From the Globe 's Override Central.

Although there have been fewer votes than usual in Greater Boston on property tax increases this spring, the approval rate has been much higher. At least 11 communities, out of 16 that held override votes, have approved the increases.

 

ONE Massachusetts Leadership Team member,  Easton Selectwoman, and Massasoit Community College Municipal Finance Instructor  and Vice President of the MMA's Selectmens Association, Colleen Corona (photo, right) will educate participants on the basics of local budgets, including where we get and how we spend our money,  the fiscal crisis facing our local communities, and how we can more effectively communicate about these issues to our friends and neighbors.

Shirley is a small town, and in a small town, the struggles that face larger communities appear out-sized. But it’s a microcosm of what’s beginning to happen to our state.
Today’s Sentinel and Enterprise describes how the town’s staff works four days a week to save on air conditioning and heating. Four of the town’s seven firefighters have been laid off and nine police officers ensure public safety seven days a week.
Students were already opting out of the elementary and middle schools in Shirley before the town laid off 15 staff members, increasing class sizes by 30 percent.
For years now as Massachusetts cities and towns have been struggling to balance their budgets, the mantra of anti-tax activists has been "find more savings." This call reflects a misinformed belief that deep, structural budget deficits can be closed by eliminating inefficiencies is like thinking one can pay rent by pulling pocket change from between couch cushions.

Wonderful piece called Locked out on Beacon Hill from MetroWest political columnist Rick Holmes.

A lot of good sharp stuff about the lack of transparency in the process. Here's just a couple of paragraphs from the middle.

Read the whole thing. 

Democrats on all sides of the building are already spinning. They heard the voters' outrage and made the tough choices. They passed a good budget in the midst of an economic calamity. They stood up to the special interests, bucking the police unions to bring in civilian flaggers and cut Quinn bill benefits.

They took on the state employee unions on health care and pensions, even taking away some perks that fatten the pockets of legislators. Sacred cows are bleeding all over Beacon Hill.

There's truth to their story, but will the public give them credit? Don't bet on it. Most of the reforms are technical corrections: reorganizing transportation agencies, changing benefit formulas, tightening ethics rules. They mostly fix problems that have generated ugly headlines over the last year or so. They aren't institutional reforms; they don't change the game.

Nor are they likely to change public perception, at least not soon. There will always be another loophole for an unethical pol or a public employee to exploit.

There will always be a detail cop drinking coffee when he should be directing traffic. Howie Carr isn't about to stop talking about government hacks.

 

Now I’m old enough to remember open, around the clock conference committees, and frankly am rather relieved that I do not carry on my back the job of listening to the public debate in the conference committee, listening to the private speculations of conference committee members who might be supporting my clients priorities in executive session, and then trying to weigh the relative importance of those public and private remarks so I could translate it all to my clients and give them an honest guess at what might emerge. Sometimes I guessed right and was a brilliant analyst and sometimes I guessed wrong and was clearly not “in the loop” .

Nobody’s in the Bunker on this Bunker Hill Day -- all the key players in the loop are in the State House trying to pick up a scrap of information from anybody who might know anything about any of the remaining “Big 3” conference committees (Ethics, Transportation and Budget).

Public officials are more likely to make decisions in the best interests of their constituents when they know they’re being watched.

The indictment of former House Speaker Sal DiMasi on federal corruption charges left many in Massachusetts wondering how this could have been prevented.

We at ONE Massachusetts have learned that people in our state will support government when they know that taxes and other revenues are raised in a manner that’s fair and spent in a manner that’s wise.

The Budget Conference Committee members are currently considering Senate outside section 7A – the State Budget Transparency web portal. This measure would require the state to create and maintain a searchable website open to the public detailing costs, recipients and purposes for all appropriations, including contracts, grants, subcontracts, tax expenditures and other subsidies funded by the state government. [Amendment sponsored by Senator Cynthia Stone Creem]

Making the state’s budget information more easily accessible would encourage private citizens, journalists and watchdog groups to assumer greater stewardship of our state government.

Yesterday, MASSPIRG sent a letter to the Budget Conference Committee members currently considering this measure: Senators Steven Panagiotakos, Stephen Brewer, Michael Knapik and Representatives Charles Murphy, Barbara L'Italien and Vinny deMacedo.

Now is a good time for you to weigh in.

This week's Conference Committees Meetings...

After last week’s flurry of activity on Beacon Hill, this week may seem like a period of rest for our legislators – and for those constituents wishing to be heard on the reforms and revenues affecting the health of our state.

It's not too late! This week looks to be filled with conference committee meetings. And while they are all closed to the public, they will all be run by our legislators - men and women that are interested in and impacted by your thoughts and concerns.

Below you can find for each of these bills - Ethics, Transportation, Pension, and Budget - the full bill text, conference committee members, and analysis, when available. 

Meanwhile...

It is clear that the revenue options currently proposed in both the House and Senate Budgets will be inadequate to support the public structures that have been cut over the past year. Legislators are already talking about options for revenue bills in the fall, including a revamped bill to support Casinos and Slots.

Other options that were suggested in this year's budget debate included restoring the Income Tax to its 5.95% rate in 1999 (amendment by Sen. Chang Díaz), and the expansion of the Sales Tax to include professional services (amendment by Rep. Peter Kocot).

ONE Massachusetts is interested in hearing more about what you value in our state, and how you think we should pay for it! 

A wide range of paid lobbyists and volunteers from community based organizations paying close attention to the economists' projections at last weeks revenue hearing at Senate Ways and Means, got another piece of news from Senator Marc Pacheco who announced that the Senate intended to debate ethics and lobbying reform legislation on May 14. The day after ther Senate Ways and Means releases it's budget recommendations and one day before amendments are due.

Not unexpected news, since Secretary Bill Galvin had released a much improved lobbyist tracking system that folks were already testing to find themselves and see if the lobbyists they knew were working against them were properly registered. (Yes, a good user-friendly lobbyist search system is critical to campaign planning and implementation.)

The paid lobbyists and volunteer advocates paying attention to this critical reform effort have been tracking carefully what they considered the overly broad "definition" of lobbying that was in the Governors' proposal and had been retained in the House version.

This definition applied to for-profit AND non-profit large and small employers and both had shared with the House Ethics Committee their concerns that if they had to register everyone who had been involved in strategic research and preparing fact sheets the fees would be excessive and the reporting requirements would be burdensome. 

Because we believe that transparency, enabled by user-friendly searchable data bases, is key to encouraging and supporting civic engagement and accountability, we are encouraging ONE Mass network members to talk with their Senator about two things next week.

Many Massachusetts Representatives have already been asked by their constituents to support an "adequate, balanced tax package."

They know that Massachusetts has worked for decades to build a system of public structures that keep our communities safe and healthy, educate our children, and draw businesses to our state.

The House has already passed its version of our State Budget. [Budget Process]

Now is the time to ask your Senator to support our public structures with an "adequate, balanced tax package."

 

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE VIRTUAL RALLY:

1. Contact your Senator. Tell your Senator that you support an adequate, balanced tax package that both addresses our structural deficit and stabilizes the public programs that we depend on!

   Customize your message, telling why restoring these public programs is important to your local community!

2. Pass this on to your personal and professional networks via Facebook, mailing lists, or dining room table - and recruit five of your friends and neighbors to do the same.

3. Let us know how it went! Once you've called each of your legislators, Twitter about it with the tag: #MassRevenues
   

Boston community groups gathered today at the Massachusetts State House to tell their legislators:

“We need to raise new revenue to invest in our future and stop these cuts!”

Meanwhile, in the Boston Globe:

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo said yesterday that he is "open-minded" about raising the Massachusetts sales tax to help the state cope with a historic economic downturn, a sign that representatives will seriously entertain at least a one-cent hike in the sales tax in an upcoming budget debate.

"I'm open-minded towards it, as I am with the others," DeLeo told reporters yesterday, after being asked how he felt about increasing the sales tax.

...The House is scheduled to begin debating its budget Monday, a spending plan that is loaded with deep cuts that have drawn protests from social-service advocates, as well as unions. Business groups and state residents have said a recession is the wrong time to raise taxes. [Boston Globe]

In preparation to call my legislators for this week's Virtual Rally, I've decided to check out which of the amendments proposed after the release of the House's Ways and Means budget called for increased revenue.

I'm scanning down the list of the 978 proposed amendments, looking for words like tax and fee.

Aha!

This sounds promising:
Amendment #131    Clark, Katherine    Alcohol Tax Exemption

Let's read the text: 

Ms. Clark of Melrose moves to amend the bill by adding at the end thereof the following section:-

“SECTION X. Subsection (g) of Section 6 of chapter 64H of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2006 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out, in line 72, the following words:- “and one hundred and thirty-eight”.”

Umm... So what does that mean??