure has
not waned.
The goal set by DeLeo for a fall debate,
however, would require decisions on how to
generate and spend new revenues that the
Democratic leaders are not quite ready to make.
"After reviewing this with myself, the chairman
(Michlewitz), Chairman (Mark) Cusack and
Chairman (William) Straus, we decided that it's
better that we try to get this right than to try
to comply with, I guess you could say, a
somewhat arbitrary deadline," DeLeo told the
News Service.
The Legislature is set to recess on Nov. 20, and
resume formal sessions in January. While the
House and Senate will continue to meet in
informal sessions through December, anything
that requires a roll call vote must wait.
DeLeo and House leaders in March and April
signaled plans for a fall debate on
transportation revenues, and the urgency
associated with that debate was heightened in
recent months by failures on the MBTA and
congestion conditions on the roads that drivers
are finding more and more intolerable.
Two weeks ago, DeLeo convened a group of his top
deputies to gauge where in the process House
leaders were in putting a package together.
Majority Leader Ronald Mariano said after the
meeting that they had started to "put some
numbers next to the strategies," but would
likely need a few more weeks.
"It makes it close, but the goal is to have
something at least on the floor of the House
before the end of the session," Mariano said.
Then two days later a coalition of business
groups, led by Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce President Jim Rooney, shared the
results of a survey of major Massachusetts
employers on what types of new taxes or revenue
enhancers they could support to improve public
transit and reduce congestion.
The results were mixed, but DeLeo said the
release of the information, including the
chamber's support for a 15-cent gas tax
increase, sparked an intensified interest among
House members to share their opinions with
leadership.
"Quite frankly, I think it's very, very
important that we try to get this in the best
possible form as possible and I think it's going
to take more time for us to be talking with some
of the members, who are probably a little more
engaged now and want to talk a little more about
it," DeLeo said.
Straus said the team working on the revenue
package has ruled some options in and out, and
mentioned how just this week a coalition of
mayors and municipal leaders rallied behind a
15-cent gas tax increase.
"We got closer and more things to consider at
the same time," Straus said about the past few
weeks, suggesting the public attention paid to
the fact that leaders were zeroing in on a plan
"brought a number of the groups who had been
watching but not communicating from outside the
building into the discussion."
DeLeo said he's also given his commitment
previously to support transportation
improvements in all regions of the state, but
some members have been seeking reassurances.
"It's not only the money. Some people also want
to talk about the bill as a whole," DeLeo said.
"There's a concern I hear from other parts of
the state that with what's going on with the T
they're concerned that this is going to be more
T-centric than they want it to be."
The Winthrop Democrat said he's "shooting for
January now" to produce and vote on a revenue
bill in the House, acknowledging that some
legislators will be unhappy about the prospect
of voting for tax increases in an election year.
Rep. Paul Brodeur, who gave his farewell address
in the House Wednesday as he prepares to take
over as mayor of Melrose, sarcastically joked
about his good fortune of missing the revenue
debate.
"I will say I'm devastated to not be a part of
the upcoming revenue debate, but I know you will
all do quite well," Brodeur told his colleagues.
DeLeo said he knows some House members will say
delaying the debate until 2020 "makes the whole
thing a little more difficult," but he's
confident that the support for action will still
be there.
"I think that's always an issue, yes, but I
think there also seems to be a commitment I get
from most members, anyways, that something has
to be done, that we just can't keep on going in
the way we're going with our transportation
system," DeLeo said. "There seems to be more of
a commitment to making sure we get something
done as opposed to sitting on the sidelines and
just letting another year pass without doing
that."
"Our commitment to the issue is still very
strong, is still there. Our timeline is just
going to be a little different than we initially
perceived it to be," said Michlewitz, backing up
the speaker.
Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, has said that
he opposes increasing the gas tax, and would
rather see the Legislature simply pass his $18
billion, multi-year bond bill that invest
significant new funding into roads, bridges and
public transit.
The Baker administration is also pursuing a
multi-state initiative to cap carbon emissions
from vehicles and generate potentially hundreds
of millions of dollars for the state from the
sale of carbon allowances to invest in clean
transportation programs.
DeLeo said that he has spoken with Baker about
the Transportation Climate Initiative and would
also like to get a better idea of how it will
work and how many states will participate before
moving forward.
The TCI coalition plans to publish a draft memo
of understanding in December that will include a
proposed cap, and give states a better grasp of
how much revenue could be expected.
"We'll be anxiously seeing what does occur in
December, but at this point there isn't a TCI
number that you could plug in," Straus said.
"And then there's the practical matter of when
would that money become available."
With a revenue debate off the agenda for next
week, DeLeo said he's "anxiously awaiting some
of the conference committee reports," including
a ban on handheld cellphone use while driving, a
children's health bill, and major overhaul of
the state's education funding system.
Second Assistant Majority Leader Paul Donato
presided over the House's brief Thursday
session.
After the House adjourned until Monday, Donato
said the education bill and a more than $700
million fiscal 2019 surplus spending bill are
the two biggest priorities to get done by
Wednesday.
"My understanding from both chairs on the Senate
and the House side is that they're very very
close," Donato said of the education
negotiations.
The budget bill to close out the fiscal year
that ended on July 1 was never sent to
conference, but Michlewitz and Senate Ways and
Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues have been
negotiating for weeks.
"We're working on it," Michlewitz said.
The branches are also trying to iron out
differences in a bill that would require
legislative candidates to file more frequent
campaign finance reports, and potentially change
the way the state's top campaign finance
regulator is selected.
CommonWealth Magazine
Thursday, November 14, 2019
DeLeo calls off transpo tax debate – for now
Speaker says House will try again next year 'to
get this right'
By Bruce Mohl and Andy Metzger
House Speaker Robert DeLeo is putting off a
debate over tax legislation to fund
transportation improvements until next year,
throwing into doubt whether anything will happen
in an area that advocates and business groups
say is in desperate need of more funding.
After expressing some uncertainty Wednesday
about his plans to take up the tax bill this
fall and as word began to leak out on Thursday,
DeLeo and House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron
Michlewitz told the State House News Service
that they were postponing the debate.
“We decided that it’s better that we try to get
this right than to try to comply with, I guess
you could say, a somewhat arbitrary deadline,”
said DeLeo, who insisted most House lawmakers
are committed to addressing transportation
needs.
The delay pushes the entire legislative process
into an election year, when lawmakers tend to be
more sensitive about taking politically risky
votes. It may also signal some reluctance to
raise taxes to finance transportation
improvements overall. The Greater Boston Chamber
of Commerce and other groups have voiced support
for tax hikes, but the Associated Industries of
Massachusetts, the Massachusetts High Technology
Council, and the Massachusetts Competitive
Partnership have thrown cold water on the idea.
DeLeo signaled in March this year that he wanted
to have a debate on transportation revenues this
fall and then just a few weeks ago several
members of his leadership team indicated a vote
was being planned for next week. But as the date
drew closer the speaker and his leadership team
became more and more wary of moving forward.
Many factors figured into the decision.
Lawmakers from outside Boston expressed concerns
about whether the bill would be too focused on
the MBTA. Gov. Charlie Baker signaled no
willingness to back down on his opposition to a
package of new revenues. And Senate President
Karen Spilka just last week gave no assurances
that the Senate would take up a revenue package
passed by the House, which made lawmakers
already anxious about casting a tax vote even
more nervous that it could all be for naught.
One House lawmaker, who asked to remain
anonymous, welcomed the delay. The person said
lawmakers need more time to listen to the
concerns of their constituents and to deliver a
balanced revenue package that benefits and/or
hurts all parts of the state equally. The
lawmaker said the proposals put forward, dealing
with the gas tax, tolls, rideshare fees, and
other revenue-raising measures, were all fairly
complicated and required time to sort out.
“These things are much more complicated when you
get into the weeds,” the lawmaker said.
DeLeo said his new target is to put a bill out
in January.
“Our commitment to the issue is still very
strong, is still there. Our timeline is just
going to be a little different than we initially
perceived it to be,” said Michlewitz.
Chris Anderson, the president of the
Massachusetts High Technology Council, a
business group that sees no need for a major
transportation revenue bill, seemed to sense
early Thursday – before the speaker’s
announcement – that the wind was changing on
Beacon Hill.
“The legislative leadership is listening to a
lot of the perspectives that we and others have
been providing them,” he said on a taping of the
CommonWealth Codcast that will be posted Sunday.
“The key is a pending transportation bond bill
that has a nearly $20 billion, 5-year spend and
includes a revenue component that would be
targeted at some environmental benefit. That is
the message that’s causing the House to rethink
the timing of when they take up what otherwise
looks like a rush to judgment on a gas tax
bill.”
Anderson said waiting until next year to debate
transportation revenues would give lawmakers
time to act on the governor’s bond bill and to
see how much progress is being made on the
transportation climate initiative, a multistate
effort to place a charge on the carbon contained
in automobile fuels. The participating states
are expected to sign a memorandum of
understanding next month. Baker has pledged to
direct half of the money raised by the
initiative to public transit and the MBTA.
Anderson said lawmakers also need more time to
assess the political fallout of raising the gas
tax for lawmakers representing communities
bordering New Hampshire.
After DeLeo’s announcement, the High Tech
Council issued a statement saying it was wise
“to avoid any rush to revenue… The size of the
tax, toll, and fee proposals advanced by some
advocates are too large and the scope of their
potential impact is too broad to move forward in
anything but a methodical and data-driven way.
We look forward to working with the Speaker and
other legislative leaders to advance the most
innovative and impactful solutions to our
transportation challenges throughout the
remainder of the 2019-20 legislative session.”
Stephen Brewer, who was chairman of the Senate
Ways and Means Committee during the last major
tax debate in 2013, said in a phone interview
that legislative leaders will need to count
votes, and it is especially important to have
adequate support to override the governor if he
is inclined to veto the bill.
“There’s nothing worse than taking a tax vote
and not having it become law,” Brewer said.
“It’s tough enough to take one. But if you take
one and you’re on record and you didn’t get the
revenues for it, then you lose twice.”
Rep. William Straus, the House chairman of the
Transportation Committee, said the legislation
would likely provide a funding stream for the
annual disbursement of local road repair money
known as Chapter 90. Though he said there is no
set proposal yet, Straus said the bill is
unlikely to create a new governance structure
for the MBTA whose Fiscal and Management Control
Board is due to expire in less than a year.
Jim Rooney, the president and CEO of the Greater
Boston Chamber of Commerce, who coordinated a
discussion in the business community on
transportation revenues and supported a fairly
aggressive package of proposals, blamed the
House pullback on geographical politics. He said
support for a transportation revenue package is
fairly strong in and around Greater Boston but
less strong in other parts of the state.
“The selling of it is dealing with the
perception that it’s a Boston package, that it’s
all about the T,” he said.
Rooney said he still believes a transportation
bill will pass the House next year, but he says
it will be tougher to pass in an election year
and the likelihood is strong it will be far less
ambitious than if it was done this year.
Straus dismissed the notion that the delay would
result in a watering down of the proposal.
“I don’t think it does justice to the members or
their constituents to think that a vote-taking
in November versus a vote-taking in January
changes any of the underlying policy or even
political ramifications,” Straus said. “I think
that you have to give a lot more credit to
everybody in this.”
As the House put off action on a transportation
bill, a new poll indicates 71 percent of voters
think “action is urgently needed to improve the
state’s transportation system” and 77 percent
support new revenues to invest in
transportation. But there was little unanimity
among those polled for which revenues to use for
transportation investments. According to the
poll, 51 percent of voters support a hike in
ride-hailing fees, 50 percent back new tolls at
the state’s borders, and 43 percent support new
tolls on I-95 and I-93.
The poll indicated 62 percent of voters support
the so-called transportation climate initiative,
which would raise the price of gasoline by
assessing a fee on fuel wholesalers and using
the proceeds from the fee to make investments in
transportation. Only 49 percent of voters
favored raising the gas tax by 5 cents three
years in a row, and only 43 percent backed
raising the tax 15 cents all at once.
State House News Service
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Budget Holdup Blocking $20 Mil CPA Fund
Distribution
By Colin A. Young
Cities and towns across Massachusetts are about
to feel a real consequence of the Legislature's
inability to close the books on the fiscal year
that ended in June.
On Friday, the Department of Revenue is due to
make its annual distribution of matching funds
to cities and towns that raise revenue through
the Community Preservation Act but an extra $20
million that the Legislature directed to the CPA
Trust Fund won't be part of the payout.
When it passed a compromise fiscal 2020 budget
in July, the Legislature included a provision
directing the state comptroller to transfer $20
million from the fiscal 2019 surplus to the CPA
Trust Fund as a way to bridge the gap until new,
higher fees funding the CPA Trust Fund kick in
next year.
But because the House and Senate have not been
able to resolve their differences on a
supplemental budget that would allow the
comptroller to finalize surplus transfers, that
$20 million has not yet been deposited into the
trust and CPA communities will instead receive a
state match of just 11 percent of what they
raised in property tax surcharges.
Instead, DOR said its Division of Local Services
will process the state match based on the money
currently available in the trust fund on Friday.
Whenever the surplus funds become available and
are transferred into the CPA Trust Fund, DOR
plans to recalculate the state match and provide
cities and towns with a second slice of the pie,
the department said.
The more-than-$700 million supplemental budget
bill has been hung up between the House and
Senate for weeks and neither side has shed
insight on the holdups or when a final bill
might emerge. Whenever it does get done, this
year's close-out bill will be finalized later
than any year since at least 1995.
State House News Service
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Cost of Budget Delay Surpassing $1 Million
By Colin A. Young
Having watched another week go by without
finalizing budget work left over from fiscal
year 2019, the House and Senate now stand to
forfeit more than $1 million in interest that
the state could have earned had lawmakers
completed their work on time.
The Legislature's inability to agree on a bill
closing the books on the fiscal year that ended
in June is keeping Comptroller Andrew Maylor
from filing an annual report, which he was
statutorily due to file by Oct. 31. And with the
branches at loggerheads over the supplemental
budget, hundreds of millions of dollars in
fiscal 2019 surplus funds are sitting in the
General Fund waiting to be transferred to the
Stabilization Fund.
In late October, Maylor told the Legislature
that if he was able to file his report by
Friday, Nov. 15, the state will have lost out on
more than $500,000 in interest and would lose
out on at least $30,000 more each day after the
15th until he is able to file the report and
make the transfer.
But it will take Maylor's office about 14 days
-- or $420,000 in foregone interest -- from the
time Gov. Charlie Baker eventually signs the
supplemental budget bill to be ready to file his
report, he said. So if the Legislature enacts
the bill at the next chance it has, Monday, and
the governor signs it immediately, Massachusetts
will have lost out on $1.01 million in interest
payments by the time all is said and done.
"I realize that in the context of the state
government spending that this amount may not
seem important, but as a taxpayer and someone
who spent more than 25 years in local
government, that sum is meaningful," the
comptroller wrote to the governor and
Legislature in late October, when the estimate
of forfeited interest was only $500,000.
The money is still earning interest in the
General Fund, Maylor's office told the News
Service, but the state is losing out on the
additional interest that money could be making
because a portion of the Stabilization Fund is
invested in CDs at local banks, which earn
higher yields than the General Fund.
Maylor's office said it plans to provide a more
precise estimate of the interest the state has
forgone once the supplemental budget bill is
enacted and the transfer is completed.
Among the spending being held up in the
supplemental budget is a $50 million outlay to
accelerate MBTA improvements, an additional $17
million in local scholarships, nearly $2 million
for special education circuit breaker costs,
$2.4 million for regional school transit and $2
million more for transportation costs for
homeless students.
With the books still open on fiscal 2019 the
Department of Revenue on Friday will make its
annual distribution of matching funds to cities
and towns that raise revenue through the
Community Preservation Act but the extra $20
million that the Legislature directed to the CPA
Trust Fund won't be part of the payout because
it is tied up in the budget bill. The same goes
for $10 million that the Legislature directed to
the Massachusetts Life Sciences Investment Fund.
That money will only become available once
fiscal 2019 is officially closed out.
The impasse raises questions about relations
between House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate
President Karen Spilka, whose first-time budget
chiefs, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Michael
Rodrigues, were the last in the nation to agree
on an annual state budget this summer. In
addition to disagreements over the content of
the bills, the two sides have been sniping over
a procedural issue delaying the already
late-arriving bill.
"We're waiting for them to deal with it. But the
urgency is there," Rodrigues said two weeks ago.
He later added, "Right now, we sent to the House
our version of the supp budget. So we're waiting
for them to figure out what they want to do with
it."
While both branches adopted a version of the
supplemental budget bill, the Senate used a
somewhat rare, but not unprecedented, procedure
of advancing the legislation in a new bill
rather than as a strike-and-replace amendment to
the House's existing version. Having two
vehicles (H 4132/S 2386) for the supplemental
budget means one of the branches would have to
bring it back to the floor for a second vote.
"I know that they have their thing, they've
added some, you know, almost like a new bill,"
House Second Assistant Majority Leader Paul
Donato said of the Senate two weeks ago. "We
have ours. So I'm not sure how we're going to
straighten it out."
Lawmakers have appeared unfazed by the inability
to wrap up the fiscal year that ended 138 days
ago, although the protracted process is cutting
into the amount of time legislative leaders have
to focus on other issues. The Legislature often
procrastinates, leaving many important decisions
to be made in a frenzy every other July.
State House News Service
Friday, November 15, 2019
Poll: Voters Split on Key Transpo Revenue Ideas
By Chris Lisinski
Massachusetts voters support raising new revenue
to make transportation investments, but a new
poll shows they are divided over some of the key
methods that lawmakers are weighing to generate
funding.
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While
registered voters showed some support for other
strategies such as increasing fees on ride-share
services, a poll of 600 registered voters,
released Friday by the MassINC Polling Group,
revealed a split reception to a phased-in gas
tax hike and majority opposition for a larger,
all-at-once increase.
House leaders, who this week agreed to delay
their planned fall debate until at least
January, have said bumping up the state's
24-cent-per-gallon gas tax will likely be a
central component of the eventual package,
arguing that every penny increase leads to
another $35 million in revenue.
Gov. Charlie Baker opposes any gas tax hike, and
the threat of his potential veto means
legislators will likely need two thirds majority
support in both chambers to enshrine an increase
in state law.
Lawmakers last increased the state's gas tax in
2013 by 3 cents. They also indexed it to
increase alongside inflation, but voters
repealed that measure by a ballot question one
year later.
Forty-nine percent of voters in MassINC's latest
poll, which was sponsored by the Barr
Foundation, supported raising the gas tax 5
cents three separate times over a six-year
period, compared to 47 percent who opposed the
idea and 5 percent who said they were undecided.
When asked about a single 15-cent increase, 52
percent opposed the idea and 43 percent
supported it.
A MassINC poll conducted in August found 68
percent of respondents against a gas tax
increase.
Despite their lack of enthusiasm for gas tax
hikes and for expanding roadway tolls to
highways that do not currently have them, voters
surveyed backed several revenue-generating ideas
that have been floated on Beacon Hill.
Nine of the 14 specific ideas researchers asked
about during the Nov. 6-7 polling period
received more support than opposition, seven of
those by double-digit margins.
"As lawmakers tackle transportation funding for
the second time this decade, most voters are on
board with the need for both action and more
revenue," MassINC researchers wrote in a report
explaining the poll results. "Despite different
regions experiencing transportation stresses in
different ways, there is widespread acceptance
of the need to do something — and support for
some ways, at least, of raising more money to do
it."
The most popular strategy in MassINC's latest
poll was collecting contributions from real
estate development projects that are located
near major highways or public transit and
directing the money toward the infrastructure.
There was 73 percent support for that idea and
only 18 percent opposition.
Voters were interested in the Transportation and
Climate Initiative, a cap-and-invest system
Massachusetts leaders are developing alongside a
dozen other states that will likely increase
prices at the pump and reduce carbon emissions.
Sixty-two percent said they support the program,
compared to 30 percent who do not.
Fifty-six percent of those polled backed a
"managed lane" system where existing lanes would
be converted to tolled so that some drivers
could pay for a faster trip. Thirty-five percent
opposed that proposal. Gov. Charlie Baker has
expressed interest in a similar idea, though
cautioned that it would not be possible to
convert free lanes into priced ones.
Voters also endorsed imposing tolls at state
borders 50 percent to 41 percent and, with 51
percent support and 38 percent opposition,
increasing trip fees on transportation network
companies such as Uber and Lyft.
They were split on the proposal of congestion
pricing, where tolls are altered to affect
commuting behavior: a large majority supported
reducing tolls at off-peak times, while only 46
percent supported increasing those prices at
rush hour.
A range of stakeholders have called on lawmakers
to address ubiquitous traffic congestion and an
aging transit network, particularly in the wake
of an MBTA derailment that imposed months of
delays and chronic traffic congestion problems
in Massachusetts.
MassINC's poll found 71 percent of respondents
agreed that "action is urgently needed to
improve the state's transportation system."
Seventy-seven percent strongly or somewhat
supported the general push for new
transportation revenue compared to 15 percent
who were opposed.
However, 49 percent of respondents also said
they believe the state has the money it needs
for transportation and only needs to spend it
well compared to 39 percent who said more money
is necessary regardless.
Democratic House leadership said for months they
planned to take up the topic this fall, but
House Speaker Robert DeLeo told the News Service
Thursday the debate would now take place in
early 2020.
Full MassINC Poll Results
State House News Service
Friday, November 15, 2019
Weekly Roundup - Changing Minds
Recap and analysis of the week in state
government
By Matt Murphy
In the Veterans Day shortened week, House and
Senate Democrats got no closer to agreeing on
how to spend over $700 million in surplus
revenue from fiscal 2019, which ended July 1.
But with three days of sessions left, House
Speaker Robert DeLeo did lighten the pre-recess
load in one big way.
The speaker said he's decided to push off a
debate over new transportation revenues until
January, requiring more time to take feedback
from members and outside interest groups before
deciding on a package that is widely expected to
include a hike in the gas tax.
"We decided that it's better that we try to get
this right than to try to comply with, I guess
you could say, a somewhat arbitrary deadline,"
DeLeo told the News Service.
DeLeo and Ways and Means Chairman Aaron
Michlewitz said the resolve to tackle taxes is
not wavering, but they just want more time to
listen to legislators who have suddenly become
more "engaged" in the debate.
The decision to postpone, however, is fraught
with political implications, as January turns
into February and lawmakers start pulling papers
to run for re-election and voting on tax hikes
starts to look less appealing.
A new MassINC poll, in some ways, backed up the
speaker, demonstrating how split 77 percent
support for new transportation revenue can
become when you start trying to parcel out how
that revenue will be generated.
Real estate fees topped the list, while Logan
Airport access tolls and increased registry fees
were the least popular options with voters.
A phased-in 15-cent gas tax hike, like the one
backed by the Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce, polled 49-47.
"We got closer and more things to consider at
the same time," Transportation Committee
Chairman William Straus said about the past few
weeks.
The
Boston Herald
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
A Boston Herald editorial
Taxpayers shouldn’t be on hook for T plans
Congratulations, fellow Massachusetts taxpayers:
We’re millionaires.
At least that’s how state agencies see us —
deep-pocketed and willing to foot $75B worth of
overhauling, repairing, maintenance and
improvement transportation projects.
As the Herald’s Sean Philip Cotter reported, the
state’s letter to Santa includes a potential
$28.5 billion option to overhaul the Commuter
Rail that already got a partial high sign from
the MBTA’s oversight board; the Green Line
extension; and billions in long-overdue
maintenance fixes to get the Department of
Transportation and the MBTA up to a normal state
of repair. There’s a plan to straighten the Pike
in Allston for $1.2 billion, and other highway
fixes aimed at reducing congestion and repairing
neglected roads and bridges.
We’re Santa.
There’s nothing wrong with grand ideas, and some
of the proposed projects sound great — there’s
the North-South Rail Link tunnel that would run
under downtown, long talked about, and which
would be a boon to commuters. And the T plans to
knock down that state-of-good-repair backlog,
thank heaven.
But here is where the agencies voting “aye” on
these grand plans need to heed the advice of the
inestimable Mick Jagger and Keith Richards: “You
can’t always get want what you want.”
Jagger, for the record, attended the London
School of Economics.
According to the U.S. Census, the median per
capita income in Massachusetts from 2013 to 2017
was $39,913. Some make much more, some make much
less. But for most of us, life includes a
budget, which needs to be adhered to.
It’s never a case of “let’s take two luxury
vacations this year, and buy a new car, then put
a new roof on the house,” but we — and here’s a
concept transportation agencies might want to
acquaint themselves with — put things on the
back burner for when we can afford them. Maybe
that’s in a few years, maybe more. Maybe never,
sometimes a wish list is just a wish list.
That’s the tack taken by government watchers,
who say it’s time to start picking and choosing
transportation projects.
“There is no foreseeable way that Massachusetts
would be able to spend $75 billion on
transportation over the next decade,” said
former Inspector General Greg Sullivan, now of
the Pioneer Institute. “We have to be thinking
about dollars and cents — including common sense
— in terms of how to ameliorate traffic
congestion.”
Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance
said, “The number is so high that it’s hard to
fathom — it’d make the Big Dig look minuscule.”
The Boston business group A Better City is
pushing for $50 billion in spending over the
next 20 years, including several of the
above-mentioned projects — and they have ideas
on how to get the money.
A Better City is advocating pumping up the gas
tax by 11.5 cents a gallon — a 46% increase —
along with new fees on ride-hailing services and
toll increases. The group also advocated for
rising Registry of Motor Vehicle fees and adding
new taxes on traded-in vehicles.
And where is the plan to increase the paychecks
of Massachusetts taxpayers? Has someone devised
a strategy to lower the cost of food, rent,
utilities and other expenses Bay State residents
have to pay, in addition to these new taxes and
fees?
Santa doesn’t always bring presents, and
Massachusetts taxpayers can also deliver our own
lumps of coal — at the voting booth.
WBSM AM-1420
Friday, November 15, 2019
Vote on gas hike wisely delayed
By Barry Richards
Massachusetts voters have had enough of the
corruption that exists on Beacon Hill;
therefore, it was a wise move by the legislative
leadership to delay a vote on a hefty gas tax
increase until after the holidays.
Lawmakers are proposing several measures to
raise the gas tax. One would phase in a
15-cent-per-gallon increase in three equal
increments. Another would increase the 24-cent
tax by 15 cents per gallon all at once. I'll
take neither.
Governor Charlie Baker opposes any gas tax
increase. Perhaps he remembers that when the
Legislature raised the tax several years ago,
voters organized and immediately repealed it in
the very next election.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President
Karen Spilka support the gas tax hike as a means
of funding transportation projects. Taxpayers,
meanwhile, see billions of dollars of their
hard-earned money being wasted annually and do
not support increasing the tax.
Those who commute into or out of Boston daily
are demanding something be done about the
failing subway, rail and highway systems as they
should. But most of us don't commute to Boston
or regularly use the rail, subway and highway
systems in the Boston area, and don't feel we
should have to share in the cost of upgrading
them. Boston doesn't share economic development
with the rest of the state, so why should we pay
for its infrastructure?
Southeastern Massachusetts is denied a casino.
We have no train connection to the state
capital. Hell, we were even called "the end of
the universe" when it came time to siting a
high-tech center.
The power brokers keep stuffing all of the
golden eggs into Boston at the expense of the
rest of the state, so let them figure out a way
to pay for the needed transportation upgrades.
We paid for the Tip O'Neil Tunnel with money
that was diverted away from local transportation
projects. What did we get in return? Nothing.
When they begin treating the rest of the
Commonwealth's citizens as equal partners, then
perhaps I'll listen to their calls for new taxes
to pay for their transportation needs. Until
then, you're on your own, bro.
— Barry Richard
is the host of The Barry Richard Show on 1420
WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from
noon to 3 p.m.
The
Boston Herald
Friday, November 15, 2019
A Boston Herald editorial
Lawmakers in no rush to vote
Massachusetts lawmakers do the work of the
people — and we are very lenient employers,
apparently.
Who else would let workers put in light days and
leave tasks unfinished?
The House has until next Wednesday to wrap up
pending legislation before it breaks for winter
recess, but you wouldn’t know an important
deadline was looming if you sat in at
yesterday’s session. According to a State House
News Service session summary, the House convened
at 11:05 a.m., and members, staff and guests
recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
Good start.
Next they adopted several congratulatory
resolutions. Well, even the greatest singers
need to warm up.
Then they rolled up their sleeves and got to
work: concurring with a Senate referral from
June to the Committee on Public Health of a
petition relative to HIPAA standards; referring
a petition relative to motorized shopping carts
in food stores and shopping clubs to the
Committee on Consumer Protection and
Professional Licensure, and a petition naming
two bridges in Woburn to the Committee on
Transportation.
Dennis is closer to getting a Department of
Municipal Finance, ditto the tweaking of sewer
regulations in Auburn, and the Canvas n’ Cup in
Milford is getting an additional license for
wines and malt beverages to be drunk on the
premises.
And they were done for the day, in less time
than it takes to cook a frozen pizza.
There are three bills circling for a landing in
conference committee — on funding for education,
children’s health and a ban on driving with a
handheld cellphone.
But surely they took steps to advance
legislation on funding for transportation
infrastructure? House Speaker Robert DeLeo
himself earmarked fall as debate time for new
transportation revenue.
Not so fast. Actually, not fast at all.
According to State House News, DeLeo said he is
pushing the funding debate into the new year,
after consulting with his budget chief, Rep.
Aaron Michlewitz, and other key chairmen.
“After reviewing this with myself, the chairman
(Michlewitz), Chairman (Mark) Cusack and
Chairman (William) Straus, we decided that it’s
better that we try to get this right than to try
to comply with, I guess you could say, a
somewhat arbitrary deadline,” DeLeo said.
That “arbitrary” deadline was signaled by DeLeo
and other House leaders in the spring.
The Legislature is set to recess on Nov. 20, and
resume formal sessions in January. And it’s
possible that when it meets early next week it
could pull all-nighters and hammer out
significant legislation. You never know.
But with DeLeo’s brooming of the transportation
funding debate into, essentially, a new decade,
one can’t help but be struck by a certain lack
of urgency.
The House and Senate will meet in informal
sessions through December, but anything that
requires a roll call vote has to wait.
Winter won’t wait. Neither will snow, and
commuting on the T during storms, nor driving on
Boston’s congested streets, narrowed further by
freshly plowed drifts.
Legislation isn’t like wine — it isn’t supposed
to age until its flavor develops. Doing the work
of the people means delivering results in a
timely manner.
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