Rhetoric heats up on the Municipal Partnership Act

By Joseph A. Curtatone

   (The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

At a packed State House rally on June 21, I joined Governor Deval Patrick, Lt. Governor Timothy Murray and many of my fellow Massachusetts mayors in urging the legislature to pass the Municipal Partnership Act.

The pushback from the legislative leadership was strong and immediate.  House Speaker Sal DiMasi said that, instead of asking for property tax relief, cities and towns should do a better job of controlling their spending.  Besides, he said, the legislature had already increased local aid seventeen percent between FY2006 and FY2007.

What he didn‚Äôt say was that the ‚Äúincrease‚Äù came when the legislature finally agreed to uncap state lottery revenues ‚Äì money that was always supposed to go to cities and towns, but that the state had been withholding for years.  He also didn‚Äôt mention that the revised aid level still left many communities with millions of dollars less in annual aid (in the case of Somerville, over $6 million less) than they regularly received before the state slashed local aid back in 2002.

For her part, Senate President Therese Murray expressed concern that cities and towns might not use new money wisely, and that there might have to be guarantees that any funds raised from a local option meals or hotel tax would have to go directly to property tax relief.  ‚ÄúThat’s what would be the issue, that the money would be directed for municipal tax relief,‚Äù she told the Boston Globe.   

In the current fiscal climate, with the Town of Stoneham so broke that it has been forced to cut all school sports  ‚Äì and with thirty-two other communities facing deep and damaging budget cuts in the wake of failed Proposition 2¬Ω overrides ‚Äì something has to give.

Governor Patrick has stepped up to the plate, and offered significant relief in the form of his Municipal Partnership Act.  At last week‚Äôs rally, I pointed out that the governor‚Äôs proposal ‚Äúrepresents a well-designed and extremely valuable toolkit that will help cities and towns address the need for fiscal stability, a more equitable revenue system, and long-term investment in essential public infrastructure and services.‚Äù   

I went on to say that “no single community is likely to use all of these tools – but every single element of the governor’s proposal is important to multiple cities and towns across the state – and the entire toolkit deserves the legislature’s full consideration and support.

“As mayor of the City of Somerville, I would like nothing better than to tell our taxpayers that we can avail ourselves of the Governor’s proposal to close an archaic and unnecessary telecommunications property tax loophole – and his proposal to allow cities and towns, if they choose to do so, to enact modest local add-ons to the meals tax and hotel tax.

“In Somerville, these changes would net us one-and-a-half million dollars a year – not a great deal compared to the annual six-million-dollar cut in local aid that we’ve wrestled with since 2002 – but very welcome all the same,” I said at the rally.

I concluded with this message to the legislature leadership: ‚ÄúIf you can‚Äôt provide more local aid, then give us the tools to shape our own fiscal destiny.  We‚Äôre counting on you ‚Äì and we‚Äôre paying close attention to what you do.‚Äù

I’m very happy to report that Somerville’s legislative delegation has been supportive of the Governor’s plan: both he and I honor them for their dedication and steadfastness.

Will the rest of the legislature show similar resolve?  Right now, with the Governor marshalling a statewide grass-roots effort, there are signs of real progress.  It seems likely that the legislature will pass the governor‚Äôs plan to open up Group Insurance Commission eligibility and let the state take over management of under-performing city and town pension finds.

In the near term, neither of those changes would help Somerville (our pension fund is one of the best-performing in the state, and it‚Äôs hard to imagine that we could convince most of our unions to come to a quick agreement on moving to the GIC for health insurance).  Speaker DiMasi is still pushing back, however, on the granting of local-option flexibility on small increases in the hotel and meals taxes, although we‚Äôre beginning to see some positive movement on closing the telecommunications loophole.

This fight isn‚Äôt over ‚Äì and the stakes for local property taxpayers are very high.  We should all continue to back Governor Patrick as he pushes for tax reform and tax fairness on Beacon Hill.