Posts filed under 'Better Government'
There have been, and will be, hundreds of good things said about Sam Zoll, who died this week of cancer at 76 – all of them true and all of them deserved.
But I’m going to pile on anyway.
Zoll, for 28 years the chief justice of the Massachusetts District Courts and also a former Salem city councilor, state rep and mayor, did not just talk about good government. He lived it – personified it.
The high-profile story about him helping U.S. Senator Scott Brown turn his life around when he was a 12-year-old shoplifter is inspiring, but to those who knew Judge Zoll, it is not the least surprising. It was typical. He did things like that thousands of times for people who never became famous, but who more often than not were turned from being a malignancy in society to an asset.
Zoll had plenty of other stellar qualities. He did not come from privilege – he delivered papers for 15 years to help his family survive the Depression – but he took what opportunities were available and earned his success.
His ethics were impeccable – he would not countenance anything that had even a whiff of conflict of interest. He was a hard worker – it is probably not much of an exaggeration to say that if local and state governments were filled with Sam Zolls, twice as much would get done at half the cost. He was a humble authority figure – no entourage of coatholders and hangers-on. When he was on his bike, he was just like everybody else.
He was one of the happiest people I ever knew – I remember seeing him at the end of a day of biking the Pan Mass challenge. Just about everybody was exhausted and grumpy. The judge had an ecstatic smile.
But to me, his greatest gift was to see the best in others, so they would see the potential in themselves. That is what he did with me as a green reporter in Salem. Most mayors or councilors would have you “checked out” before they would really talk to you. Most judges wouldn’t talk to you at all. Zoll, from Day One, treated me with the same respect and openness as the veterans he had been dealing with for years. He made me want to get everything right.
As he did with a juvenile Scott Brown, he made all of us around him better people, not by shaming us but by believing in us. He made us want to do our best.
We should all strive for a legacy like that.
R.I.P., Judge Zoll. You will be greatly missed.
April 27th, 2011
“Fairness” is one of the most abused words in politics.
And it is taking a beating again by the City of Boston, in its quest to find yet another way – any way – to avoid controlling its spending.
Nonprofits aren’t a new target – they have been a target for decades. Legally, they are exempt from property taxes. But municipal officials throughout the state have for years been “asking” them to “contribute” a PILOT – payment in lieu of taxes – to cover the cost of whatever government services might be provided to them. You know, as a matter of fairness.
These “requests” are a bit like Don Corleone making someone an offer he can’t refuse. If a standard guilt trip doesn’t work, the university, the medical center, the museum, the charity are told in not-so-veiled terms that if they don’t pay up, good luck the next time they come before a city board seeking a permit.
It is extortion, all prettied up as fairness and good citizenship.
And now, as the Boston Globe reports, Boston is taking it to the next level, “asking” its major nonprofits to make PILOTs of up to 25 percent of the assessed value of their properties.
This, according to Mayor Tom Menino, is for, what else? – “fairness for Boston taxpayers and the nonprofits.”
Apparently this is just fine with the heads of some institutions like Boston University President Robert A. Brown and Eric Buehrens, interim president and chief executive officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who both say they will comply.
But then, some are less enthused:
Other nonprofit leaders, however, expressed reservations — or declined comment — not only because of the increased cash contributions suggested by the city, but also because of concern that participating in a plan that calls for making payments based on a percentage of property values might set a precedent that could eventually compromise the tax-exempt status of their institutions.
Gee, you think?
City officials, who hope to ramp up their take from these institutions from $15 million a year to $40 million, make a big deal of the fact that this is all still well below what they’d have to pay if they weren’t tax exempt.
But that’s a diversion. The point is that they are tax exempt, for very sound reasons. According to the law, they should not be paying the $15 million, never mind $40 million.
If municipal officials think those institutions should no longer be tax exempt, be up front about it. If it’s not fair that the law exempts them from paying taxes, then move to change the law. File home-rule petitions. State legislators will be sympathetic – they don’t want to control spending any more than you do.
“Tax-exempt” is already a fiction. It’s time to be honest about it.
April 26th, 2011
Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative has recently launched an interesting academic exercise of a virtual think tank at the Harvard Business Review website HBR.org on the topic of revitalizing cities.
The series of thought pieces serve as the appetizers for an upcoming multi-day conference feast at Harvard Law School on the same topic. Thursday, April 28-Saturday, April 30.
Globally, 2008 marked the first time that a majority of citizens would reside in cities. Locally, the most recent census data showed significant growth in many smaller cities in Massachusetts.
While large cities like Boston garner significant attention and resources as they adapt to population growth, the new growth in these smaller cities is more significant since they often have fewer resources to respond to the magnitude of the change.
For this reason, Pioneer has been working with 14 “middle cities” to help them make this transition by utilizing data to measure performance and make management decisions. You can see one aspect of this effort at masscitystats.org. Or check out some of our research on the issue. Here, here, or here.
April 21st, 2011
It has been said before, but it bears repeating: Control the language of the debate and you control the debate.
Witness President Obama’s studious effort to take control of the debate Wednesday in his speech on how he would slow the runaway federal budget deficit.
Like most politicians who want to raise taxes, the president will do almost any rhetorical tap dance to avoid saying the word unless it takes the general form of, “tax breaks for the wealthy” or “unaffordable tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.”
We have as many euphemisms for raising taxes as Eskimos have for snow. Unions insist that “revenues” must be on the table in any debate on deficits. Gov. Deval Patrick talks about preserving “investments” in education, health care, infrastructure – probably apple pie too. Human service advocates demand “compassion,” by which they mean confiscating money by force from working people to pay the debt they feel toward the allegedly less fortunate. Everybody on the left talks about “fairness “ and how the “more fortunate” are never paying their “fair share.”
But, all such efforts to cloak their true agenda have a limited shelf life. The hunt is always on for new euphemisms. And we got a couple from Obama on Wednesday – James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal pointed out in advance of the president’s speech that Obama would be dwelling on “balance” when calling for raising taxes.
Another I hadn’t heard before is even more Orwellian than most: the president promised to “reduce spending in the tax code.”
That’s more disingenuous than calling the Pentagon the Ministry of Peace and Gitmo the Ministry of Love.
What “reduce spending” in this case means is to collect more taxes from those the president has decided are rich. Also known as those he famously said have, “at some point … made enough money.” Of course, he wants to decide what that point is.
The implication is that all money is created by and belongs to government in the first place, and that he is going to stop the unconscionable practice of the IRS showing up every year on the doorsteps of the rich to hand them even more bags of cash.
If he is allowed to get away with language like that, it won’t be worth having a debate – it will be over before it really gets started.
April 15th, 2011
Minimum staffing provisions in public sector union contracts – largely in police and fire departments – are a major reasons those services are so expensive.
They lead to massive, unnecessary overtime costs and are easily abused – it is simple for a worker to call in sick so a friend can pick up some extra OT.
It also turns the proper relationship of manager and worker on its head – employees, not management, dictate how many people are required to do a task. The union, naturally, wants as many people as possible on a task, a vehicle, a shift. It undermines efficiency and productivity, by design.
Gov. Deval Patrick and state legislators, who huff and puff about “bending the cost curve” of health care down, ought to keep that in mind. If they cave to pressure from the Massachusetts Nurses Association to impose mandatory minimum staffing, they will bend the cost curve in the wrong direction.
Lynn Nicholas, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, makes the right arguments in a Boston Globe op-ed today:
The union wants fixed and inflexible staffing ratios for nurses. But clearly there is no “one size fits all’’ method for achieving high quality, safe patient care, nor should there be. Especially during this time of dramatic, fundamental change in health care, it’s time to think — and act — outside of the box, while keeping patient safety at the forefront.
Shackling hospitals with cookie-cutter methods for delivering care stifles innovation. It ignores the needs of individual patients. And it doesn’t acknowledge our nurses’ individual levels of expertise and experience. Nurses need to be treated fairly; likewise, nurse managers need the flexibility to use all of the resources at their disposal.
Legislators may dismiss Nicholas as a special interest. She is, of course. But so is the union. Legislators also love to portray themselves as standing up for working people. That’s fine too, but they should keep in mind that it is working people who pay for health care costs spiraling well beyond the rate of inflation every year.
Beyond that, they should not be injecting themselves into micromanaging the labor/management relationship. Their track record of managing market forces is abysmal.
There is no need for a study on what minimum staffing would do. The evidence is there, in police and fire departments across the state, that it usurps the proper role of management and, no surprise, drives up costs.
Would the governor and legislators allow their own employees to usurp management rights? Not likely. They should not force it on hospital managers either.
March 31st, 2011
Interesting juxtaposition in the Globe recently on public pensions.
First came columnist Renee Loth, carrying water for the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, formerly the Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts. The rumor, when they changed their name, was that the group did it because the nickname Barbara Anderson’s group Citizens for Limited Taxation had given them – “Tax Everything And More” – had gained some serious traction.
Loth rehashed the favored talking point of the past couple of years from public employee unions. “Independent” studies by groups like MBPC find that public employees actually make less than those in the private sector, when compared with those with similar education. The “penalty” for those with college degrees working in the public sector is allegedly 17 percent.
Really? Human nature being what it is, if there really was such a grievous penalty for working in the public sector, you’d see people streaming for the exits. Instead, we see them clawing ferociously to stay where they are – witness Wisconsin.
Loth also contends that the state is getting a much better deal with public employee pensions, to which it contributes just 2.6 percent of payroll, than it would if workers were on Social Security and it had to pay 6.2 percent of the first $106,800 of salary. The state’s cost would more than double, she writes.
Gee, that must be why public pension systems statewide are $31 billion in the hole, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
Then, on Sunday came a news story noting that the number of public pensions exceeding $100,000 has jumped 20 percent in the last year, from 145 to 176, and that the top pension was more than $240,000 annually.
The story hastened to note that the average pension is $28,300, and that state workers don’t collect Social Security when they retire.
But it fails to make a true apples-to-apples comparison when it leaves out that public workers’ pensions are calculated based on the highest-paid several years of their working life, and that they can retire and start collecting at 55 or younger. Social Security payments are calculated based on an entire career, max out at $28,152 (not even the state average) and you can’t start collecting full benefits until age 66. The average yearly Social Security payment is $13,836 – less than half what your average public sector worker gets.
The state has nibbled at the edges of some of the most outrageous pension abuses. You can no longer get pension credit for working a whole year when you show up for just one day. Your pension is now based on your five top-earning years instead of the top three.
But that is, as they say, low-hanging fruit. Until public pensions are calculated on an entire working life, until retirement age is matched with that of Social Security and $100,000-plus pensions are a thing of the past, taxpayer outrage over them will continue – for good reason.
March 23rd, 2011
The timing was lousy. Gov. Deval Patrick was on his big “trade mission” to Israel and England when the giant sucking sound came from Marlborough – Fidelity announced it was essentially shuttering its operation there, moving 1,100 jobs to Merrimack, N.H. and Rhode Island.
It tended to take the wind out of the governor’s announcement that this 10-day junket might bring all of 50 jobs to Massachusetts.
Patrick didn’t help his cause much, declaring from London that he was “deeply frustrated” that the company had blindsided him, and later demanding that they “tell me to my face” that the decision is final. What does he expect – that CEOs are going to check with him first, or ask his permission before they make major strategic decisions? Do legislators or the governor check with Fidelity honchos before they raise taxes or hike the premiums on unemployment insurance?
Legislators don’t help themselves much either, suddenly complaining about “sweetheart” tax breaks for the company, and vowing to hold hearings on whether they might “claw back” some of the money the state had “given” to the company.
It is important, before a debate or a hearing even starts, to get the terms right. State government has not “given” Fidelity anything. It has just been taking less. Government does not create money. It takes it, and redistributes it.
And if this was a sweetheart deal, the state was a willing partner to it. The deal goes back to 1996, and Fidelity complied with its commitments. The feigned Statehouse outrage is nothing more than grandstanding. Reps and senators know they are not going to change the terms of a legal contract after the fact.
But all of this is a diversion anyway. The timing may have been bad, but the problem is not that the governor was out of the country. The problem is that Massachusetts is a relatively hostile place to do business, compared with some of its neighbors. Elected officials spend too much of their time finding new ways to wring the neck of the golden goose, and then wonder why there aren’t so many golden eggs around to be tapped for taxes.
Legislators are half right – they should not be making sweetheart deals with favored companies. When government gets into picking winners and losers, it rarely works out well. Can we all say “Evergreen Solar”?
They should be focused instead on making Massachusetts a good place to do business for everybody, not just biotech and alternative energy, for all the reasons Jim Stergios cites in his post below. The way it is now, they are inviting business owners in general – not just Fidelity – to look longingly over the borders.
Fidelity management isn’t transferring jobs out of state because it wants to stick it to Massachusetts. They’re doing it because Massachusetts has been sticking it to them.
March 23rd, 2011
StatNet – a performance management system of government performance management programs – is helping to improve the effectiveness of local government. This evolution – from managing performance locally to sharing data to establish industry benchmarks – has the potential to revolutionize municipal management.
Continue Reading March 18th, 2011
The Mayor of New Bedford– one of Pioneer’s Middle Cities– wrote an interesting op-ed that ran in the Boston Globe. He calls for a statewide task force to develop a new framework for public union contracts in the future.
He outlines the fiscal mess that many local communities face, and advocates for immediate action to re-imagine how local governments are run. I wrote an op-ed giving some suggestions from the state level a few weeks ago.
However, Mayor Lang’s strongest argument to support his call for action is that:
“We cannot have a strong state unless we have strong municipalities. It is imperative that we find systemic and equitable solutions that will allow our cities to strengthen public safety, revitalize their neighborhoods, and improve their schools.”
To learn more about Pioneer’s Middle Cities Initiative, click here.
December 22nd, 2010
On a quiet Friday afternoon during the holidays, Beacon Hill gave members not returning next session a chance to give farewell speeches.
The one that stood out was most was Rep. Matthew Patrick calling out the status quo for doing business in the Massachusetts State House.
“If you play your cards right, vote the right way, keep your criticisms to yourself, you have a chance of becoming a chairperson of a committee,” he said, adding that eventually, “You find yourself not participating in debates, not even listening, because you and everyone else knows what the outcome will be. It’s preordained. You continue to play the game until one day you find out that some lobbyists have more influence than you, and you ask yourself, is that right? Or you find out that your bill has been sidelined by someone quietly without explanation, or you are asked to vote for something you oppose … It’s a system that has evolved over the decades and it is all that we know.”
SHNS: And Rep. Joseph Driscoll… laid out publicly something he’d discovered about Speaker Robert DeLeo. “I also learned very quickly from the speaker that he is a fair man and all that he wanted – all that he wanted – was complete compliance with his wishes after reasonable discussion.”
December 20th, 2010
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