The Brockton Enterprise
Friday, June 7, 2002
Editorial
Early retirement plan is bad for the taxpayers
Public officials, particularly those on the state level,
continue to play with taxpayers' money as if it means nothing.
The latest boondoggle is early retirement. The state made a
huge mistake when it offered the program to teachers and it compounded the mistake by passing a law that would allow
municipalities to offer early retirement. Ostensibly, the program is designed to avoid layoffs
during difficult financial times, but it is a law created in the rarified air of "public
service," which bears no relation to the real world or the private sector.
The law gives cities and towns until Nov. 1 to decide if
they want to offer early retirement. It would allow municipal employees to add five years to their public service time or age
when calculating retirement benefits. Not surprisingly, there has been a rush of public employees
demanding that their local officials adopt the program.
And why not? Thousands of them will be able to walk off the
job early with up to 80 percent of their highest three years average of salary. How does this help cities and towns, which
will either have to replace them or eliminate the positions?
It really doesn't. Oh sure, a community may end up with some
net savings if it wants to cut the workforce, but why not just lay off some employees if the economics demand it?
Again, the answer is because public employment is not the
real world. While thousands of private sector employees have received pink slips in Massachusetts, precious few public
employees have lost their jobs. The reaction of the politicians is to protect and enrich them at
the expense of taxpayers while refusing to admit that the reason an early retirement
program was "needed" was because of mismanagement on their own part.
During the fat years, they overpaid on contracts and
benefits. Now, with lean years, public employees and politicians are refusing to accept the reality that there is
no more gravy train. So they go through all sorts of contortions so public employees from teachers to cops to
DPW workers don't have to lower their standard of living. Meanwhile, the rest of us just
have to hand over our paychecks so a well-paid town employee can buy the condo in
Florida sooner than he ever could have hoped.
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The MetroWest Daily News
Saturday, June 8, 2002
Senate keeps Quinn Bill
By Jon Brodkin
Efforts to reform the Quinn Bill, which pays police officers
about $80 million a year statewide for earning college degrees, were dealt a setback when the Senate Ways and Means
Committee released its budget without recommending changes.
Critics of the Quinn Bill, or Police Career Incentive Pay
Program, charge that many of the courses police take to secure raises are of shoddy academic quality.
The bill itself does not require that course quality be
considered when granting approval to colleges trying to secure Quinn Bill-eligibility for their degree programs.
But the House of Representatives' version of the 2003 budget
passed last month would do away with "life experience" credits, and empower the Board of Higher Education to establish
standards.
It also would suspend payments of the state's share of new
raises until a thorough investigation of the program is completed and standards are established. The state picks up
half the cost of the program.
"It's just like MCAS (the state's elementary and high school
assessment test). If we put up all that money, they're going to have to show something for it," said state Rep. Emile
Goguen, D-Fitchburg, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
That provision may have had something to do with the Senate
Ways and Means Committee not adopting any of the House changes to the Quinn Bill, said committee member state Sen.
David Magnani, D-Framingham. The committee released its budget recommendations
Wednesday.
Magnani said it is appropriate to look at the quality of
courses but that he objects to suspending raises. He said he's also not convinced it makes sense to eliminate life experience
credits.
But the main reason no changes were recommended, he said, is
that constituents haven't been demanding any. Still, Magnani said he wouldn't be surprised if portions of the House
Quinn Bill recommendations survive in a House-Senate conference committee.
The 32-year-old Quinn Bill has been drawing criticism for
years, but the state only recently began closely examining the criminal justice and law courses police take to get raises.
The first state report on course quality was issued last
year by the Board of Higher Education. The report said the Quinn Bill may be responsible for turning criminal justice into
an academic "cash cow" and driving down program quality.
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The Lawrence Eagle Tribune
Friday, June 7, 2002
Editorial
No lean times in the Senate
OUR VIEW
The Massachusetts Senate's budget shows even less consideration for taxpayers than one
offered by the House.
A plan by the Massachusetts House of Representatives to
increase taxes by about $1 billion to fund its generous spending wasn't enough.
The Senate now proposes $200 million above that in its own
version of the budget. That would bring total state spending next year to $22.2 billion. The budget is slated for debate
next week.
The Senate plan dedicates $110 million more than the House
to K-12 education and $100 million more to health care. Some of the money would preserve Medicaid benefits for
30,000 long-term unemployed, methadone clinics for heroin addicts and add $10
million to a prescription drug plan for the elderly.
To pay for it, the Senate plans to sock taxpayers with $1.2
billion in tax hikes. These include all the ones proposed by the House -- freezing the income tax rollback at 5.3 percent,
cutting the personal exemptions, taxing capital gains at 5.3 percent and raising the cigarette tax 75
cents. But the Senate estimates this will bring in $200 million more than the House
estimate.
The Senate cut administrative budgets by $130 million
deeper than the House cuts. Still, in a $22.2 billion budget, there ought to be room for more cuts.
Instead both branches of the Legislature are opting to
extract more from taxpayers. That's a bad choice in the midst of a weak economy.
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The Salem Evening News
Friday, June 7, 2002
Berry proposes tax hike
By David Olson
News staff
State Sen. Fred Berry wants to raise the state income tax
and use the extra money to replenish the commonwealth's recession-battered reserve accounts.
The move, if approved, would push the tax rate from the
current level of 5.3 percent to 5.6 percent, and would add another $126.88 a year to the tax bill of a family of four
earning $60,00 a year.
"I realize people don't want to pay more taxes, but we have
a fiscal crisis on the horizon," Berry said.
The state's so-called rainy day fund dropped to around $500
million from $2.3 billion in November 2001 as lawmakers repeatedly dipped into the account to close budget gaps.
The Peabody Democrat said the state will need to rebuild the
account to stave off the "twin horrors" of budget cuts and tax increases if the state's economy doesn't rebound within the
next few years.
Berry said he's not sure the combination of tax and fee
hikes and program cuts lawmakers are considering will be enough to cover a $2.7 billion spending gap for the new fiscal year
that begins July 1.
The House has already overwhelmingly approved a $1 billion
tax package, including a freeze of the state income tax rollback and a 75 cents hike per pack on cigarettes.
While similar initiatives are being considered in the
Senate, Berry feels the state is still on shaky ground.
"I'm gravely concerned we're going to have all kinds of
crises" if any of the measures fall short, he said.
If smokers decide they'd rather quit than pay $5.50 for a
pack of highly taxed cigarettes, it could be enough to throw the budget out of whack, he said.
Berry is pushing his plan as an amendment to the Senate's
version of next year's budget. The Senate is expected to begin debate on the spending plan next week.
Michael Widmer, executive director of the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed watchdog group, favored Berry's plan.
"I think it's a creative and constructive idea that
addresses a major problem," Widmer said. "We are going through the reserves at much too rapid a rate."
Widmer noted that Berry's amendment would reinstitute the
voter-approved tax rollback once the economy rebounds.
"This essentially would allow us to build up reserves to
deal with the fiscal crisis over the next two or three years and still implement the will of the voters, albeit on a delayed
basis," he said.
Still, the measure is something of a longshot. If accepted
by the Senate, it would still need to survive negotiations with the House, which passed its version of the budget last month.
Legislative leaders seem willing to accept a tax rate of 5.3 percent for next year, and could
be hesitant to raise the rate during election season.
Even if the House goes along with Berry's plan, it would
likely be rejected by acting Gov. Jane Swift, and Berry may not have the two-thirds majority needed in the House and Senate
to override her election-year veto.
Then there's the likely public outcry.
"It's incredibly bizarre to think that they would raise
taxes on working people in order to replenish a savings account," said
Barbara Anderson, founder of Citizens for Limited Taxation, an anti-tax group.
In 2000, Anderson's group successfully convinced voters to
approve a rollback of the state income tax from 5.95 percent to 5 percent by next year.
Berry's effort shows the Legislature "has lost all respect
for the voters," said Anderson, who suggested her group might try to find someone to run a sticker campaign against Berry,
who doesn't have an opponent in this year's election.
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