This
year's tree-lighting at City Hall was a big success – and Santa's
arrival on a Somerville fire engine "drawn" by police motorcycle
"reindeer" was truly spectacular. Even with the unseasonably warm
weather, the whole scene – the happy kids (including mine), the
colorful light displays, the music and merriment – helped all of us get
into the holiday spirit.

But there's still plenty of work to be
done before the end of the year, and the lights on the trees outside
aren't the only ones burning into the night at City Hall. (We are
succeeding, by the way, in reducing the City's energy consumption and
carbon footprint, but we're not doing it with shorter hours and less
activity. In fact, we're busier than ever.)

One of the most
crucial elements in our end-of-the-year fiscal planning is the setting
of residential and commercial tax rates for the next calendar year.
Somerville is proud to offer the highest residential property tax
exemption allowed under state law (30 %), but the dramatic cuts we
suffered in last year's budget once again require us to seek the full
amount of property tax revenue growth allowed under Proposition 2¬Ω.
With the value of Somerville real estate continuing to decline as a
consequence of the national economic downturn, we have presented the
Board of Aldermen with an increase in the residential tax rate (subject
to state approval) from $11.71 to $12.30 per $1,000 of assessed value.
That's an increase of $0.59 or 5.1 percent – significantly lower than
last year's $0.76, or 7 percent, increase. And, since the actual dollar
amount residents pay in property taxes is based on assessed property
values, which have gone down slightly, the net additional tax paid in
2010 by the owner of an average two-family home will be only 3.5
percent, or about $36 per quarter. For owners of single-family homes,
the average increase is only 4.4 percent, or about $34 per quarter.

Believe
me when I say that nobody wants to see property taxes go up even a
penny in hard times, but the state has left us little alternative.
Still, the overall news in Somerville remains relatively good – the
median sales price for single family homes may have declined by 7.9
percent between Calendar 2008 and Calendar 2009 to date, but that's
well below the decline in prices for similar properties in such
neighboring communities as Cambridge, Chelsea and Everett (with an
average decline in these cities of over 11 percent) – and much lower
than the statewide average as well. We're holding our own on real
estate value, and Somerville remains an excellent place to buy a home.
(In fact, average condominium prices actually went up last year by 3.6
percent.)

This has been the first year since 1988 in which our
tax rate determination process hasn't been guided by the wise and
capable Dick Brescia, but the superb quality of the work done by Acting
Chief Assessor Marc Levye and his entire team serves as a reminder of
how thoroughly Dick trained and prepared his department. Dick passed
away in July – and we still miss him terribly – but his spirit lives on
in the skill and integrity of the former colleagues he led so well.

In
fact, Dick's commitment to careful management of taxpayer dollars (and
all other public resources) continues to set the standard for fiscal
policy across the face of Somerville's city government.

Another
example of productive year-end number crunching is our proposal to the
Board of Aldermen to have all Medicare-eligible Somerville retirees
take full advantage of their federal benefits by enrolling in the
Medicare program and then purchasing supplemental health care offered
through the City. The result of this change (available under Section 18
of Mass General Laws Chapter 32B) will be to lower the cost of health
insurance not only for the city but also for many retirees – all
without reducing access to, or quality of, health care services. Of
course, not all city retirees are eligible for Medicare, since they
haven't accrued 40 quarters of Social Security payments. (Municipal
employees on Massachusetts pay into a separate public retirement system
that, depending on their career history, may limit their access to
federal programs like Social Security and Medicare.) But many
Somerville retirees who are eligible for Medicare are still receiving
all of their health insurance benefits through the City.

Making
this shift would save the Somerville taxpayers at least $1.4 million
per year – a significant sum at a time when we just had to shave $5
million out of our annual budget due to state aid cuts (with the real
potential for more cuts to come).

To be absolutely honest, I
wish we didn't have to spend so much time crunching the numbers during
the holidays – we'd all rather focus on decorations and shopping and,
above all, on spending time with family and friends. But in the time
I've been in office, Somerville has been able to spend fewer tax
dollars per capita than any city in Massachusetts with a population of
50,000 or more – and we plan to do everything we can to keep it that
way.

This is a season for generosity of spirit – but in city
government it's also a time to stay firmly focused on the bottom line.
It may be dry and boring to crunch numbers for the holidays, but the
net effect is to bring a little more joy to the season for our
hard-pressed property taxpayers.