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Post Office Box 1147
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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
46 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Sunday, August 2, 2020
Stealth Tax Hikes Pop Up Like
Whack-A-Mole
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
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Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow
Commentary)
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House 29-130,
rejected an amendment giving cities and towns the option to
impose on the buyers a tax between .5 percent and 2 percent
on the purchase of real estate to be used by the city or
town’s Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Purchases by government entities or charitable organizations
would be exempt. Cities and towns would have the power
to exempt certain sales including sales to any state or
local government or charitable organization; to seniors over
62 years; to low income buyers and to a purchase by a family
member.
“This would
provide cities and towns with the option of creating their
own real estate transfer fees to fund local affordable
housing projects,” said Rep. Mike Connolly (D-Cambridge),
the amendment’s sponsor. “All of the proceeds raised
by the fee would remain with the municipality to fund its
own affordable housing programs. I filed this
amendment because it could help cities and towns capture
some of the value that is created by luxury or high-end
commercial real estate transfers for the purpose of funding
local affordable housing programs.” . . .
“The China
Pandemic has unleashed a spreading virus of stealth tax
increases while few are looking,” said Chip Ford,
Executive Director of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“Like whack-a-mole they are a challenge to keep up with even
for those paying close attention.
"A sudden sneak
attack on Proposition 2½ buried deeply within the Senate
transportation bond bill; a quiet invitation for Gov.
Baker’s Transportation Climate Initiative to be disguised,
its 26 cents-per-gallon gas tax hike and other tax increases
commingled into a separate climate mitigation bill; an
attempt to add another deeds excise tax on top of the
state’s, this one payable to municipalities,” Ford added.
“Fortunately, this stealth deeds excise tax amendment was
soundly defeated in the House’s ‘affordable housing’ bill,
which ironically would have made housing even less
affordable. We hope the other stealth taxes suffer the
same fate. Taxpayers beware: The tax-and-spend
caucus on Beacon Hill has broken its leash.”
Beacon Hill Roll
Call
July 27 - July 31, 2020
Allow Local Tax on Real Estate Purchases (H-4879)
By Bob Katzen
Massachusetts
Lawmakers Seek To Neutralize 40 Year Old Tax Cap
Thanks to Prop.
2½, municipal property tax revenue raised in Massachusetts
is capped at 2.5% of the assessed value of all taxable
property. Prop. 2½ also limits annual growth in property tax
collections to 2.5%. There are politicians in Massachusetts
who would like to see Prop. 2½ repealed, and sitting state
legislators recently made an end-run around it.
In mid-July the
Massachusetts Senate approved a transportation spending bill
that permits a number of local option tax hikes, allowing
municipal governments to increase tax collections outside of
the Prop. 2½ voter-approved constraints. Chip Ford,
executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT),
the organization responsible for Prop. 2½’s enactment,
explained in a recent letter to state lawmakers why this
maneuver, which he describes as an attack on Prop. 2½, is
both misguided and unnecessary:
“If more revenue
is necessary for additional transportation projects or any
other specific municipal need, Proposition 2½ intentionally
provides a mechanism: operational overrides and debt
exclusions,” writes Ford in a July 13 memo sent to
Massachusetts senators. “This mechanism has worked well for
going on four decades, with debt exclusions having been
proposed and adopted for a multitude of unbudgeted projects
such as underground sewer system replacement; schools,
public safety and other municipal buildings and their
repair; purchases of fire trucks, ambulances, snow plows,
and other municipal equipment; purchasing open space, etc.”
The Massachusetts
Senate passed that transportation spending bill and the
legislation is now in conference committee, where
differences with the House version are being worked out.
“If this bill
passes, Prop 2½ as we know it will be neutralized,” notes
the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, who has issued a call to
action with CLT urging taxpayers to contact their elected
officials on Beacon Hill and urge House and Senate conferees
to drop the transportation spending bill’s problematic
section authorizing the Prop. 2½-gutting local option tax
hikes.
“With the
legislative session set to expire on July 31, taxpayers have
the advantage of time running out,” explains Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance’s call to action. “But as we’ve seen with
the creation of the AirBnB tax which was passed without a
recorded vote only a few days before Christmas, no tax is
ever off the table.”
No matter what
happens with this latest effort to circumvent Prop. 2½ in
Massachusetts, opponents of this property tax limitation law
will continue seeking its repeal in 2021 and beyond.
Likewise, expect future attacks on other state laws that
effectively prevent government from growing as large as some
politicians and interest groups desire.
Forbes Magazine
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Decades-Old Laws Keeping Property Taxes In Check Are Under
Attack
Forty-one other
states allow cities and towns to impose their own fees or
surtaxes to fund transportation projects, and Massachusetts
should join that vast majority by supporting two components
in House-Senate transportation bond bill negotiations,
municipal leaders said Wednesday.
In
a letter to the six conference committee members charged
with quickly hashing out a final bill, coalitions
representing dozens of cities and towns urged the panel to
include both the House-approved value capture proposal and
the Senate-approved regional ballot initiatives
authorization in the final bill.
"Local and
regional transportation investments will play an important
role to foster economic revitalization and recovery," chairs
of the Metro Mayors Coalition, the North Shore Coalition and
the Commuter Rail Communities Coalition wrote. "Regional
ballot initiatives and value capture tools give cities and
towns the opportunity to control their own transportation
destiny. These investments will help create jobs and promote
greater access to Main Streets for employees and consumers
alike."
The conference
committee is negotiating bills authorizing $17 billion to
$18 billion in borrowing and numerous transportation policy
changes.
Municipal leaders
stressed that value capture and regional ballot initiatives
together are not enough to generate enough money for
"transformative transportation improvements," but they
called the two options a critical step to "act as a down
payment" on more impactful local projects....
Four municipal
leaders signed the letter: Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone on
behalf of the Metro Mayors Coalition, Salem Mayor Kimberly
Driscoll on behalf of the North Shore Coalition, and both
Lynn Mayor Thomas McGee and Bedford Town Manager Sarah
Stanton for the Commuter Rail Communities Coalition.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Mayors Appeal for Value Capture, Regional Ballot Questions
Excerpt
from the mayors'
letter:
We are writing today to express our support for the
Regional Ballot Initiatives proposal, included in
S.2836, and the Value Capture proposal included in
H.4547. These two provisions would give cities
and towns the opportunity to invest local money in
local and regional transportation priorities.
For municipal governments to be empowered to
contribute to sustainable, long-term improvements to
our transportation system, all resources that would
help us invest in our communities need to be on the
table. Therefore, we are asking you to adopt
both provisions in the final bill. . . .
Massachusetts is one of nine states in the country
that does not allow cities and towns to raise money
locally to invest in local projects. The two
tools before you are predicated on different
on-the-ground situations. Value Capture
assumes that an investment is already being made by
a developer, while Regional Ballot Initiatives work
more like the Community Preservation Act, allowing a
local option for cities and towns to raise local
money for specific investments. By enabling
cross-municipal collaboration, Regional Ballot
Initiatives also offer the additional flexibility of
allowing less affluent communities to partner with
wealthier communities to unlock projects that
otherwise would take much longer to construct, if
they are advanced at all.
The House and
Senate on Tuesday quickly passed a $16.53 billion interim
budget to keep the government funded through October, a plan
that would give the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Baker more
time to understand the state's fuzzy but dire financial
picture in the middle of the ongoing pandemic.
The House and
Senate are in the final scheduled days of their formal
legislative calendar for the two-year session, but as a
result of COVID-19 neither the House nor Senate have
produced a full-year spending plan and will have to take the
rare step of holding a special session later this year to
take up a budget.
The Legislature
and Gov. Charlie Baker agreed on a $5.25 billion one-month
budget in June to keep state services funded through July,
and Baker filed another $5.51 billion budget bill last week
to cover spending through August.
The Legislature,
however, responded Tuesday with an appropriations bill that
would give them more time and remove the need to figure out
immediately how and when to return for a special post-July
31 session to deal with a spending plan for the rest of
fiscal 2021....
Assuming Baker
signs the bill, the Legislature and governor will have
appropriated $21.78 billion to cover spending over the first
four months of the fiscal year. At that rate of spending,
the state's budget would balloon to over $65 billion, well
above the $44.6 billion budget Baker filed in January. But
budget officials said state spending is weighted toward the
early part of the fiscal year, and would eventually slow
down.
"Many expenses are
front-end loaded, so you have to make an annual payment up
front so it's always the first half of the fiscal year is
much higher monthly costs than the second half of the fiscal
year," [Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues]
said....
The spending bill
passed on Tuesday expires on Oct. 31, meaning the
Legislature will either have to return before the Nov. 3
general election, when relatively few will be facing serious
challengers, or extend again....
"It's also my
understanding that the Senate is preparing to have a revenue
discussion around the time they finalize the budget,"
[Eileen McAnneny, the president the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Association] said, adding, "Given the size of the potential
shortfall there will probably have to be some combination of
cuts, revenue increases and use of the rainy day fund."
McAnneny, in a
follow-up conversation, stressed that it was not a certainty
that the Senate would take up taxes later this year. Sen.
Adam Hinds, the Senate chair of the Revenue Committee, has
been leading that branch's exploration of tax reform this
session.
Sen. Adam Hinds,
the Senate chair of the Revenue Committee, has been leading
that branch's exploration of tax reform this session.
"We have reengaged
the Senate revenue working group with a new mandate to
consider the current reality and to think through a plan to
meet potential challenges, depending on federal action and
where we stand with the economic recovery and where the
pandemic is," Hinds said.
Hinds said the
working group, which still plans to release long-term tax
reform recommendations this year, will continue to meet
through the fall and has "expanded what it's looking at and
accelerating."
"At this point
it's far too premature to know if, let alone when, action
will be required," Hinds said....
McAnneny said that
if the state were to simply level fund government services
for the year, it would shrink the projected $6 billion
revenue gap by about $1.5 billion.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Legislature Accelerates Interim Approach to Budgeting
New Bill Raises Four-Month Tab to Nearly $22 Billion
In the second
quarter of 2020, based on the best information available
today, Massachusetts real gross domestic product (GDP)
declined at an annualized rate of 43.8 percent according to
MassBenchmarks, while U.S. real gross domestic product
declined by 32.9 percent during the same period according to
the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). In the
first quarter of 2020, the BEA estimates that the
Massachusetts and U.S. economies declined by 5.1 percent and
5.0 percent respectively on an annualized basis.
These historic
second quarter declines reflect the impact of COVID-19
shutdowns of economic activity, particularly in leisure and
hospitality, personal services, construction, retail and
wholesale trade, healthcare, education, and manufacturing.
This was the steepest quarterly decline in economic activity
for both the state and the nation on record. As the
economy began to slowly reopen in April, growth reversed
course sharply in a positive direction, so the second
quarter results reflect both the sharp drop from the peak in
February and the climb from a very deep trough in April.
Massachusetts,
along with several other states in the Northeast, was hit
harder by COVID-19 before the country as a whole, was shut
down earlier and more completely than most other states and
began to reopen later and more slowly than most states.
This makes it unsurprising that the pace of the economic
decline in Massachusetts was greater than it was nationally
in the second quarter of 2020.
In the second
quarter, payroll employment fell by 16.5 percent in
Massachusetts as compared to 12.0 percent nationally.
MassBenchmarks
News Release
July 30, 2020
Q2 2020 was the worst quarter on record, UMass journal
reports
Massive job losses & substantial declines in income &
spending reflect the pandemic response
The notorious July
31 date will not loom over state lawmakers in the same way
as usual this year.
Both branches of
the Massachusetts Legislature reached a final agreement
Thursday to scrap the end-of-July deadline that the House
and Senate for decades have imposed on themselves to
complete formal business in the second year of their
two-year sessions.
Virtually every
legislative session ends after a rush to wrap up work on
complex -- and, often, procrastinated -- bills, and after
experiencing an unprecedented disruption due to the COVID-19
outbreak that hit Massachusetts in March, legislative
leaders opted to give themselves more time and flexibility
to complete critical work.
Now, they will
have about five more months in which they can call the full
House and Senate rosters into session for roll call votes on
pandemic-related bills, a spending plan and other business
that may arise.
Formal sessions
can now run effectively until the next makeup of the
Legislature is inaugurated. On paper, the order amending the
rules pushes back the deadline but does not set explicit
parameters on what actions lawmakers can take after 11:59
p.m. Friday....
Other major
proposals are still being hashed out privately through the
conference committee process, such as police reform,
multibillion-dollar borrowing bills for both transportation
and IT infrastructure, and an economic development bill
authorizing Baker's long-sought zoning reforms for housing.
Several more bills
are on the verge of reaching closed-door talks, including
health care legislation and bills dealing with climate
change.
Baker, at a press
conference in Andover on Thursday, said the Legislature
would figure out what it should do on its own, but signaled
that he supports the idea of remaining in session as long as
there are major outstanding priorities left unfinished.
State House News
Service
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Historic Legislative Session To Continue Beyond Traditional
Deadline
Spilka Sees Informal Limits To Post-Friday Agenda
On Beacon Hill,
rules are made to be broken, and deadlines set to be missed.
But even by the
Legislature's loose standards, the decision this week to
suspend a 25-year-old edict that otherwise would have
required the House and Senate to finish their business by
Friday at midnight was notable.
Facing backlash in
1995 for voting themselves a raise and passing a capital
gains tax cut during a lame-duck session the year before,
the Legislature adopted a rule requiring it to wrap up
formal legislative business by July 31 in election years.
And the bright
line has been relatively sacrosanct ever since....
The House vote on
Wednesday to scrap Joint Rule 12A and allow the Legislature
to continue meeting for the rest of the year in formal
sessions took a lot of the air out of the normally pressure
packed final week of session, when frantic sometimes only
begins to describe the feeling in the halls.
Nevertheless, both
the House and Senate seemed to proceed at pace, determined
to still get done as much of what they had pushed off to the
last minute as possible. Though it wasn't in the order that
the Senate eventually adopted Thursday night, Senate
President Karen Spilka hinted that she may seek to follow
more informal guidelines for what is in order for post-July
31 sessions: a fiscal 2021 budget, conference committee
reports, and any unforeseen emergency legislation tied to
the pandemic....
So what does it
mean to extend the session?
Well, for
starters, it means that there won't be a repeat of two years
ago when talks between the House and Senate over health care
legislation collapsed at the eleventh hour on July 31. That
could still happen, for any bill, but not until January.
It also means the
Legislature has seized back a modicum of power from Gov.
Charlie Baker and opened the door to the possibility of
back-and-forth with the administration. A veto from the
governor would no longer doom a bill because the Legislature
couldn't vote to override. And similarly, if Baker had ideas
to amend, for example, the policing bill, there is now time
to work through those issues.
But it also means
no issue is truly dead for the year, including possible tax
hikes that could surface before the election, or even after
the Nov. 3 election during a lame-duck session.
Months after
Spilka said she was "not certain now is the time to be
talking about taxes," Sen. Adam Hinds acknowledged this week
that the Senate is indeed talking about taxes.
"We have reengaged
the Senate revenue working group with a new mandate to
consider the current reality and to think through a plan to
meet potential challenges, depending on federal action and
where we stand with the economic recovery and where the
pandemic is," Hinds said....
But speaking of
that elusive budget and what will be needed to balance it,
Democratic leaders bought themselves some time by
essentially seeing Gov. Charlie Baker's $5.15 billion
interim budget for August, and raising him enough cash to
cover September and October as well.
Rather than going
month-to-month, the Legislature passed a $16.5 billion
interim budget that will cover government payroll and
services through Oct. 31.
The move, which
Baker said he would sign before appropriations run out on
Saturday, gives budget officials flexibility to wait to see
if Congress comes to the rescue of drowning states with a
relief package that could dent or eliminate a looming budget
problem expected to be in the billions of dollars....
The other bills in
conference, and which Baker had said repeatedly he'd like to
sign before the year is over, include long-term borrowing
bills with billions of dollars for transportation and
information technology, including support funding for remote
learning....
STORY OF THE WEEK:
Keeping the party going on Beacon Hill.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 31, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Deadline? What Deadline?
With two quick
votes, the House and Senate this week dramatically reshaped
the 2019-2020 session. Instead of a stream of bill signings
to trumpet their accomplishments as they begin to focus on
getting reelected, lawmakers head into August unsure if and
when they will strike key legislative agreements but with
the knowledge that they have more time to get their
unfinished work done.
By suspending the
joint rule requiring major legislative work to be completed
by July 31, legislators have removed one of the most
important motivating factors to close deals: a deadline.
Now, House and
Senate members need to push ahead on the legislative front
while simultaneously campaigning, and the blending of the
two has unknowable by potentially significant impacts for
both electoral prospects and public policy and budgeting
outcomes. For example, by pushing consideration of a fiscal
2021 budget out until potentially after the Nov. 3
elections, lawmakers may be able to push off until after the
elections some the "tough votes" that are likely to surface,
on topics like raising taxes, draining reserves, slashing
spending and programs, or deficit financing.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 31, 2020
Advances - Week of Aug. 2, 2020
The House is
teeing up its response to the Senate's suite of
climate-related bills for debate Thursday, which would put
that significant public policy topic in position to be
handed off to a six-member conference committee by the end
of the week to negotiate a final bill....
It's the fourth
major bill that representatives have been asked to take up
in rapid succession, following on the heels of policing
accountability, economic development and health care bills
moving through the House.
Both branches have
already passed major climate-related legislation this
session. The House last July unanimously approved a
roughly $1.3 billion bill -- the so-called GreenWorks bill
-- centered around grants spread out over 10 years to help
communities adapt to climate change impacts, and at the end
of January the Senate overwhelmingly passed a package of
climate bills that called for net-zero carbon emissions by
2050, and set deadlines for the state to impose
carbon-pricing mechanisms for transportation, commercial
buildings and homes....
That course would
give Massachusetts a more aggressive timeline for emissions
reductions than larger states like California and New York,
both of which require emissions to be at least 40 percent
lower than 1990 levels by 2030, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures....
State House News
Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
House Drops Major Climate Bill Into Busy Week
The poll of 797
registered voters was conducted from July 17 to July 20, and
it was sponsored by the Barr Foundation.
Respondents were
split on whether transportation taxes and fees should be on
the table as possible solutions "if Massachusetts ends up
with a state budget deficit as a result of the COVID-19" --
37 percent said yes, 30 percent said no, and 33 percent were
unsure.
Tax collections
last fiscal year missed benchmarks by about $3 billion and
analysts say initial fiscal 2021 collections forecasts are
overly optimistic by several billion dollars, leaving the
state with a budget crisis that officials hope will be
softened by an infusion of federal relief funds.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Poll Measures Attitudes on Transportation, Taxes, Work From
Home
The House on
Friday night approved a climate change bill that addresses a
2050 emissions reduction roadmap, solar energy net metering,
grid modernization, and workforce development, setting up
likely talks with the Senate on a compromise bill.
The 142-17 vote to
pass the bill came just before 9:30 p.m. and following
deliberations on amendments over two days.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 31, 2020
House Approves Climate Action Bill 142-17
“This is arguably
one of the largest tax increase votes that any of these
lawmakers will ever take. The impact of this vote will
be felt for decades and implement future tax increases on
autopilot. The sheer amount of new and higher taxes,
along with the increased layers of regulations will position
Massachusetts as the most expensive and highly taxed state
in the country. There isn’t a single state in the
country that has a carbon tax, and today’s vote just
permitted carbon taxes to be implemented without an explicit
legislative vote in the future,” stated Paul D. Craney,
spokesperson for Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
“The burden
today’s vote is placing on working families is on par with
the vote to establish a state income tax or sales tax.
It’s that significant. It’s an entirely new way of
taxing people and businesses.
Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance
Friday, July 31, 2020
News Release
MassFiscal Statement on House Voting in Favor of TCI
Environmental Policy has Huge Economic Cost & Negligible
Environmental Impact
Fifty-nine of Rep.
Christine Barber's colleagues in the House co-sponsored her
idea to use an economic development bill as a vehicle to
authorize driver's license access for undocumented
immigrants.
It was apparently
not enough.
Barber pulled the
proposed amendment, which would have spliced the text of her
standalone legislation into a wide-reaching jobs and housing
bill (H 4879), as debate got underway on the package Monday.
The decision
sparked Tuesday morning protests outside the homes of both
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka,
where activists demanded the legislative leaders take action
before formal lawmaking sessions end on Friday.
"We've done
everything that we can these last two years, from a
pilgrimage, from two encampments to a sit-in and a hunger
strike," said Amelia Pinal, a member of the Movimiento
Cosecha group that led the Tuesday protests. "We've
literally sacrificed our bodies in the heat, in the rain and
with hunger so that we can express to this community, to the
legislators, to the public, how truly necessary licenses
are."
While Barber and
supporters said they are hopeful a similar amendment or the
standalone bill could succeed in the Senate, the withdrawal
in the House likely means the proposal will be unable to
overcome opposition in that branch this session, with only
three days left for formal sessions this year.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Immigrant Driver’s License Plan Stalls in House
Activists Frustrated, Sponsor Cites Insufficient Support
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
"Taxpayers beware:
The tax-and-spend caucus on Beacon Hill has broken its
leash.”
That's how I summed up
yet another stealth tax that was attempted to be
inserted into the House's major economic development
bill. Stealth tax amendments buried in huge,
unrelated bills seems to be the new modus operandi
on Beacon Hill. No warnings, no hearings, no
notice — just slip them in
and hope nobody catches them, or objects if they do.
This one blindsided us completely
— I wasn't aware of it until contacted by
Beacon Hill Roll Call after the fact for a comment. Fortunately
for taxpayers this shady amendment amazingly was defeated. It was
too much for even a majority of Democrat representatives to
swallow.
Beacon Hill Roll Call reported ("Allow
Local Tax on Real Estate Purchases [H-4879]"):
House 29-130, rejected
an amendment giving cities and towns the option to impose on the
buyers a tax between .5 percent and 2 percent on the purchase of
real estate to be used by the city or town’s Municipal Affordable
Housing Trust Fund. Purchases by government entities or
charitable organizations would be exempt. Cities and towns
would have the power to exempt certain sales including sales to any
state or local government or charitable organization; to seniors
over 62 years; to low income buyers and to a purchase by a family
member.
“This would provide
cities and towns with the option of creating their own real estate
transfer fees to fund local affordable housing projects,” said Rep.
Mike Connolly (D-Cambridge), the amendment’s sponsor. “All of
the proceeds raised by the fee would remain with the municipality to
fund its own affordable housing programs. I filed this
amendment because it could help cities and towns capture some of the
value that is created by luxury or high-end commercial real estate
transfers for the purpose of funding local affordable housing
programs.” . . .
“The China Pandemic has
unleashed a spreading virus of stealth tax increases while few are
looking,” said Chip Ford, Executive Director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation. “Like whack-a-mole they are a
challenge to keep up with even for those paying close attention.
"A sudden sneak attack
on Proposition 2½ buried deeply within the Senate transportation
bond bill; a quiet invitation for Gov. Baker’s Transportation
Climate Initiative to be disguised, its 26 cents-per-gallon gas tax
hike and other tax increases commingled into a separate climate
mitigation bill; an attempt to add another deeds excise tax on top
of the state’s, this one payable to municipalities,” Ford added.
“Fortunately, this stealth deeds excise tax amendment was soundly
defeated in the House’s ‘affordable housing’ bill, which ironically
would have made housing even less affordable. We hope the
other stealth taxes suffer the same fate. Taxpayers beware:
The tax-and-spend caucus on Beacon Hill has broken its leash.”
Will Proposition 2½ be called "racist"
next? That's what was attempted in Maryland, according to a report
published Tuesday in Forbes Magazine ("Decades-Old Laws Keeping Property
Taxes In Check Are Under Attack"):
Laws limiting property tax payments and their rates
of growth are not racist, despite what a local
official in Maryland recently tried to claim as part
of a failed attempt to weaken a long-standing
property tax cap.
“To me, it’s not about raising taxes,” Prince
George’s County Councilman Mel Franklin (D-At Large)
said of his proposal to weaken a property tax cap
with a ballot measure that could double the
permitted annual increase in property tax
assessments from 5% to 10%. Yet the property
tax cap that Franklin and some of his colleagues
wanted to weaken has saved county taxpayers more
than $55 million over the four years comprising
fiscal years 2015 - 2018, according to a report
commissioned by the county council.
Councilman Franklin claims that property tax cap was
put in place in the 1970s for racist reasons.
Councilman Franklin’s office was contacted for
evidence or documentation of the asserted racist
origins of the county property tax cap, but has not
responded.
The author of the Forbes
report, Patrick Gleason of Americans for Tax Reform, in
listing other states' property tax limitations under
threat also noted:
Massachusetts Lawmakers Seek To Neutralize 40
Year Old Tax Cap
Thanks to Prop. 2½, municipal property tax revenue
raised in Massachusetts is capped at 2.5% of the
assessed value of all taxable property. Prop.
2½ also limits annual growth in property tax
collections to 2.5%. There are politicians in
Massachusetts who would like to see Prop. 2½
repealed, and sitting state legislators recently
made an end-run around it.
In
mid-July the Massachusetts Senate approved a
transportation spending bill that permits a number
of local option tax hikes, allowing municipal
governments to increase tax collections outside of
the Prop. 2½ voter-approved constraints. Chip
Ford, executive director of Citizens for
Limited Taxation (CLT), the organization
responsible for Prop. 2½’s enactment, explained in a
recent letter to state lawmakers why this maneuver,
which he describes as an attack on Prop. 2½, is both
misguided and unnecessary:
“If more revenue is necessary for additional
transportation projects or any other specific
municipal need, Proposition 2½ intentionally
provides a mechanism: operational overrides and debt
exclusions,” writes Ford in a July 13 memo sent to
Massachusetts senators. “This mechanism has
worked well for going on four decades, with debt
exclusions having been proposed and adopted for a
multitude of unbudgeted projects such as underground
sewer system replacement; schools, public safety and
other municipal buildings and their repair;
purchases of fire trucks, ambulances, snow plows,
and other municipal equipment; purchasing open
space, etc.”
The Massachusetts Senate passed that transportation
spending bill and the legislation is now in
conference committee, where differences with the
House version are being worked out.
“If this bill passes, Prop 2½ as we know it will be
neutralized,” notes the Massachusetts Fiscal
Alliance, who has issued a call to action with CLT
urging taxpayers to contact their elected officials
on Beacon Hill and urge House and Senate conferees
to drop the transportation spending bill’s
problematic section authorizing the Prop. 2½-gutting
local option tax hikes.
“With the legislative session set to expire on July
31, taxpayers have the advantage of time running
out,” explains Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s call
to action. “But as we’ve seen with the
creation of the AirBnB tax which was passed without
a recorded vote only a few days before Christmas, no
tax is ever off the table.”
No
matter what happens with this latest effort to
circumvent Prop. 2½ in Massachusetts, opponents of
this property tax limitation law will continue
seeking its repeal in 2021 and beyond.
Likewise, expect future attacks on other state laws
that effectively prevent government from growing as
large as some politicians and interest groups
desire.
On Tuesday a coalition of mayors from
across the state delivered a
letter to the six members of the House-Senate transportation
bond bill conference committee — surprise!
— supporting the assault on Proposition
2½. The State House
News Service reported on Wednesday ("Mayors Appeal for Value Capture,
Regional Ballot Questions"):
Forty-one other states allow cities and towns to
impose their own fees or surtaxes to fund
transportation projects, and Massachusetts should
join that vast majority by supporting two components
in House-Senate transportation bond bill
negotiations, municipal leaders said Wednesday.
In
a letter to the six conference committee members
charged with quickly hashing out a final bill,
coalitions representing dozens of cities and towns
urged the panel to include both the House-approved
value capture proposal and the Senate-approved
regional ballot initiatives authorization in the
final bill.
"Local and regional transportation investments will
play an important role to foster economic
revitalization and recovery," chairs of the Metro
Mayors Coalition, the North Shore Coalition and the
Commuter Rail Communities Coalition wrote.
"Regional ballot initiatives and value capture tools
give cities and towns the opportunity to control
their own transportation destiny. These
investments will help create jobs and promote
greater access to Main Streets for employees and
consumers alike."
The conference committee is negotiating bills
authorizing $17 billion to $18 billion in borrowing
and numerous transportation policy changes.
Municipal leaders stressed that value capture and
regional ballot initiatives together are not enough
to generate enough money for "transformative
transportation improvements," but they called the
two options a critical step to "act as a down
payment" on more impactful local projects....
Four municipal leaders signed the letter:
Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone on behalf of the
Metro Mayors Coalition, Salem Mayor Kimberly
Driscoll on behalf of the North Shore Coalition, and
both Lynn Mayor Thomas McGee and Bedford Town
Manager Sarah Stanton for the Commuter Rail
Communities Coalition.
In part the mayors wrote:
We
are writing today to express our support for the
Regional Ballot Initiatives proposal, included in
S.2836, and the Value Capture proposal included in
H.4547. These two provisions would give cities
and towns the opportunity to invest local money in
local and regional transportation priorities.
For municipal governments to be empowered to
contribute to sustainable, long-term improvements to
our transportation system, all resources that would
help us invest in our communities need to be on the
table. Therefore, we are asking you to adopt
both provisions in the final bill. . . .
Massachusetts is one of nine states in the country
that does not allow cities and towns to raise money
locally to invest in local projects. The two
tools before you are predicated on different
on-the-ground situations. Value Capture
assumes that an investment is already being made by
a developer, while Regional Ballot Initiatives work
more like the Community Preservation Act, allowing a
local option for cities and towns to raise local
money for specific investments. By enabling
cross-municipal collaboration, Regional Ballot
Initiatives also offer the additional flexibility of
allowing less affluent communities to partner with
wealthier communities to unlock projects that
otherwise would take much longer to construct, if
they are advanced at all.
None of them called
Proposition 2½ "racist" — yet.
State House News Service on Tuesday
reported ("Legislature Accelerates Interim Approach to Budgeting; New
Bill Raises Four-Month Tab to Nearly $22 Billion"):
The House and Senate on
Tuesday quickly passed a $16.53 billion interim budget to keep the
government funded through October, a plan that would give the
Legislature and Gov. Charlie Baker more time to understand the
state's fuzzy but dire financial picture in the middle of the
ongoing pandemic. . . . Assuming Baker signs the bill, the
Legislature and governor will have appropriated $21.78 billion to
cover spending over the first four months of the fiscal year.
At that rate of spending, the state's budget would balloon to over
$65 billion, well above the $44.6 billion budget Baker filed in
January.
Back on June 21 in my
commentary for the CLT Update ("Another Beacon Hill
Helter-Skelter Week") I observed:
Stop and think about
this. A $5.25 billion "interim spending bill" to get the state
through July, one month. Carried through the fiscal year that would
create a $63 billion FY2021 budget for the coming 12 months. That
exceeds even the $44.6 billion Baker proposed in January, which
itself was $1.3 billion more than
last year's $43.3 budget.
Seems like I wasn't too far
off my prediction, short by just over two billion bucks.
Meanwhile MassBenchmarks, the Boston
Federal Reserve Bank in collaboration with some university economists,
reported on Thursday:
In the second quarter of 2020,
based on the best information available today,
Massachusetts real gross domestic product (GDP)
declined at an annualized rate of 43.8 percent
according to MassBenchmarks, while U.S. real gross
domestic product declined by 32.9 percent during the
same period according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic
Analysis (BEA). In the first quarter of 2020,
the BEA estimates that the Massachusetts and U.S.
economies declined by 5.1 percent and 5.0 percent
respectively on an annualized basis. . . .
Massachusetts, along with
several other states in the Northeast, was hit
harder by COVID-19 before the country as a whole,
was shut down earlier and more completely than most
other states and began to reopen later and more
slowly than most states. This makes it
unsurprising that the pace of the economic decline
in Massachusetts was greater than it was nationally
in the second quarter of 2020.
Unemployment rates rose faster
and remain higher in Massachusetts than for the U.S.
From March to June, the unemployment rate rose from
2.8 percent to 17.4 percent in Massachusetts, and
from 4.4 percent to 11.1 percent nationally.
Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Current Population Survey, MassBenchmarks estimates
that the U-6 unemployment rate — which includes
persons working part-time but who want full-time
work and persons who want work but have not looked
for work in the last four weeks — rose from 7.9
percent in March to 21.2 percent in June. The
BLS reports that the national U-6 rate rose from 8.7
percent in March to 18.0 percent in June. . . .
In the second quarter, payroll
employment fell by 16.5 percent in Massachusetts as
compared to 12.0 percent nationally.
State revenue collections
are expected to fall short by $3-$8 Billion below the
expectations upon which the FY 2020 budget was based.
Massachusetts has the highest unemployment of any state
in the nation. So what does the Legislature and
Governor do? Spend tens of billions more
than even they initially proposed before
the Wuhan Chinese Pandemic and Baker's magisterial
lockdowns crippled the state's economy.
"No man's life, liberty,
or property is safe while the Legislature is in session."
— Gideon J. Tucker,
1866; often attributed to Mark Twain
"The notorious July 31 date will not loom
over state lawmakers in the same way as usual this year," the State
House News Service reported on Thursday ("Historic Legislative Session
To Continue Beyond Traditional Deadline"):
Both branches of the Massachusetts Legislature
reached a final agreement Thursday to scrap the
end-of-July deadline that the House and Senate for
decades have imposed on themselves to complete
formal business in the second year of their two-year
sessions.
Virtually every legislative session ends after a
rush to wrap up work on complex -- and, often,
procrastinated -- bills, and after experiencing an
unprecedented disruption due to the COVID-19
outbreak that hit Massachusetts in March,
legislative leaders opted to give themselves more
time and flexibility to complete critical work.
Now, they will have about five more months in which
they can call the full House and Senate rosters into
session for roll call votes on pandemic-related
bills, a spending plan and other business that may
arise.
Formal sessions can now run effectively until the
next makeup of the Legislature is inaugurated.
Other major proposals are still being hashed out
privately through the conference committee process,
such as police reform, multibillion-dollar borrowing
bills for both transportation and IT infrastructure,
and an economic development bill authorizing Baker's
long-sought zoning reforms for housing.
Several more bills are on the verge of reaching
closed-door talks, including health care legislation
and bills dealing with climate change.
Baker, at a press conference in Andover on Thursday,
said the Legislature would figure out what it should
do on its own, but signaled that he supports the
idea of remaining in session as long as there are
major outstanding priorities left unfinished.
In its Weekly Roundup
("Deadline? What Deadline?") the News Service added:
On
Beacon Hill, rules are made to be broken, and
deadlines set to be missed.
But even by the Legislature's loose standards, the
decision this week to suspend a 25-year-old edict
that otherwise would have required the House and
Senate to finish their business by Friday at
midnight was notable.
Facing backlash in 1995 for voting themselves a
raise and passing a capital gains tax cut during a
lame-duck session the year before, the Legislature
adopted a rule requiring it to wrap up formal
legislative business by July 31 in election years.
And the bright line has been relatively sacrosanct
ever since. . . .
So
what does it mean to extend the session?
Well, for starters, it means that there won't be a
repeat of two years ago when talks between the House
and Senate over health care legislation collapsed at
the eleventh hour on July 31. That could still
happen, for any bill, but not until January.
It
also means the Legislature has seized back a modicum
of power from Gov. Charlie Baker and opened the door
to the possibility of back-and-forth with the
administration. A veto from the governor would
no longer doom a bill because the Legislature
couldn't vote to override. And similarly, if Baker
had ideas to amend, for example, the policing bill,
there is now time to work through those issues.
But it also means no issue is truly dead for the
year, including possible tax hikes that could
surface before the election, or even after the Nov.
3 election during a lame-duck session.
It also means that
taxpayers and taxpayers' advocates can't take a breather
this year. It means that stealth tax assaults will
continue relentlessly through the end of 2020 before
beginning anew in January of 2021. It means you,
taxpayer, and CLT must remain on full alert, obsessively
vigilant without blinking for the foreseeable future and
beyond.
The News Service's Advances for next week
further adds:
By
suspending the joint rule requiring major
legislative work to be completed by July 31,
legislators have removed one of the most important
motivating factors to close deals: a deadline.
Now, House and Senate members need to push ahead on
the legislative front while simultaneously
campaigning, and the blending of the two has
unknowable by potentially significant impacts for
both electoral prospects and public policy and
budgeting outcomes. For example, by pushing
consideration of a fiscal 2021 budget out until
potentially after the Nov. 3 elections, lawmakers
may be able to push off until after the elections
some the "tough votes" that are likely to surface,
on topics like raising taxes, draining reserves,
slashing spending and programs, or deficit
financing.
More bad news for taxpayers arrived on
Friday night when the House passed (142-17 with the votes to pass of 16
Republicans, including minority leader Brad Jones) H-4912, "An Act
Creating a 2050 Roadmap to a Clean and Thriving Commonwealth." It
gave the green light to adoption of the Transportation Climate
Initiative (TCI) that Gov. Baker has craved, and vowed to implement with
or without legislative approval. He implicitly got that Friday
night.
Both branches have already passed major
climate-related legislation this session. The House
last July unanimously approved a roughly $1.3
billion bill -- the so-called GreenWorks bill --
centered around grants spread out over 10 years to
help communities adapt to climate change impacts,
and at the end of January the Senate overwhelmingly
passed a package of climate bills that called for
net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and set deadlines
for the state to impose carbon-pricing mechanisms
for transportation, commercial buildings and
homes....
That course would give Massachusetts a more
aggressive timeline for emissions reductions than
larger states like California and New York, both of
which require emissions to be at least 40 percent
lower than 1990 levels by 2030, according to the
National Conference of State Legislatures.
On Wednesday the News
Service also reported ("Poll Measures Attitudes on
Transportation, Taxes, Work From Home"):
Respondents were split
on whether transportation taxes and fees should be on the table as
possible solutions "if Massachusetts ends up with a state budget
deficit as a result of the COVID-19" -- 37 percent said yes, 30
percent said no, and 33 percent were unsure.
Two days later, on Friday
night, the News Service reported ("House Approves
Climate Action Bill 142-17"):
The House on Friday night approved a climate change
bill that addresses a 2050 emissions reduction
roadmap, solar energy net metering, grid
modernization, and workforce development, setting up
likely talks with the Senate on a compromise bill.
The 142-17 vote to pass the bill came just before
9:30 p.m. and following deliberations on amendments
over two days.
Mass Fiscal Alliance, CLT's
ally in opposition to TCI, immediately responded with
its news release ("Environmental Policy has Huge
Economic Cost & Negligible Environmental Impact"), in
part noting:
“This is arguably one of the largest tax increase
votes that any of these lawmakers will ever take.
The impact of this vote will be felt for decades and
implement future tax increases on autopilot.
The sheer amount of new and higher taxes, along with
the increased layers of regulations will position
Massachusetts as the most expensive and highly taxed
state in the country. There isn’t a single
state in the country that has a carbon tax, and
today’s vote just permitted carbon taxes to be
implemented without an explicit legislative vote in
the future,” stated Paul D. Craney, spokesperson for
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
“The burden today’s vote is placing on working
families is on par with the vote to establish a
state income tax or sales tax. It’s that
significant. It’s an entirely new way of
taxing people and businesses.
Next, this "climate
mitigation" bill that incorporates this new taxing power
also must now go to another House-Senate conference
committee to reconcile the two versions. Given
that the Legislature just extended its formal session
through the end of the year it has an extended
opportunity now in one form or another to become law.
Another proposed law has now been granted a
new lease on life, after being withdrawn on Monday from the economic
development bill the House passed. The State House News Service
reported on Tuesday ("Immigrant Driver’s License Plan Stalls in House"):
Fifty-nine of Rep. Christine Barber's colleagues in
the House co-sponsored her idea to use an economic
development bill as a vehicle to authorize driver's
license access for undocumented immigrants.
It
was apparently not enough.
Barber pulled the proposed amendment, which would
have spliced the text of her standalone legislation
into a wide-reaching jobs and housing bill (H 4879),
as debate got underway on the package Monday.
The decision sparked Tuesday morning protests
outside the homes of both House Speaker Robert DeLeo
and Senate President Karen Spilka, where activists
demanded the legislative leaders take action before
formal lawmaking sessions end on Friday.
"We've done everything that we can these last two
years, from a pilgrimage, from two encampments to a
sit-in and a hunger strike," said Amelia Pinal, a
member of the Movimiento Cosecha group that led the
Tuesday protests. "We've literally sacrificed our
bodies in the heat, in the rain and with hunger so
that we can express to this community, to the
legislators, to the public, how truly necessary
licenses are."
While Barber and supporters said they are hopeful a
similar amendment or the standalone bill could
succeed in the Senate, the withdrawal in the House
likely means the proposal will be unable to overcome
opposition in that branch this session, with only
three days left for formal sessions this year.
At the time it was
withdrawn by Rep. Barber most observers expected that
the Legislature would abide by its rule to end its
formal session on July 31. Legislators' subsequent
decision to continue legislating through the rest of the
year now provides open-ended opportunities for mischief
and disasters.
With way too many moving parts spinning
around on Beacon Hill, keeping up with them is becoming an extreme
challenge. With five months of continued opportunity on Beacon
Hill the challenges for us will continue —
especially after the November election is over and behind everyone, when
"lame duck" legislators assured of keeping their seats no longer need be
concerned for another two years with the wrath of their constituents.
I doubt I need to remind you of what
happened in January of 2017, immediately following the 2016 election
once re-elected legislators were liberated from risk: Enter "The
Obscene Legislative Pay Grab."
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
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Beacon Hill
Roll Call
Volume 45 - Report No. 31
July 27 - July 31, 2020
Allow Local Tax on Real Estate Purchases (H-4879)
By Bob Katzen
ALLOW LOCAL TAX ON REAL ESTATE PURCHASES (H 4879)
House 29-130, rejected an amendment giving cities and towns
the option to impose on the buyers a tax between .5 percent
and 2 percent on the purchase of real estate to be used by
the city or town’s Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Purchases by government entities or charitable organizations
would be exempt. Cities and towns would have the power to
exempt certain sales including sales to any state or local
government or charitable organization; to seniors over 62
years; to low income buyers and to a purchase by a family
member.
“This would provide cities and towns with the option of
creating their own real estate transfer fees to fund local
affordable housing projects,” said Rep. Mike Connolly
(D-Cambridge), the amendment’s sponsor. “All of the proceeds
raised by the fee would remain with the municipality to fund
its own affordable housing programs. I filed this amendment
because it could help cities and towns capture some of the
value that is created by luxury or high-end commercial real
estate transfers for the purpose of funding local affordable
housing programs.”
“Last session we approved a $1.8 billion affordable housing
bond bill [and] we are making key investments,” said Rep.
Ken Gordon (D-New Bedford). “A real estate transfer tax is
not going to solve our affordable housing crisis, moreover
it can drive up the cost of housing by tacking on an
additional fee that low, moderate- and middle-income home
buyers cannot afford. In this time when we are facing a
situation of emergency due to the pandemic, this is just not
the appropriate time to consider this amendment.”
“The China Pandemic has unleashed a spreading virus of
stealth tax increases while few are looking,” said Chip
Ford, Executive Director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation. “Like whack-a-mole they are a challenge to
keep up with even for those paying close attention.
"A sudden sneak attack on Proposition 2½ buried deeply
within the Senate transportation bond bill; a quiet
invitation for Gov. Baker’s Transportation Climate
Initiative to be disguised, its 26 cents-per-gallon gas tax
hike and other tax increases commingled into a separate
climate mitigation bill; an attempt to add another deeds
excise tax on top of the state’s, this one payable to
municipalities,” Ford added. “Fortunately, this stealth
deeds excise tax amendment was soundly defeated in the
House’s ‘affordable housing’ bill, which ironically would
have made housing even less affordable. We hope the other
stealth taxes suffer the same fate. Taxpayers beware: The
tax-and-spend caucus on Beacon Hill has broken its leash.”
Amendment
#34 to H4879
Supporting Affordable Housing With A Local Option For A
fee To Be Applied To Certain Real Estate Transactions
Mr. Connolly of Cambridge moves to amend the bill by
adding the following section:
"SECTION XXXX. Chapter 40 of the General Law is hereby
amending by adding the following section:
Section 70 (a) A city or town which accepts this section
and has established a Municipal Affordable Housing Trust
Fund pursuant to section 55C of chapter 44, Chapter 482
of the Acts of 1991, or other municipally established
Affordable Housing Trust Fund may impose a fee or range
of fees between .5 percent and 2 percent of the purchase
price of real property; provided, however, that no such
fee shall be imposed on: (i) transfers to the government
of the United States or any other instrumentality,
agency of subdivision thereof, or the commonwealth or
any instrumentality or subdivision thereof ; or (iii)
transfers to any charitable organization as defined in
the third clause of Section 5 of chapter 59.
(b) Any city or town adopting a real estate transfer fee
pursuant to this Section shall have the authority to
establish one or more exemptions from such fee should it
choose to do so. Exemptions may include, but are not
limited to (i) seniors age 62 or older; (ii) purchasers
with annual income below 80% of Area Median Income as
established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development for that city or town; (iii) residential
transfers with a purchase price below the mean purchase
price for the city or town over the previous twelve
month period; and (iv) transfers between family members
as defined by the city or town.
(c) The fee shall be paid to the city or town and shall
be accompanied by a copy of the deed or other instrument
evidencing such transfer, and an affidavit signed under
oath or under the pains and penalties or perjury by the
purchaser and seller attesting to the purchase price and
the basis, if any, upon which the transfer is claimed to
be exempt in whole or in part from said fee. The city or
town, or the designee, shall promptly thereafter issue a
certificate indicate that the fee has been paid or that
the transfer is exempt from the fee.
(d) Upon receipt of the fee pursuant to subsection (c)
above, the treasurer of the city or town shall transfer
the funds to the Municipal Affordable housing Trust
Fund, established pursuant to said section 55C of said
chapter 44.
(e) The register of deeds for the county in which the
real property is located shall not record or register a
deed unless the deed is accompanied by a certificate
issued pursuant to subsection (c).”.
State House
News Service
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
House Session Summary - 7 p.m.-11 p.m. - Monday, July
27, 2020
CONNOLLY AMENDMENT 34 - Supporting Affordable
Housing With A Local Option For A Fee To Be Applied To
Certain Real Estate Transactions
Rep. Connolly said: I rise in support of Amendment 66 to
enable local options --
Rep. Donato interrupted Rep. Connolly to inform the
gentleman that the amendment we are dealing with is 34.
Rep. Connolly said: oh, OK. Thank you Mr. Speaker. I'm
rising in support of Amendment 34. This would support
affordable housing with a local option for a fee to be
applied to certain real estate transactions. H 1769 is
the basis of this amendment. It would empower cities and
towns to create their own local real estate transfer
fees. In my communities there has been a desire for real
estate transfer fees for decades. Our communities are in
desperate need of affordable housing. As we move forward
this evening with the governor's proposal, it's
important the cities and towns can capture the value
when real estate changes hands and move that into
investment in local affordable housing projects. This
proposal was reported on favorably by the Joint
Committee on Municipalities in two consecutive sessions.
It is vital to raise the revenue necessary to invest in
our communities.
Rep. Connolly received sufficient support for a roll
call vote.
Rep. Gordon said: I rise in opposition to Amendment 34
which proposes to provide for a local option to place a
new tax on land transfers. Last session we approved a
$1.8 billion affordable housing bond bill. We're making
key investments. The challenges are with getting
projects approved. A real estate transfer tax will tack
on additional fee that low, moderate, and middle income
home buyers cannot afford. It will not solve the housing
crisis. This is not the appropriate time to consider the
amendment. I appreciate the gentleman's thoughts and
concerns.
By a ROLL CALL VOTE of 29-130, amendment REJECTED at
8:24 p.m.
Forbes Magazine
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Decades-Old Laws Keeping Property Taxes In Check Are Under
Attack
By Patrick Gleason
Laws limiting property tax payments and their rates of
growth are not racist, despite what a local official in
Maryland recently tried to claim as part of a failed attempt
to weaken a long-standing property tax cap.
“To me, it’s not about raising taxes,” Prince George’s
County Councilman Mel Franklin (D-At Large) said of his
proposal to weaken a property tax cap with a ballot measure
that could double the permitted annual increase in property
tax assessments from 5% to 10%. Yet the property tax cap
that Franklin and some of his colleagues wanted to weaken
has saved county taxpayers more than $55 million over the
four years comprising fiscal years 2015 - 2018, according to
a report commissioned by the county council.
Councilman Franklin claims that property tax cap was put in
place in the 1970s for racist reasons. Councilman Franklin’s
office was contacted for evidence or documentation of the
asserted racist origins of the county property tax cap, but
has not responded.
Fortunately for taxpayers in Prince George’s County, which
borders Washington, D.C., who are hoping to avoid a
mid-recession tax hike, most council members, including
Franklin’s fellow Democrats, apparently weren’t buying
Franklin’s claims and declined to advance the proposal, with
the sponsor tabling the measure on July 21.
One reason it may have been hard for Franklin to convince
his colleagues that a property tax cap is racist is the fact
that the vast majority of the U.S., including the most blue
states and cities, have property tax limitation laws on the
books. In fact, 46 states have some form of property tax
limitation law. Many of these property tax limitation
measures were enacted in the 1970s and take several
traditional forms.
“There are three types of property tax
limitations—assessment limits, rate limits, and levy
limits—with the latter combining the greatest effectiveness
with the fewest unintended consequences,” writes Jared
Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax
Foundation.
“Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted
assessment limitations,” notes Walczak. “Thirty-five states
and D.C. impose rate limits, some of which make any rate
increases extremely difficult, while others are so lax as to
be almost completely ineffectual...34 states and D.C. have
levy limits, again varying in their effectiveness.”
“All told,” adds Walczak, “eight states and the federal
district offer all three types of limitations in some form,
25 states offer two, and 13 offer limitations in only one
form, leaving just four states—Hawaii, New Hampshire,
Tennessee, and Vermont—without any property tax limitations
on the books.”
Lack Of Property Tax Limit Led To Massive Mid-Recession
Music City Tax Hike
Taxpayers in Tennessee’s state capital and most populous
city are set to suffer as a result of the Volunteer State’s
status as one of the few states without a property tax
limitation law. In June, Nashville Mayor John Cooper (D) and
Nashville Metro Council members enacted a 34% property tax
hike. There is now a grassroots campaign underway to get a
measure on the citywide December ballot to repeal this large
tax increase.
“A proposal called the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act
would repeal the tax increase and amend the Metro Government
of Nashville and Davidson County charter to ensure future
financial responsibility,” reports The Center Square’s
Vivian Jones, who explains how the proposal would undo Mayor
Cooper’s recent tax hike and protect Nashville residents
from future property tax increases:
“The Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act proposes to amend the
Metro charter in five ways. It would limit property tax rate
increases to 2 percent per year without approval by public
referendum,” writes Jones. “It would prohibit the city from
giving away public parks, greenways or public land without a
31-vote approval from the Metro Council. It would require a
public referendum on all bonds issued by the city for
amounts over $15 million, excluding classrooms, libraries,
public health care buildings, police and fire stations and
charter-protected facilities. It would require that if any
professional sports teams, such as the Titans, leave
Nashville, their facilities will revert to the people.
Lastly, it would require Metro records be open to the
public.”
Turnout in Tennessee’s August primary will determine how
many signatures are ultimately needed to qualify the
Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act for the December ballot.
While voters in Tennessee’s largest city may get the chance
to install a property tax protection measure in December,
California voters will render a decision this November on
California’s existing property tax cap, among the nation’s
most well known, enacted through voter approval of
Proposition 13 in 1978.
California Voters To Decide Fate Of Biden-Backed Tax Hike
In November
California’s Proposition 13, passed by voters 42 years ago,
limits the annual rise in the taxable value of a property,
both personal and commercial, at 2% or the rate of
inflation, whichever is smaller. Transferred properties are
reassessed at 1% of sale price. Along with the property tax
cap, Prop. 13 also installed a two-thirds supermajority vote
requirement for the state legislature to raise taxes.
Proposition 15 is a Prop. 13-weakening measure that will
appear on California’s November ballot. Joe Biden and the
California Democratic Party have endorsed Prop. 15, which
could raise taxes on California employers by as much as $12
billion annually by removing the Prop. 13 property tax limit
for commercial properties.
If Proposition 15 is approved by voters in November, it
would repeal Prop. 13’s property tax protection for
commercial property worth more than $3 million by forcing it
to be taxed at market value every year. Passage of Prop. 15
would mean billions of dollars in higher property tax bills
for Golden State businesses at a time when many are already
struggling amid the current recession.
"California already has the worst climate for business and
job creation in the country,” said Rex Hime, president of
the California Business Properties Association. “A
split-roll property tax will just increase pressure on many
businesses that are already finding it hard to make ends
meet.”
Proponents of Prop. 15 portray it as a tax hike on large
commercial property owners. In reality, this tax hike would
also hit small businesses who rent. As John Kabateck at the
National Federation of Independent Business explains, “the
majority of small business owners, upwards of 80%, rent
their property. That cost is passed on directly from
property owners.”
Regardless of Prop. 15’s outcome this November, other
longtime property tax limitation laws also face
reinvigorated threats beyond 2020. Massachusetts has a long
held property tax limit on the books referred to as
Proposition 2½. Prop. 2½ was approved by Bay State voters in
1980, two years after the passage of California’s Prop. 13.
Massachusetts Lawmakers Seek To Neutralize 40 Year Old
Tax Cap
Thanks to Prop. 2½, municipal property tax revenue raised in
Massachusetts is capped at 2.5% of the assessed value of all
taxable property. Prop. 2½ also limits annual growth in
property tax collections to 2.5%. There are politicians in
Massachusetts who would like to see Prop. 2½ repealed, and
sitting state legislators recently made an end-run around
it.
In mid-July the Massachusetts Senate approved a
transportation spending bill that permits a number of local
option tax hikes, allowing municipal governments to increase
tax collections outside of the Prop. 2½ voter-approved
constraints. Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT), the organization
responsible for Prop. 2½’s enactment, explained in a recent
letter to state lawmakers why this maneuver, which he
describes as an attack on Prop. 2½, is both misguided and
unnecessary:
“If more revenue is necessary for additional transportation
projects or any other specific municipal need, Proposition
2½ intentionally provides a mechanism: operational overrides
and debt exclusions,” writes Ford in a July 13 memo sent to
Massachusetts senators. “This mechanism has worked well for
going on four decades, with debt exclusions having been
proposed and adopted for a multitude of unbudgeted projects
such as underground sewer system replacement; schools,
public safety and other municipal buildings and their
repair; purchases of fire trucks, ambulances, snow plows,
and other municipal equipment; purchasing open space, etc.”
The Massachusetts Senate passed that transportation spending
bill and the legislation is now in conference committee,
where differences with the House version are being worked
out.
“If this bill passes, Prop 2½ as we know it will be
neutralized,” notes the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, who
has issued a call to action with CLT urging taxpayers to
contact their elected officials on Beacon Hill and urge
House and Senate conferees to drop the transportation
spending bill’s problematic section authorizing the Prop.
2½-gutting local option tax hikes.
“With the legislative session set to expire on July 31,
taxpayers have the advantage of time running out,” explains
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s call to action. “But as
we’ve seen with the creation of the AirBnB tax which was
passed without a recorded vote only a few days before
Christmas, no tax is ever off the table.”
No matter what happens with this latest effort to circumvent
Prop. 2½ in Massachusetts, opponents of this property tax
limitation law will continue seeking its repeal in 2021 and
beyond. Likewise, expect future attacks on other state laws
that effectively prevent government from growing as large as
some politicians and interest groups desire.
— Patrick Gleason is Vice
President of State Affairs at Americans for Tax Reform, a
Washington-based advocacy and policy research organization
founded in 1985.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Mayors Appeal for Value Capture, Regional Ballot Questions
By Chris Lisinski
Forty-one other states allow cities and towns to impose
their own fees or surtaxes to fund transportation projects,
and Massachusetts should join that vast majority by
supporting two components in House-Senate transportation
bond bill negotiations, municipal leaders said Wednesday.
In a letter to the six conference committee members charged
with quickly hashing out a final bill, coalitions
representing dozens of cities and towns urged the panel to
include both the House-approved value capture proposal and
the Senate-approved regional ballot initiatives
authorization in the final bill.
"Local and regional transportation investments will play an
important role to foster economic revitalization and
recovery," chairs of the Metro Mayors Coalition, the North
Shore Coalition and the Commuter Rail Communities Coalition
wrote. "Regional ballot initiatives and value capture tools
give cities and towns the opportunity to control their own
transportation destiny. These investments will help create
jobs and promote greater access to Main Streets for
employees and consumers alike."
The conference committee is negotiating bills authorizing
$17 billion to $18 billion in borrowing and numerous
transportation policy changes.
Municipal leaders stressed that value capture and regional
ballot initiatives together are not enough to generate
enough money for "transformative transportation
improvements," but they called the two options a critical
step to "act as a down payment" on more impactful local
projects.
Under the value capture model, contributions from real
estate development projects near highways or public
transportation would help pay for that transportation
infrastructure.
Four municipal leaders signed the letter: Somerville Mayor
Joe Curtatone on behalf of the Metro Mayors Coalition, Salem
Mayor Kimberly Driscoll on behalf of the North Shore
Coalition, and both Lynn Mayor Thomas McGee and Bedford Town
Manager Sarah Stanton for the Commuter Rail Communities
Coalition.
The House passed a bill in March authorizing more than half
a billion dollars per year in tax and fee hikes for
transportation purposes, but the Senate declined to tackle
that proposal amid economic uncertainty caused by the
pandemic.
Excerpt from the mayors'
letter:
We are writing
today to express our support for the Regional Ballot
Initiatives proposal, included in S.2836, and the Value
Capture proposal included in H.4547. These two
provisions would give cities and towns the opportunity
to invest local money in local and regional
transportation priorities. For municipal governments to
be empowered to contribute to sustainable, long-term
improvements to our transportation system, all resources
that would help us invest in our communities need to be
on the table. Therefore, we are asking you to adopt both
provisions in the final bill. . . .
Massachusetts is one of nine states in the country that
does not allow cities and towns to raise money locally
to invest in local projects. The two tools before you
are predicated on different on-the-ground situations.
Value Capture assumes that an investment is already
being made by a developer, while Regional Ballot
Initiatives work more like the Community Preservation
Act, allowing a local option for cities and towns to
raise local money for specific investments. By enabling
cross-municipal collaboration, Regional Ballot
Initiatives also offer the additional flexibility of
allowing less affluent communities to partner with
wealthier communities to unlock projects that otherwise
would take much longer to construct, if they are
advanced at all.
State House
News Service
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Legislature Accelerates Interim Approach to Budgeting
New Bill Raises Four-Month Tab to Nearly $22 Billion
Matt Murphy
The House and Senate on Tuesday quickly passed a $16.53
billion interim budget to keep the government funded through
October, a plan that would give the Legislature and Gov.
Charlie Baker more time to understand the state's fuzzy but
dire financial picture in the middle of the ongoing
pandemic.
The House and Senate are in the final scheduled days of
their formal legislative calendar for the two-year session,
but as a result of COVID-19 neither the House nor Senate
have produced a full-year spending plan and will have to
take the rare step of holding a special session later this
year to take up a budget.
The Legislature and Gov. Charlie Baker agreed on a $5.25
billion one-month budget in June to keep state services
funded through July, and Baker filed another $5.51 billion
budget bill last week to cover spending through August.
The Legislature, however, responded Tuesday with an
appropriations bill that would give them more time and
remove the need to figure out immediately how and when to
return for a special post-July 31 session to deal with a
spending plan for the rest of fiscal 2021.
"Today, the Senate and House Committees on Ways and Means
have agreed to a three-month interim budget that will
provide near-term fiscal stability for our Commonwealth,"
House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz and Senate
Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues said in a joint
statement.
House and Senate leaders are also expected to "imminently"
announce an agreement with the Baker administration on a
funding level for local aid for the full-year, according to
Rodrigues and other officials. An agreement over local aid
would be intended to give cities, towns and school districts
predictability heading into the fall when the Massachusetts
Municipal Association has said many cities and towns will
probably have to revisit their budgets, depending on what
actions the state and Congress take.
More than 100 towns went into the new fiscal year with
temporary budgets that were authorized by the Division of
Local Services, while others were able to hold
socially-distant Town Meetings to get full-year budgets
approved based on what information they had at the time.
"We are committed to finalizing a full-year budget that is
fiscally responsible and responsive to the needs of our
state, but key to developing that budget is further clarity
around potential federal action, our economic recovery and
continued trajectory of COVID-19," Michlewitz and Rodrigues,
both Democrats, said.
Rodrigues later told the News Service that the bill
essentially level funds state programs and services through
October, financing state government at the lower of either
the fiscal 2020 budget appropriation or Gov. Charlie Baker's
budget proposal from January.
"It is what we figured out collectively is necessary to keep
the lights on and the bills paid at a minimum over the next
three months," he said.
Assuming Baker signs the bill, the Legislature and governor
will have appropriated $21.78 billion to cover spending over
the first four months of the fiscal year. At that rate of
spending, the state's budget would balloon to over $65
billion, well above the $44.6 billion budget Baker filed in
January. But budget officials said state spending is
weighted toward the early part of the fiscal year, and would
eventually slow down.
"Many expenses are front-end loaded, so you have to make an
annual payment up front so it's always the first half of the
fiscal year is much higher monthly costs than the second
half of the fiscal year," Rodrigues said.
Administration and Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan has
worked closely with House and Senate budget leaders since
March to monitor state finances and the coronavirus's impact
on tax revenue, and a spokesman for the administration said
it would "carefully review" the interim budget once it
reaches the governor's desk.
"The Administration appreciates the efforts of the
Legislature to help ensure the continued delivery of
essential government services with an interim spending plan
during this period of economic uncertainty," said Patrick
Marvin, spokesman for the Executive Office of Administration
and Finance.
Massachusetts is one of eight states without a fiscal 2021
budget, according to the National Association of State
Budget Officers (NASBO), but the organization said some
states with full-year budgets are already planning to return
for special sessions to adjust those plans in response to
revenue declines.
Rodrigues, in remarks on the Senate floor, said it was
"prudent and responsible" to wait longer before producing a
full-year spending plan for fiscal 2021, which began on July
1.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has created extreme uncertainty for
the states of our public health and economy," Rodrigues
said.
The Westport Democrat said legislative leaders want "greater
clarity" on whether Congress and the White House will
deliver additional federal aid for state and local
governments, as well as more information on the impacts of
the state's reopening strategy on the economy and the trend
of the virus moving into the fall.
"If we were to attempt to pass a full year budget without
this critical information we would be forced to make
challenging and painful decisions without knowing the full
extent of our resources or the state of the crisis,"
Rodrigues said.
Eileen McAnneny, the president the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Association, said she wasn't surprised to see the
Legislature push off budgeting decisions until they have a
better idea of what kind help Congress might provide.
"The fact that it's for three months indicates that they
either think there will be uncertainty for quite a while or
there are other considerations for when to schedule the
special session," McAnneny said.
The spending bill passed on Tuesday expires on Oct. 31,
meaning the Legislature will either have to return before
the Nov. 3 general election, when relatively few will be
facing serious challengers, or extend again.
"If they had done a four-month it might be more obvious what
they were doing," McAnneny said.
"It's also my understanding that the Senate is preparing to
have a revenue discussion around the time they finalize the
budget," she said, adding, "Given the size of the potential
shortfall there will probably have to be some combination of
cuts, revenue increases and use of the rainy day fund."
McAnneny, in a follow-up conversation, stressed that it was
not a certainty that the Senate would take up taxes later
this year. Sen. Adam Hinds, the Senate chair of the Revenue
Committee, has been leading that branch's exploration of tax
reform this session.
Sen. Adam Hinds, the Senate chair of the Revenue Committee,
has been leading that branch's exploration of tax reform
this session.
"We have reengaged the Senate revenue working group with a
new mandate to consider the current reality and to think
through a plan to meet potential challenges, depending on
federal action and where we stand with the economic recovery
and where the pandemic is," Hinds said.
Hinds said the working group, which still plans to release
long-term tax reform recommendations this year, will
continue to meet through the fall and has "expanded what
it's looking at and accelerating."
"At this point it's far too premature to know if, let alone
when, action will be required," Hinds said.
Hinds took to social media after the interim budget was
released and Tweeted that not only did it level fund
unrestricted municipal aid and Chapter 70 school aid, but it
included a $107 million increase in school funding for
inflation. He later deleted the Tweet, and told the News
Service, "I defer to the chairs of Ways and Means. The
reality is, the details haven't been finalized."
Economists and fiscal analysts have projected that the
$31.15 billion in state tax revenue that officials once
predicted could wind up at least $6 billion lower because of
the pandemic and the business closures enacted by government
to control the virus's spread.
Baker and the Legislature have not yet updated that revenue
projection, and the trajectory of the virus's infection rate
will have a huge impact on whether the economy can spring
back to life, or if a second surge forces more business
slowdowns.
Waiting, however, doesn't come without its own downsides.
McAnneny said that if the state were to simply level fund
government services for the year, it would shrink the
projected $6 billion revenue gap by about $1.5 billion.
"The upside is they're not spending more than last year,"
McAnneny said. "The downside is they're potentially not
making changes to realize fully annualized savings."
The budget bill approved by the Legislature prevents the
Baker administration from seeking savings over the next
three months "through reductions in eligibility standards or
benefit levels as compared with items funded in the general
appropriations act for fiscal year 2020."
The bill would also give Secretary Heffernan some
flexibility to respond in the event Congress delivers on
another relief package for the states.
"If federal programs, or other alternative funding sources,
are available to supplant state funding for the same
purposes, the secretary may reduce the state's portion of
said funding in a manner commensurate with the additional
federal revenue received for said purpose," the bill states.
MassBenchmarks
News Release
July 30, 2020
Q2 2020 was the worst quarter on record, UMass journal
reports
Massive job losses & substantial declines in income &
spending reflect the pandemic response
In the second quarter of 2020, based on the best information
available today, Massachusetts real gross domestic product
(GDP) declined at an annualized rate of 43.8 percent
according to MassBenchmarks, while U.S. real gross domestic
product declined by 32.9 percent during the same period
according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). In
the first quarter of 2020, the BEA estimates that the
Massachusetts and U.S. economies declined by 5.1 percent and
5.0 percent respectively on an annualized basis.
These historic second quarter declines reflect the impact of
COVID-19 shutdowns of economic activity, particularly in
leisure and hospitality, personal services, construction,
retail and wholesale trade, healthcare, education, and
manufacturing. This was the steepest quarterly decline in
economic activity for both the state and the nation on
record. As the economy began to slowly reopen in April,
growth reversed course sharply in a positive direction, so
the second quarter results reflect both the sharp drop from
the peak in February and the climb from a very deep trough
in April.
Massachusetts, along with several other states in the
Northeast, was hit harder by COVID-19 before the country as
a whole, was shut down earlier and more completely than most
other states and began to reopen later and more slowly than
most states. This makes it unsurprising that the pace of the
economic decline in Massachusetts was greater than it was
nationally in the second quarter of 2020.
In the second quarter, payroll employment fell by 16.5
percent in Massachusetts as compared to 12.0 percent
nationally. These represent annualized rates of decline of
51.4 percent in Massachusetts and 40.0 percent in the U.S.
In the first quarter of this year, employment in
Massachusetts fell 0.1 percent as compared to growth of 0.4
percent nation-wide, on an annualized basis. Relative to the
second quarter of last year, employment in Massachusetts is
down 16.3 percent and 11.2 percent nationally.
MassBenchmarks estimates wage and salary income in
Massachusetts fell 11.2 percent in Massachusetts and
declined by 7.1 percent nationally in the second quarter,
representing annualized rates of decline of 37.7 percent and
25.4 percent respectively. In the first quarter, according
the BEA, wage and salary income rose 0.5 percent in
Massachusetts on an annualized basis and was flat (0.0
percent growth) for the U.S. as a whole. Year-over-year,
wage and salary income fell 10.3 percent in Massachusetts
and 5.6 percent for the U.S. during the second quarter.
Unemployment rates rose faster and remain higher in
Massachusetts than for the U.S. From March to June, the
unemployment rate rose from 2.8 percent to 17.4 percent in
Massachusetts, and from 4.4 percent to 11.1 percent
nationally. Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Current Population Survey, MassBenchmarks estimates that the
U-6 unemployment rate — which includes persons working
part-time but who want full-time work and persons who want
work but have not looked for work in the last four weeks —
rose from 7.9 percent in March to 21.2 percent in June. The
BLS reports that the national U-6 rate rose from 8.7 percent
in March to 18.0 percent in June.
The fall in employment and earnings in addition to the
widespread economic shutdowns significantly decreased
spending in the state during the second quarter.
MassBenchmarks estimates that spending on items subject to
the Massachusetts regular sales and motor vehicle sales
taxes fell 11.1 percent in the second quarter, an annualized
rate of decline of 37.5 percent. In the first quarter, such
spending rose 4.4 percent on an annualized basis. Spending
declined by an estimated 7.5 percent on a year-over-year
basis in the second quarter.
"As the economy continues to reopen, third quarter growth
should be sharply higher", noted Alan Clayton-Matthews,
MassBenchmarks Senior Contributing Editor and Professor
Emeritus of Economics and Public Policy at Northeastern
University, who compiles and analyzes the Current and
Leading Indexes. "Given that Massachusetts started opening
up later than most other states and is having success
limiting the spread of COVID-19 thus far, there is the very
real possibility that state performance in the third quarter
will outpace that of the nation," Clayton-Matthews added.
Nevertheless, employment and economic activity are not
expected to return to their peak levels (February) anytime
soon.
State economic indicators for May and June are markedly more
encouraging than they were in March and April. After losing
690,500 jobs in March and April, an estimated 138,700 were
added in May and June. Initial unemployment claims have
fallen steadily from 409,000 in March to 144,000 in June.
The U-6 unemployment rate fell from 26.4 percent in April to
21.2 percent in June, suggesting more part-time workers are
finding full-time work. Spending on items subject to the
Massachusetts regular sales and motor vehicle sales taxes
also began to rise sharply in May.
The outlook for the fourth quarter is considerably more
uncertain. For Massachusetts as well as the nation, the pace
of the recovery and length of time the economy is operating
below capacity will depend on the course of COVID-19, the
efficacy of public health policies designed to prevent its
spread, the cooperation of the public and their adherence to
public health guidelines, and success in finding and
distributing safe vaccine(s) and effective treatments for
the virus.
Download the detailed report.
State House
News Service
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Historic Legislative Session To Continue Beyond Traditional
Deadline
Spilka Sees Informal Limits To Post-Friday Agenda
By Chris Lisinski, Matt Murphy and Chris Van Buskirk
The notorious July 31 date will not loom over state
lawmakers in the same way as usual this year.
Both branches of the Massachusetts Legislature reached a
final agreement Thursday to scrap the end-of-July deadline
that the House and Senate for decades have imposed on
themselves to complete formal business in the second year of
their two-year sessions.
Virtually every legislative session ends after a rush to
wrap up work on complex -- and, often, procrastinated --
bills, and after experiencing an unprecedented disruption
due to the COVID-19 outbreak that hit Massachusetts in
March, legislative leaders opted to give themselves more
time and flexibility to complete critical work.
Now, they will have about five more months in which they can
call the full House and Senate rosters into session for roll
call votes on pandemic-related bills, a spending plan and
other business that may arise.
Formal sessions can now run effectively until the next
makeup of the Legislature is inaugurated. On paper, the
order amending the rules pushes back the deadline but does
not set explicit parameters on what actions lawmakers can
take after 11:59 p.m. Friday.
Senate President Karen Spilka said, however, that she
intends to keep a more narrow focus.
"There may be some COVID-related emergency unforeseen," she
told the News Service shortly after the Senate approved the
extension. "We're hoping that's not the case, but as we
know, the numbers are upticking a little bit. Across the
country, it has been a resurgence. We're hoping not, but one
thing we have learned from COVID is you can't foresee
everything that may need to take place and everything we may
need to act on, so it's important to give ourselves a little
leeway."
Asked if she foresaw consideration in the fall of
legislation such as a bill allowing undocumented immigrants
to acquire driver's licenses, Spilka replied, "The focus
will be those three areas: budget-related, conference
committee, and emergency-related for COVID-19 or some
pandemic-related bills."
The rest of the week could remain frantic on Beacon Hill.
Senators were advised to plan for a Friday formal session,
and the House late on Thursday broke for the evening with
plans to return Friday to continue working through
amendments on major climate change legislation. The climate
bill could potentially be another that moves before a
private conference committee for negotiations with the
Senate by week's end.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo first unveiled plans to extend
the session on Wednesday, saying the Legislature needs to
"remain prepared to address critical issues related to the
health, safety and economic well-being of the Commonwealth
when and if they arise over the next 5 months."
The House unanimously approved an order containing the
extension on Wednesday after rejecting amendments from
Republican leaders that would have required two weeks'
notification before a formal session after July 31 and at
least two hours for committee members to vote on any polls
in that span.
The Senate then unveiled and unanimously approved its own
version of the extension Thursday -- which contained
effectively the same language -- before the House agreed to
the revision.
Since 1995, the Legislature has agreed to follow Joint Rule
12A, which prohibits holding formal sessions after the third
Wednesday in November in the first year of each two-year
lawmaking term and after the last day of July in the second
year.
Lawmakers typically shift their focus to campaigning in
August, and they look to the July 31 deadline as a firewall
between policymaking and the politics of the electoral
season. The deadline also prevents major changes from
occurring during lame-duck sessions after the elections and
shortly before the next Legislature, including new members,
get sworn in.
Beacon Hill does not grind to a complete halt after July in
election years, though. Both branches are required to meet
in regular informal sessions, during which any lawmaker can
halt a bill by objecting, which renders bills that face any
opposition almost impossible to pass.
Spilka said formal sessions would be scheduled in the
ensuing months on an as-needed basis, and she said the
Senate would "work very hard to give advance notice" to
lawmakers about scheduling, though she did not specify an
exact timeframe.
One of the most significant pieces of business legislators
will address in their newly extended session is the annual
state budget. In recent years, deliberations over the
spending plan have frequently stretched into the fiscal year
it is designed to cover, but this year's outlook remains
clouded with uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic's
impact on the economy and questions about the federal
response.
Massachusetts likely faces a revenue shortfall of $2 billion
to $8 billion below previous estimates, which could
precipitate either unpopular tax hikes or massive cuts to
the public sector. Those could be mitigated or avoided
altogether if the federal government directs more relief
money to states and municipalities, but negotiations in
Washington are still ongoing.
The House and Senate agreed to a $16.5 billion interim
budget that will cover spending through October, which Baker
has yet to sign.
"We have a three-month budget right now, so we'll see when
the feds do their work and we get our numbers," Spilka said
when asked about plans for a fall budget debate. "We need to
see what the track of it is for COVID-19 and our economic
recovery. We are hopeful that COVID-19 will plateau and then
start going down. We are hopeful our economic recovery keeps
improving."
Other major proposals are still being hashed out privately
through the conference committee process, such as police
reform, multibillion-dollar borrowing bills for both
transportation and IT infrastructure, and an economic
development bill authorizing Baker's long-sought zoning
reforms for housing.
Several more bills are on the verge of reaching closed-door
talks, including health care legislation and bills dealing
with climate change.
Baker, at a press conference in Andover on Thursday, said
the Legislature would figure out what it should do on its
own, but signaled that he supports the idea of remaining in
session as long as there are major outstanding priorities
left unfinished.
"There are many people who lost a lot of time between sort
of the middle of March and the middle of June and I know the
Legislature feels that way, and they have a number of pretty
important elements that are currently working their way
through the process," Baker said.
Baker specifically mentioned that he'd like to see his
zoning reform proposal, known as "Housing Choices," find its
way to his desk as part of the larger jobs bill. That
proposal, the governor said, would facilitate the
construction of more senior, affordable and workforce
housing.
"I would love to see that find a way to get back. If that
means they need to stay in session for stuff like that to
make it through," Baker said.
Baker also said he was also "glad" to see the House take up
a health care bill this week focused on tele-medicine, scope
of practice of some health care providers and financial
support for community hospitals. He also mentioned the
importance of a transportation bond bill and police reform,
as well as the need to put in place a permanent budget for
fiscal 2021.
"I would love to see that find a way to get back. If that
means they need to stay in session for stuff like that to
make it through," Baker said.
State House
News Service
Friday, July 31, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Deadline? What Deadline?
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
On Beacon Hill, rules are made to be broken, and deadlines
set to be missed.
But even by the Legislature's loose standards, the decision
this week to suspend a 25-year-old edict that otherwise
would have required the House and Senate to finish their
business by Friday at midnight was notable.
Facing backlash in 1995 for voting themselves a raise and
passing a capital gains tax cut during a lame-duck session
the year before, the Legislature adopted a rule requiring it
to wrap up formal legislative business by July 31 in
election years.
And the bright line has been relatively sacrosanct ever
since.
But in this year of COVID-19, all bets are off -- including,
maybe, bets on professional sports. But we'll get to that
later.
The House vote on Wednesday to scrap Joint Rule 12A and
allow the Legislature to continue meeting for the rest of
the year in formal sessions took a lot of the air out of the
normally pressure packed final week of session, when frantic
sometimes only begins to describe the feeling in the halls.
Nevertheless, both the House and Senate seemed to proceed at
pace, determined to still get done as much of what they had
pushed off to the last minute as possible. Though it wasn't
in the order that the Senate eventually adopted Thursday
night, Senate President Karen Spilka hinted that she may
seek to follow more informal guidelines for what is in order
for post-July 31 sessions: a fiscal 2021 budget, conference
committee reports, and any unforeseen emergency legislation
tied to the pandemic.
The extension of the session was actually one of the top
priorities of a group of Black staffers at the State House
who wrote to Democratic leadership requesting more workplace
support for employees of color in the Legislature, better
recruitment, and the prioritization of racial justice
impacts of bills under consideration.
The letter and organizers of the effort spoke to how Black,
Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) staffers have felt
marginalized on Beacon Hill and subjected to racism in the
workplace, and Spilka and DeLeo's office both said they
would meet with the group of about three dozen.
So what does it mean to extend the session?
Well, for starters, it means that there won't be a repeat of
two years ago when talks between the House and Senate over
health care legislation collapsed at the eleventh hour on
July 31. That could still happen, for any bill, but not
until January.
It also means the Legislature has seized back a modicum of
power from Gov. Charlie Baker and opened the door to the
possibility of back-and-forth with the administration. A
veto from the governor would no longer doom a bill because
the Legislature couldn't vote to override. And similarly, if
Baker had ideas to amend, for example, the policing bill,
there is now time to work through those issues.
But it also means no issue is truly dead for the year,
including possible tax hikes that could surface before the
election, or even after the Nov. 3 election during a
lame-duck session.
Months after Spilka said she was "not certain now is the
time to be talking about taxes," Sen. Adam Hinds
acknowledged this week that the Senate is indeed talking
about taxes.
"We have reengaged the Senate revenue working group with a
new mandate to consider the current reality and to think
through a plan to meet potential challenges, depending on
federal action and where we stand with the economic recovery
and where the pandemic is," Hinds said.
Don't think that didn't go unnoticed by House leaders, who
chafed at the way Spilka dismissed this time as not right to
consider the new taxes and fees to invest in transportation
after House lawmakers took that vote in an election year,
but before the pandemic hit.
But speaking of that elusive budget and what will be needed
to balance it, Democratic leaders bought themselves some
time by essentially seeing Gov. Charlie Baker's $5.15
billion interim budget for August, and raising him enough
cash to cover September and October as well.
Rather than going month-to-month, the Legislature passed a
$16.5 billion interim budget that will cover government
payroll and services through Oct. 31.
The move, which Baker said he would sign before
appropriations run out on Saturday, gives budget officials
flexibility to wait to see if Congress comes to the rescue
of drowning states with a relief package that could dent or
eliminate a looming budget problem expected to be in the
billions of dollars.
Even though they can't predict the pace of the economic
recovery, or its slide backward, Baker and the Legislature
also announced an agreement this week to level fund local
government and school aid in fiscal 2021 (plus $107 million
for inflation and other factors).
That agreement will allow cities and towns to better plan
their own spending as they think about reopening schools in
the fall.
Baker, however, was among the elected officials from Boston
to Cape Cod warning that if Bay Staters don't turn the music
down and stop partying so hard this summer, there may not be
a reopening of schools or any other businesses this fall.
COVID-19 case numbers and the positive test rate have
started to tick up ever so slightly, but enough to sound
alarm bells.
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo came right out and said it,
as she tightened her state's gathering size limits: "We're
partying too much," she said.
Baker wasn't as direct, but the sentiment was there as he
said large parties causing potential "clusters" of
infections were forcing his administration to think about
its guidance for indoor and outdoor gatherings.
"The bigger issue is honestly the behavior generally at
those, which is not socially distant, no masks and in some
respects a lack of respect for how this virus works and how
it moves from person to person," Baker said Thursday.
A day later, the administration enlisted the help of Wally
the Green Monster to help launch a #MaskUpMA social media
campaign to warn against growing complacency. If Wally could
also learn how to throw a curveball for strike, that might
also help save the summer.
So if Spilka can be taken at her word that she's not
planning to slip, say, an immigration bill onto the fall
agenda, what might get done this session?
In addition to a budget, Democrats and Gov. Baker all want
to see a police licensing bill with limits on the use of
force signed into law.
Negotiations are also underway, or soon to be underway, over
a telemedicine bill, a climate action bill to set a goal of
net-zero emissions by 2050 and an economic development bill
that may or may not legalize sports betting.
Both the House and Senate padded the job stimulus bill with
Gov. Baker's "Housing Choices" zoning reform, but only the
House included an expansion of gambling in Massachusetts to
seek revenues from bets on professional and college sports.
The bill would put Massachusetts in the company of 22 other
states with sports betting, but the House version likely
would make the state the first to include a sweetener for
team owners by giving a small percentage of the profits to
the owner of the venue in Massachusetts where a game or
match gets played.
The Senate left sports betting out of its jobs bill, and
Senate leaders, including Economic Development Committee
Co-Chair Sen. Eric Lesser, had plenty to say about wanting
to take up sports betting, perhaps as a standalone bill, and
the need to thoroughly study the issue.
But it all sounded a lot like, "Not going to happen this
year, sorry."
The other bills in conference, and which Baker had said
repeatedly he'd like to sign before the year is over,
include long-term borrowing bills with billions of dollars
for transportation and information technology, including
support funding for remote learning.
If all this wasn't enough, Baker took a timeout during his
press conference in Andover on the campus of Pfizer, where a
potential COVID-19 vaccine is being developed, to warn
against planting mysterious seeds that have been arriving in
the mail from foreign countries.
"Locusts? What's next?" Baker muttered.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Keeping the party going on Beacon Hill.
State House
News Service
Friday, July 31, 2020
Advances - Week of Aug. 2, 2020
With two quick votes, the House and Senate this week
dramatically reshaped the 2019-2020 session. Instead of a
stream of bill signings to trumpet their accomplishments as
they begin to focus on getting reelected, lawmakers head
into August unsure if and when they will strike key
legislative agreements but with the knowledge that they have
more time to get their unfinished work done.
By suspending the joint rule requiring major legislative
work to be completed by July 31, legislators have removed
one of the most important motivating factors to close deals:
a deadline.
Now, House and Senate members need to push ahead on the
legislative front while simultaneously campaigning, and the
blending of the two has unknowable by potentially
significant impacts for both electoral prospects and public
policy and budgeting outcomes. For example, by pushing
consideration of a fiscal 2021 budget out until potentially
after the Nov. 3 elections, lawmakers may be able to push
off until after the elections some the "tough votes" that
are likely to surface, on topics like raising taxes,
draining reserves, slashing spending and programs, or
deficit financing.
The Legislature - Lawmakers On Call
There are no limits on the legislative business the House
and Senate may take up under the joint order permitting
formal sessions to continue for the rest of 2020 and until a
new Legislature is sworn in on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021.
However, the major contours of the agenda did come into
clearer focus this week.
Conference committees, consisting of three House and three
Senate members, have either been set up or are being
assembled to tackle six major areas: transportation
spending, information technology investments, policing
reform and accountability; economic development and housing
production; health care reforms, and climate change and
emissions reduction efforts.
Other focus areas will include budgeting, both closing out
the fiscal 2020 budget year and agreeing on spending plans
for the rest of fiscal 2021, and bills that respond in some
fashion to the unfolding impacts of the pandemic.
Since conference committees operate in total secrecy, House
and Senate members are essentially on call for potential
formal sessions should the panels reach agreements and
indicate their proposals are ready to be voted upon in each
branch.
On the budget front, lawmakers took care of two major pieces
of business this week: committing to local aid investments
for the remainder of fiscal 2021 and passing a three-month
budget, which Baker plans to sign, to keep state government
and services open and functioning through October.
By the end of October, Senate Ways and Means Chairman
Michael Rodrigues said this week, there should be sufficient
information available about federal relief funds, the path
of the virus, and the state of the economic recovery to
assemble a budget to cover appropriations over the final
eight months of fiscal 2021. The odd timeline means fiscal
2021 budget deliberations could unfold only weeks before the
scheduled December start of talks on revenue assumptions for
a fiscal 2022 state budget.
Conference Committee Scorecard
To help you keep abreast of the major bills under
negotiation, here's a rundown of the bills, votes, and
negotiators. The House on Friday was still working on its
climate change and emissions reduction bill, which also
appears likely to be assigned to conference committee soon.
POLICING REFORM
BILLS: S 2820 AND H 4860
HOUSE VOTE: July 24, 93-66
SENATE VOTE: July 14, 30-7
HOUSE CONFEREES: Claire Cronin, Carlos Gonzalez, Tim Whelan
SENATE CONFEREES: Will Brownsberger, Sonia Chang-Diaz, Bruce
Tarr
DATE SENT TO CONFERENCE: July 27, 2020
DAYS IN CONFERENCE: 5
HEALTH CARE
BILLS: S 2796 and H 4916
HOUSE VOTE: July 29, 158-0
SENATE VOTE: June 25, 38-0
HOUSE CONFEREES: Ron Mariano, Dan Cullinane and Randy Hunt
SENATE CONFEREES: Cindy Friedman, Julian Cyr and Dean Tran
DATE SENT TO CONFERENCE: July 31, 2020
DAYS IN CONFERENCE: 1
TRANSPORTATION BOND
BILLS: H 4547 and S 2836
HOUSE VOTE: March 5, 150-1
SENATE VOTE: July 16, 36-4
HOUSE CONFEREES: William Straus, Mark Cusack, Norman Orrall
SENATE CONFEREES: Joseph Boncore, Michael Rodrigues, Dean
Tran
DATE SENT TO CONFERENCE: July 23
DAYS IN CONFERENCE: 9
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BOND
BILLS: H 4733 and S 2819
HOUSE VOTE: May 20, 149-7
SENATE VOTE: July 2, 38-0
HOUSE CONFEREES: Aaron Michlewitz, Danielle Gregoire, David
Vieira
SENATE CONFEREES: Michael Rodrigues, Sal DiDomenico, Ryan
Fattman
DATE SENT TO CONFERENCE: July 16
DAYS IN CONFERENCE: 16
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
BILLS: S 2842 and H 4887
HOUSE VOTE: July 28, 156-3
SENATE VOTE: June 29, 40-0
HOUSE CONFEREES: Aaron Michlewitz, Ann-Margaret Ferrante and
Donald Wong
SENATE CONFEREES: Eric Lesser, Michael Rodrigues and Patrick
O'Connor
DATE SENT TO CONFERENCE: July 30, 2020
DAYS IN CONFERENCE: 2
Quarantine Enforcement/Colleges and Schools
Beginning Saturday, all travelers entering Massachusetts
from certain states, including permanent residents returning
home and incoming college students, must comply with new
mandatory quarantine or testing requirements or face fines
of up to $500 per day. The restrictions do not apply to
travelers coming from states with a daily case rate of less
than six people per 100,000 and a positive test rate below 5
percent, each on a rolling seven-day average.
Under the executive order that Gov. Baker announced July 24,
those arriving in Massachusetts will need to fill out a form
summarizing their travel, then either self-isolate for 14
days or provide negative COVID-19 test results that are at
most 72 hours old. Baker said Friday that 8,000 people had
already filled out that form.
The order comes as virus counts grow around the country and
as Massachusetts, home to scores of colleges and
universities, awaits the arrival of students, many of whom
haven't stepped foot on campuses since March. The return of
students poses a major new challenge in the state's efforts
to limit the spread of the virus.
Case counts are rising slightly in Massachusetts, which is
also factoring into the intensifying talks over how to
reopen K-12 public schools across Massachusetts. Classes
will resume, but the debate continues over whether education
will take place in-person, remotely, or through a hybrid
model that features some in-person learning blended with
remote classes and lessons. "No final decision's been made
on reopening," Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said Friday in a
statement that's applicable in many communities. - Michael
P. Norton
One Month 'til Primary Elections
While the mail-in voting process has already begun, there's
a month until the Sept. 1 primaries, which this year will
feature the high-profile contest for the Democratic
nomination for U.S. Senate between incumbent Democrat Ed
Markey and his challenger, Congressman Joe Kennedy III.
This primary season will be the first in Massachusetts
history to offer an early voting period, running from Aug.
22 to Aug. 28. The COVID-prompted elections access law
creating the early voting also permitted all voters to
submit ballots by mail, which must reach local elections
offices by Aug. 26 to count. Secretary of State William
Galvin has been sending applications for mail-in primary
ballots to every voter in Massachusetts as is required under
the law.
Dozens of sitting lawmakers and legislative hopefuls will
also have their electoral fates decided on Sept. 1.
Altogether, 31 of the state 200 legislative districts will
see either a contested Democratic or Republican primary
race, several of which will then not have a major-party
showdown in the general election.
Just one current Republican member of the Legislature, Rep.
Nicolas Boldyga, faces a primary opponent from his own
party, while 14 sitting Democratic representatives and five
Democratic senators face primary opponents.
Among those with primaries, eight of the House members and
four of the Senate members are committee chairs or
high-ranking leaders, including Housing Committee Co-chair
Rep. Kevin Honan of Boston's Allston neighborhood, Revenue
Committee Co-chair Rep. Mark Cusack of Braintree, and State
Administration and Second Assistant Majority Leader Paul
Donato. Power players on Beacon Hill are not often toppled
during primaries, but the outcome is not unprecedented --
two years ago, House Ways and Means Committee head Rep.
Jeffrey Sanchez and Majority Whip Byron Rushing both lost
their seats to now-Reps. Nika Elugardo and Jon Santiago,
respectively.
The other incumbent lawmakers who face primary opponents are
Democratic Reps. David Linsky, Danielle Gregoire, James
Murphy, Dan Ryan, Frank Moran, David Nangle, Jerald
Parisella, William Galvin, John Lawn, Michelle DuBois and
Christine Barber and Democratic Sens. Michael Brady, Nick
Collins, Patricia Jehlen, Walter Timilty and James Welch.
The lawmaking cycle has been disrupted by the almost
all-consuming presence of the COVID-19 pandemic, but elected
officials have still taken several crucial votes in recent
weeks on topics such as police reform and climate change
that could become focal points for primary voters and
candidates.
For the majority of lawmakers, though, the turn toward
campaign season will not involve their own campaigns: 98
representatives and 28 senators, together representing
nearly two-thirds of the Legislature, face an easy glide to
re-election with no declared Democratic or Republican
opponents. Instead, those politicians will look to fill up
their summers and falls rallying on behalf of their
colleagues who do face challenges, backing other politicians
and causes, or enjoying some time off until they are called
back to Beacon Hill for legislative business. - Chris
Lisinski
State House
News Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
House Drops Major Climate Bill Into Busy Week
Marathon House Sessions on Policing, Jobs, Health Care Bills
By Colin A. Young
The House is teeing up its response to the Senate's suite of
climate-related bills for debate Thursday, which would put
that significant public policy topic in position to be
handed off to a six-member conference committee by the end
of the week to negotiate a final bill.
The bill cleared the House Ways and Means Committee without
dissent Wednesday and addresses topics including the 2050
emissions reduction roadmap, solar energy net metering, grid
modernization, workforce development, energy efficiency, and
municipal electric and light plant clean energy targets.
"Under Speaker DeLeo, the House once again is showing -- the
2016 bill, the 2018 bill, GreenWorks, the fact that we
forwarded Green Recovery -- that we are working to make sure
the grid of tomorrow is cleaner and greener," Rep. Tom
Golden, House chair of the Committee on Telecommunications,
Utilities and Energy, said. "This is a serious step towards
another successful piece of legislation that the speaker
charged the committee to put together."
It's the fourth major bill that representatives have been
asked to take up in rapid succession, following on the heels
of policing accountability, economic development and health
care bills moving through the House.
Both branches have already passed major climate-related
legislation this session. The House last July unanimously
approved a roughly $1.3 billion bill -- the so-called
GreenWorks bill -- centered around grants spread out over 10
years to help communities adapt to climate change impacts,
and at the end of January the Senate overwhelmingly passed a
package of climate bills that called for net-zero carbon
emissions by 2050, and set deadlines for the state to impose
carbon-pricing mechanisms for transportation, commercial
buildings and homes.
The bill that the House plans to debate Thursday would put
Massachusetts on a path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050
and would require that the executive branch set interim
emission reduction targets of at least 50 percent below 1990
emission levels by 2030 and at least 75 percent below 1990
levels by 2040. It also adopts parts of a 2050 roadmap bill
(H 3983) filed by Rep. Joan Meschino to require the Baker
administration by the end of 2021 to file a plan detailing
how Massachusetts can meet the 2050 target.
That course would give Massachusetts a more aggressive
timeline for emissions reductions than larger states like
California and New York, both of which require emissions to
be at least 40 percent lower than 1990 levels by 2030,
according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The House approach also requires each of the 41 municipal
lighting plants in the state to establish a greenhouse gas
emissions standard and requires that half of the power sold
to retail end-user customers by 2030 be "non-carbon emitting
energy," that 75 percent be "non-carbon emitting energy" by
2040 and that municipal lighting plant energy sales achieve
net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Sen. Michael Barrett, Golden's Senate counterpart at the
Committee on Telecommunication, Utilities and Energy, said
the House's bill would make it nearly impossible to monitor
the state's progress towards those goals, and said he favors
the Senate's approach of installing interim targets every
five years rather than every 10 years.
"Here we have goals widely spaced apart with no
accountability back to the public or the Legislature in the
House bill," he said. "There's a reason the Senate proposed
a standalone, independent climate policy commission. That's
because the executive branch charged with realizing the
goals cannot also be left to report on whether they've
achieved them. You've got to separate out implementation and
monitoring, and I'm deeply disappointed that the early
drafts of the House bill leave the two roles together."
The House bill would also change the definition of "direct
emissions." The relevant state law currently defines direct
emissions as "emissions from sources that are owned or
operated, in whole or in part, by an entity or facility
including, but not limited to, emissions from factory
stacks, manufacturing processes and vents, and company owned
or company-leased motor vehicles."
The House bill would update that definition to include
"emissions from sources that are owned or operated, in whole
or in part, by any person, entity or facility including, but
not limited to, emissions from any transportation vehicle,
building, structure or residential, commercial,
institutional, industrial or manufacturing process."
Golden likened the new definition to ripping a Band-aid off
and said the new definition will give policymakers a more
accurate picture of how and where Massachusetts emits
carbon. "We need to have the real numbers, we need to know
it's real accounting for direct emissions," he said.
With an eye towards a future in which energy usage is vastly
different than it has been for decades, the House bill
directs the Department of Public Utilities to establish a
Future Utility Grid Commission to study and make
recommendations around "the establishment of a long-term
grid modernization plan to facilitate upgrades to the
electric and gas distribution systems located in the
commonwealth" including infrastructure and investments
necessary for the state to meet its emission reduction
requirements.
The House bill expands a solar incentive program to allow
businesses to install solar and energy storage on their
premises, which Golden said will help cut their energy costs
-- addressing the high cost of electricity in the region,
one of the most frequent complaints about doing business in
Massachusetts -- while also helping to take load off of the
grid at key times.
The bill establishes a Clean Energy Equity Workforce and
Market Development Program at the Massachusetts Clean Energy
Center to provide workforce training, educational and
professional development, job placement, startup
opportunities, and grants to minority- and women-owned small
businesses, people living in environmental justice
communities and workers displaced from the fossil fuel
industry.
It also directs the Department of Housing and Community
Development to conduct an audit of the affordable housing
units it controls or oversees funding for. That audit is
intended to identify opportunities for public housing
developments to participate in various programs meant to
reduce carbon emissions or improve energy efficiency.
One major environmental group was not impressed with the
House bill after it was unveiled Wednesday.
"A climate scientist recently said that we're risking a
planet-wide 'five-alarm fire' with global warming. Now's the
time to show up with a fire hose. Instead, the House is
bringing a toy squirt gun," Ben Hellerstein, state director
for Environment Massachusetts, said. "With its weak 'net
zero emissions' target, this bill would allow the use of
dirty, polluting oil and gas for decades. At a time when we
must move swiftly to end the use of fossil fuels, this bill
postpones action in favor of studies and 'roadmaps,'
requiring nothing to be done for three years. While the bill
takes some positive steps to expand solar energy, it falls
far short of what's needed to protect our health and help
ensure a safe future."
Barrett echoed the last point: "There's good stuff in here
about grid modernization and encouragement of the solar
industry. In general, the bill has some interesting things
to say about the industry, but not very interesting things
to say about emissions reduction."
Despite, or because of, his feeling that the Senate's
approach is a better one, Barrett said he and Golden have a
very good relationship and he sees no reason why an eventual
conference committee wouldn't be able to reconcile the two
bills into one compromise piece of legislation.
"I think it's very doable," he said. "If we can scale back
on the endless plans and scale up on policy execution, we
might actually drive down some emissions and make some
progress."
State House
News Service
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Poll Measures Attitudes on Transportation, Taxes, Work From
Home
By Katie Lannan
Two-thirds of people surveyed in a new poll believe the
state's transportation system will need "big changes" coming
out of the COVID-19 crisis, and most respondents who are
employed full- or part-time indicated they'd like to keep
working from home at least partially once the state reopens.
Thirty-nine percent of employed respondents in a MassINC
Polling Group survey released Wednesday said they'd prefer
to work from home every day after reopening, while 29
percent said a few times a week, 9 percent said a few times
a month, and 5 percent said never. Fifteen percent said it
wasn't an option for their work.
The poll of 797 registered voters was conducted from July 17
to July 20, and it was sponsored by the Barr Foundation.
Respondents were split on whether transportation taxes and
fees should be on the table as possible solutions "if
Massachusetts ends up with a state budget deficit as a
result of the COVID-19" -- 37 percent said yes, 30 percent
said no, and 33 percent were unsure.
Tax collections last fiscal year missed benchmarks by about
$3 billion and analysts say initial fiscal 2021 collections
forecasts are overly optimistic by several billion dollars,
leaving the state with a budget crisis that officials hope
will be softened by an infusion of federal relief funds.
Asked if they'd support or oppose cities and towns
redesigning their streets during the gradual economic
reopening to create more space for social distance, 66
percent said they'd either strongly or somewhat back the
idea. A similar amount -- 68 percent -- said they'd strongly
or somewhat support street redesigns for activities like
walking and biking.
State House
News Service
Friday, July 31, 2020
House Approves Climate Action Bill 142-17
By Chris Van Buskirk
The House on Friday night approved a climate change bill
that addresses a 2050 emissions reduction roadmap, solar
energy net metering, grid modernization, and workforce
development, setting up likely talks with the Senate on a
compromise bill.
The 142-17 vote to pass the bill came just before 9:30 p.m.
and following deliberations on amendments over two days.
With final agreements on the climate bill and other key
bills still far off, the House and Senate this week
suspended their rule requiring formal sessions to end July
31, and agreed to continue with major legislating throughout
2020.
The House agreed to East Boston Rep. Adrian Madaro proposal
that would mandate environmental impact reports for any
project that is likely to cause damage to the environment
and is located within one mile of an environmental justice
population.
A neighborhood must meet at least one of five requirements
to be considered an environmental justice population such as
having an annual median household income less than 65
percent of the state average, 25 percent or more households
lack English language proficiency, or minorities comprise 25
percent or more of the population.
Madaro cited pollution impacts from Logan International
Airport on residents in his district. Child asthma rates are
high, he said, and the area was hit hard by COVID-19 as a
result of health problems associated with unclean air.
The House also backed an amendment requiring the executive
branch and utility companies to procure more offshore wind
power and boost the state's total authorization to 3,600
megawatts.
Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance
Friday, July 31, 2020
News Release
MassFiscal Statement on House Voting in Favor of TCI
Environmental Policy has Huge Economic Cost & Negligible
Environmental Impact
BOSTON – Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance made the following
statement today in response to the House voting in favor of
H.4912, An Act creating a 2050 roadmap to a clean and
thriving commonwealth. The bill passed by a vote of 142-17.
The bill acts as an endorsement of the Transportation and
Climate Initiative (TCI), as well as allowing for similar
tax schemes in the future. The House’s vote is a blueprint
for long term carbon taxes without needing a legislative
vote. The bill allows for the legislature to continue to
cede legislative authority to unelected bureaucrats on
matters of taxation, regulation, and regional agreements.
The final bill included several burdensome amendments,
including implementing California style regulations for
appliances.
“This is arguably one of the largest tax increase votes that
any of these lawmakers will ever take. The impact of this
vote will be felt for decades and implement future tax
increases on autopilot. The sheer amount of new and higher
taxes, along with the increased layers of regulations will
position Massachusetts as the most expensive and highly
taxed state in the country. There isn’t a single state in
the country that has a carbon tax, and today’s vote just
permitted carbon taxes to be implemented without an explicit
legislative vote in the future,” stated Paul D. Craney,
spokesperson for Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
“The burden today’s vote is placing on working families is
on par with the vote to establish a state income tax or
sales tax. It’s that significant. It’s an entirely new way
of taxing people and businesses. If passed, Massachusetts
will eventually see a permanent change to its economy that
will negatively impact the next generation of taxpayers,”
stated Craney.
“TCI is a regressive gasoline and diesel tax. The House’s
vote essentially authorizes TCI like tax schemes by allowing
for future schemes to become law without a legislative
vote,” concluded Craney.
State House
News Service
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Immigrant Driver’s License Plan Stalls in House
Activists Frustrated, Sponsor Cites Insufficient Support
By Chris Lisinski
Fifty-nine of Rep. Christine Barber's colleagues in the
House co-sponsored her idea to use an economic development
bill as a vehicle to authorize driver's license access for
undocumented immigrants.
It was apparently not enough.
Barber pulled the proposed amendment, which would have
spliced the text of her standalone legislation into a
wide-reaching jobs and housing bill (H 4879), as debate got
underway on the package Monday.
The decision sparked Tuesday morning protests outside the
homes of both House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate
President Karen Spilka, where activists demanded the
legislative leaders take action before formal lawmaking
sessions end on Friday.
"We've done everything that we can these last two years,
from a pilgrimage, from two encampments to a sit-in and a
hunger strike," said Amelia Pinal, a member of the
Movimiento Cosecha group that led the Tuesday protests.
"We've literally sacrificed our bodies in the heat, in the
rain and with hunger so that we can express to this
community, to the legislators, to the public, how truly
necessary licenses are."
While Barber and supporters said they are hopeful a similar
amendment or the standalone bill could succeed in the
Senate, the withdrawal in the House likely means the
proposal will be unable to overcome opposition in that
branch this session, with only three days left for formal
sessions this year.
The standalone bill is sitting in the Senate Ways and Means
Committee, and Sen. Brendan Crighton filed an amendment to
the Senate's version of the economic development bill set
for debate later this week.
Barber proposed the same language as the bill (S 2641) as
amendments to both a policing reform bill and an economic
development bill only to withdraw both before debate. She
said that it became clear the measure did not have the votes
it needed.
"With the emotions around the police bill last week and a
full agenda this week, it became very clear that we didn't
have support for this amendment," Barber, a Somerville
Democrat, told the News Service on Monday. "We decided to
withdraw the amendment to fight another day and keep the
work going and keep building momentum."
Roughly 20 people attended each of the two protests, said
organizers with Movimiento Cosecha.
While they did not interact with DeLeo directly, a smaller
group spoke with Spilka, who "didn't give us any
commitments" and told supporters that the proposal's fate
would be "up to the other senators," according to Rolando
Oliva, one of the activists who helped organize the events.
Spilka's office said Oliva's description was accurate and
declined to comment further.
"I feel frustrated and angry that she never gave us a
commitment," Oliva said in Spanish, which Pinal translated.
"People deserve better. She's not working just for some, and
she can't avoid others. This is a right that we deserve."
Spilka has previously voiced support for the proposal,
saying in a September radio interview that "there's like 14
other states that have done this and the sky hasn't fallen."
However, she has not indicated whether she plans to bring it
forward for a vote.
Asked for comment on the protests, a DeLeo spokesman replied
simply that the underlying bill "remains under consideration
by the Legislature."
Opponents of the bill from the Massachusetts Coalition for
Immigration Reform say its passage would make it easier for
undocumented immigrants to live in Massachusetts and for
"unscrupulous employers" to hire them, exploit them and pay
them lower wages. The group opposes illegal immigration,
alleging negative impacts on crime, health care, crowded
schools and the use of government-funded social services.
Gov. Charlie Baker opposes the measure, so legislative
leaders would need to ensure they have a two-thirds majority
ready to override a potential veto. The governor said in
February he thinks "the bar on this one's pretty high,"
flagging concerns with security and confirming identities.
Barber criticized the demonstrations outside legislative
leaders' homes, calling them a "terrible idea by a fringe
group."
"We believe that there should be a clear boundary to protect
everyone's personal space, including that of elected
officials and most especially, their families," Barber and
fellow sponsor Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier said in a joint
Tuesday statement. "We advised, we admonished them, to keep
any and all actions at the State House and we are upset that
they did not listen to reason."
The bill, referred to by backers as the Work and Family
Mobility Act, would allow undocumented immigrants residing
in Massachusetts to acquire standard, but not federal REAL
ID-compliant, licenses, something state law currently bans
them from doing.
At least 16 other states allow undocumented immigrants to
acquire licenses, supporters say.
Close to 200,000 undocumented immigrants live in
Massachusetts, of which 41,000 to 78,000 would qualify and
likely apply for licenses within three years of the bill's
implementation, according to an analysis from the
left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
Barber's decision to pull the amendment came after
consultation with other legislative sponsors and with
advocacy groups that back the effort. Although they
understood the circumstances, activists said they were
"disappointed" with the outcome.
"If it's not now, when?" Natalicia Tracy, a co-chair of the
Driving Families Forward Coalition said in an interview.
"Massachusetts needs to take a stand on supporting
immigrants' rights right now. We're not going to quit. This
is not optional for us. This is something we have to do."
Supporters of the bill, who count the Massachusetts Major
City Chiefs of Police Association among their ranks, have
been pushing for its passage since the start of the
lawmaking session, and in previous sessions, arguing for it
in economic, safety and moral terms.
The surge of new licensing could bring in $6 million in
licensing and vehicle fees, according to MassBudget, and
proponents say ensuring immigrants undergo proper training
and testing before getting behind the wheel will keep all
drivers safer.
Driving without a license may be a necessity for those who
need to get to work, but could generate interactions with
police that lead down the road toward deportation, said SEIU
32BJ Political Director Dalida Rocha.
"We talk about what happened at the border as if it doesn't
happen here, but I don't think people are understanding that
we're funneling families into the deportation pipeline and
separation because of driver's licenses," Rocha, another
Driving Families Forward Coalition co-chair, said.
Advocacy for the bill had been vocal well before Tuesday's
protests. For the past 12 days, Movimiento Cosecha members
camped outside the State House in a show of support. In
February, activists embarked on a hunger strike outside the
State House to call for its passage, and the Transportation
Committee shortly thereafter voted 14-4 along party lines to
advance the bill.
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