The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Department
State House Boston, MA 02133
(617) 725-4000
MITT ROMNEY
GOVERNOR
KERRY HEALEY
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 30, 2003 CONTACT:
Shawn Feddeman
Nicole St. Peter
(617) 725-4025
ROMNEY ADMINISTRATION REACHES OUT TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES
Municipal relief package gives cities and towns more flexibility
The Romney administration today filed a municipal relief package that takes aim at burdensome state regulations and mandates that make it difficult for mayors and selectmen to manage their local budgets.
The package, dubbed H.E.L.P. (Help Ease Local Pressure), was put together by Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey to help offset reductions in state aid to cities and towns. She spent the last two weeks soliciting input from more than 300 local officials representing over 80 cities and towns.
Healey urged the Legislature “to act quickly to ensure that municipalities can take advantage of these reforms as soon as possible.”
The package will save cities and towns an estimated $50-$75 million annually.
Healey said many cities and towns were facing severe financial challenges even before the current fiscal crisis, citing increasing health care insurance costs for employees and retirees, lack of flexibility to move funds within their own accounts and restrictive public construction requirements.
Among the proposed reforms:
Eliminate Civil Service for municipalities, excluding police officers and firefighters;
Reduce municipalities maximum health care coverage contribution to 75 percent, in line with the Governor's proposal to require state employees to pay 25 percent of their health coverage premium;
Allow cities and towns flexibility to move funds within accounts in the last two months of the fiscal year;
Re-issue an early retirement option of municipalities, allowing for a reduction in payroll costs without the need for layoffs;
Exempt construction projects costing less than $100,000 and communities of less than 5,000 people from the prevailing wage law;
Introduce design-build contracting and eliminate the filed sub-bid law, which will drastically reduce the costs and length of local projects;
Revise the Uniform Procurement Act by raising the limit at which municipalities must solicit bids from three or more vendors from $25,000 to $100,000; and
Allow cities and towns to post public notices electronically instead of the current requirement that public meetings be advertised in the newspaper. Healey noted that local option taxes are not part of the package, and Governor Mitt Romney has threatened to veto any local option tax bill sent to him if it is not tied to a local referendum.
The legislative package comes on the heels of two new initiatives that provide local relief on the transportation front - “Communities First,” which allows for more local input in road design of road projects, and “Fix It First,” which focuses state dollars on repairing local roads and bridges.
Said Healey: “This package is by no means exhaustive, nor does it conclude our actions on behalf of local government or my outreach to individual communities. Rather, our administration views this package as a first step in what will be an ongoing dialogue between local government and the administration.”
Meanwhile, the administration also detailed spending reductions that bring the state budget into balance for the current 2003 fiscal year.
In addition to releasing a detailed list of the $343 million in emergency “9C” reductions announced last night by Governor Romney, Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss also announced a package of legislative changes being filed that will achieve a savings of $143 million.
Kriss acknowledged the reductions are difficult and require some sacrifice, but he said they “do not cut into the muscle and bone of government.” He said most services “receive no cut at all.”
Said Kriss: “There is no reduction for homeless shelters, for Chapter 70 state aid to local schools, in welfare and veterans benefits, or for emergency aid to the elderly, disabled and children. There is no DSS or DYS cut impacting at-risk populations. No direct care workers are eliminated. There is no layoff of public safety personnel.”
The solutions laid out by the administration directly resolve three-quarters of this year's fiscal problem, or $488 million of the total potential $650 million shortfall in the $23 billion state budget.
The remaining potential shortfall, which is due to the highly uncertain nature of capital gain tax assumptions made by the prior administration, will be covered by the use of reserves, according to Kriss.
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