But THAT'S WHY YOU SAID we needed a TAX INCREASE -- so there would BE NO MORE SPENDING CUTS!!
Oh, YOU'VE BEEN HAD, Bay-Staters!
"State budget chief warns more spending cuts may be necessary" by Michael Norton, State House News Service | September 9, 2009
State government leaders face the “perfect storm’’ of cost pressures tied to an increasing strain on social safety net programs, predictions of weak revenue growth, and dwindling reserves and federal funds to balance future budgets, the state budget chief told local officials yesterday afternoon.
With unemployment still on the rise, federal stimulus funds flying out the door, and a once $2.3 billion state rainy day fund nose-diving toward $500 million, administration and finance secretary Leslie Kirwan also cautioned local government leaders of potential mid-fiscal 2010 budget cuts. Administration officials are monitoring tax collections this month and readying plans to reduce spending....
Where are they going? One day they tell us the money hasn't been spent, the next they are saying it is gone?
During a meeting of the Local Government Advisory Council, local government leaders said they are getting crushed by pension system costs, investment losses, and contract-related fallout from a slashing of a state fund for police reimbursements under the Quinn bill.
Oh, isn't that interesting?
And local officials said they are fearful about the impact on traditional public schools of a push on Beacon Hill to expand access to charter schools....
See: Back-to-School Series: Massachusetts Charts a New Course
A 25 percent increase in the state sales tax, rainy day funds, and “generous’’ use of hundreds of millions of one-time federal stimulus package funds are helping to balance the current fiscal 2010 budget, along with spending cuts....
Ummmm, BALANCING BUDGETS is NOT a STIMULUS!!!!!!!
Related:
Governor Guts State Services
Pigs at the State Trough
A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Biotech Giveaway Was Borrowed Money
Massachusetts Residents Taken For a Ride
Slow Saturday Special: Day at the Movies
UBS Picks Up Pike
Wow, it seems like Massachusetts has $$$ for some things, huh?
Here is why you are getting the cuts:
"Panel faults perks set by big agencies; Bonuses, guaranteed raises are deemed inappropriate" by Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | September 19, 2009
A panel created by Governor Deval Patrick to review the pay of heads of the state’s quasi-public agencies has concluded that their compensation is reasonable, but that perks such as severance pay, guaranteed raises, and bonuses are out of place in the public sector, according to a report issued yesterday.
“The process of setting senior executives’ compensation at quasis is a very flawed process, with some resulting features which are completely inappropriate,’’ said Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and chairman of the special panel.
The governor created the commission in March as he tried to quell the furor that erupted after he attempted to give state Senator Marian Walsh a $175,000-a-year agency job. Walsh ultimately withdrew her name from consideration.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: No Purchase and Governor Patrick's Phibs
Of the 10 highest-paid officials, all received tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay.
As YOUR "services" are CUT, Bay-Stater!! But go ahead, vote DemocraP again.
For example, Michael Travaglini, executive director of the state’s Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, earned a $45,000 bonus, boosting his pay to $367,000.
A BONUS for losing money?
Related: Playing With the Mass. Pension Fund
James Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, received a $57,000 bonus and a car allowance, bringing his total pay to $350,000.
Good thing they had tax dough to spare for Sail Boston.
Related: Tall Tales About Tall Ships
The lies never stop, huh?
Benson Caswell, executive director of the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority, collected $67,500 in deferred compensation and a $15,000 bonus, bringing his total pay to $335,000. Salaries are based on the current year’s pay, with bonuses averaged over the past three years.
Isn't that A BIT MUCH for STATE GOVERNMENT WORK?
Travaglini said his agency pays bonuses only when the state pension fund surpasses its performance goals.
So LOSING $13 BILLION was a SUCCESS?
“Our bonus plan does not provide automatic bonuses on an annual basis,’’ Travaglini said. “Only when the fund exceeds its investment objectives do we even talk about bonuses. If the commission were assembling information this fiscal year, there would be no bonus information for Michael Travaglini.’’
**********************
Of course! Us rubes out here are the poorest in the state!
At $322,000, Travaglini’s salary was the highest.
That's where my tax buck is going -- that and bonuses.
The least defensible benefits, Crosby said, were sick pay buyouts. For example, when Thomas Kinton leaves his job as executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, he will be eligible to receive cash for 478 accumulated sick days, the report says....
I guess there will be no more dinners at Massport!
The commission also concluded that the agencies should be able to terminate executives without having to make huge severance payments, as in the case of former MBTA general manager Daniel A. Grabauskas. The MBTA board, which pressured Grabauskas to resign in early August, paid him more than $300,000 to buy out the remainder of his employment contract.
Well, the DING-DONGS of the Patrick Administration did that to themselves:
Morning T Ride on the Patrick Prevaricator
Couldn't have let the guy ride out the last two months before the agency was eliminated, huh?
--more--"
And the man behind that debacle? He gone, too!! I wonder how much was his buyout.
"Embattled transit chief Aloisi quits; 4th top official in year to leave" by Andrea Estes and Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | September 12, 2009
Transportation Secretary James A. Aloisi Jr., a subject of near constant controversy since Governor Deval Patrick appointed him in January, resigned under pressure yesterday after months of feuding with other transportation officials and elected leaders.
He is the third top transportation official to resign in the past four months and the fourth in a year - raising further questions about volatility within the Patrick administration on a signature issue....
Patrick issued a statement yesterday, praising Aloisi for helping make “the most sweeping transportation reform in decades become a reality.’’ But a person familiar with the discussions said the governor had been growing increasingly frustrated with Aloisi for months and stepped up the pressure on him to resign over the past two weeks. “A decision was made that he was not the long-term person for the job, particularly as transportation reform was gearing up,’’ the person said, speaking under the condition of anonymity....
Aloisi was paid $150,000 per year. Lawmakers expect the new job - which will oversee the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, all state toll roads, and state highways and bridges - to pay between $200,000 and $300,000 annually.
That's REFORM?
They DOUBLED the NEW GUY'S SALARY!!!??
ONLY in MASSACHUSHITTS!!!!!!
The next transportation chief will be Patrick’s third in as many years.
“The governor couldn’t have a bigger albatross around his neck,’’ said Richard Tisei, the Senate minority leader and a Wakefield Republican. “He’s had the most controversial Cabinet secretary probably in the last 20 or 30 years, without a doubt. [Aloisi has] managed to infuriate just about everybody.’’
Aloisi’s brief tenure was dogged by missteps that embarrassed the administration. Early on, he launched a public tirade against a Globe reporter on a liberal blog. He initiated a messy and expensive buyout of Grabauskas last month. In between, he alienated Senate President Therese Murray when her political support was key to Patrick’s transportation agenda....
Aloisi’s handling of Grabauskas’s resignation was particularly damaging to Patrick. Aloisi said at the time that Grabauskas was behind an effort to raise subway, train, and bus fares, but e-mails obtained by the Globe later showed just the opposite. In fact, it was Aloisi who had been pushing a fare hike and resisting a plan by Grabauskas to delay one.
Yeah, being a scummy, s***-stained liar never helps.
Aloisi’s last stint in public service was at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, where he served as chief counsel. He later worked for the agency while in private practice, collecting large fees and crafting the legislation that made tollpayers responsible for much of the Big Dig’s debt.
This guy destroyed you, Massachusetts. That's where so much of our tax dollar is going: debt service and interest payments to banks.
Despite this, Patrick was betting that his connections in the Legislature and the media could help navigate a tricky path toward an important objective: fixing a transportation system that had been crumbling for decades. But Aloisi quickly alienated Murray, mocking her “reform before revenue’’ mantra as a “meaningless slogan.’’
****************
Though the administration is set to merge transportation agencies and eliminate the politically unpopular Turnpike Authority, it could not persuade the Legislature to approve a 19-cent increase in the gas tax. The proposal has helped lower Patrick’s popularity ratings as he prepares for a re-election campaign....
Yeah, he's done unless they rig the thing.
See: Slow Saturday Special: Patrick's Invisible Approval
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So where do you think Looter Joe's next stop is?
Every few months, Timothy A. Bassett, head of the Essex Regional Retirement Board, sends to public employees and retirees within his system a taxpayer-financed newsletter, peppered with flattering pictures of state lawmakers. “Our friends on Beacon Hill,’’ he calls them.
If lawmakers gain some political benefit from Bassett’s kind words, he may gain even more.
Maintaining the favor of area lawmakers is integral to Bassett’s private lobbying career, which he has built successfully despite his full-time government job. In his private role, Bassett, a former state representative, trades on his access at the State House.
This is what is WRONG with POLITICS!!!
Since 2001, he has earned, with his partners, more than $580,000 in lobbying fees from an assortment of public and private clients, state records show. “He really knew his way around the State House,’’ said Paul Hannon, a union official who hired Bassett to represent a group of gas workers in 2003. “Everyone knew him.’’
The unusual arrangement, a full-time public employee moonlighting as a private lobbyist, raises several ethical and legal questions, specialists say. In some cases, it has worked out like this: Bassett, a public official, was paid to lobby public officials on behalf of other public officials. State ethics laws prohibit a public official from using an official position “to secure for himself unwarranted privileges.’’
They DO IT ALL the TIME!!!
The Globe reported this spring how Bassett, a longtime Beacon Hill insider, has artfully mined his political connections to enhance his pension. Among the state’s 646 registered lobbyists, Bassett, 61, stands out because he also holds a full-time position on a public payroll.
Related: Taking Care of Timmy Bassett
Records show that Bassett and his partners have represented, among other clients, the Massachusetts Coalition of Police, a statewide police union; the New England Gas Workers Alliance; a homeless shelter for veterans; and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers....
Oh is that why he is being picked on by the Globe? REPRESENTING WORKERS?
The CORPORATE LOBBYISTS sure don't receive the same scrutiny or criticism!
I'm not defending Bassett, I'm just making a point about the selective outrage and agenda-pushing of the Glob.
In 2004, in the Shirley case, Bassett was working for the Massachusetts Coalition of Police to gain local approval and then state approval to award a 100 percent disability pension to a police officer wounded in the line of duty....
Yeah, why would you want to take care of police who are injured in the line of duty?
Unless they are pounding skulls (depends on who, of course) and enforcing tyranny, I've noticed the Glob doesn't have much use for police. They accuse the cops of being behind our budget woes, can you believe it?
Bassett’s private and public interests have at times overlapped. Bassett, for example, was paid $14,400 by the Massachusetts Coalition of Police in 2008 to push a legislative measure that would have allowed police officers in some instances to retire earlier with larger pensions.
Like he is the only one.
But Bassett, who earns $137,000 a year, is already paid in part to do similar work on behalf of the thousands of police officers and other employees within the Essex County regional retirement system, some of whom would qualify for the enhanced pension benefit that the coalition paid him to push on Beacon Hill.
Bassett’s pension board newsletter, called “The Navigator,’’ at times touts lawmakers who are key to his private business....
--more--"Of course, what does Massachusetts do best?
"'Ruling rebuffs toll payers who use Mass. Pike; Plaintiffs vow to appeal denial of restraining order" by Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | August 19, 2009
A judge has ruled that a class-action lawsuit filed against the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority by toll payers has little chance of success, and he refused to issue a temporary restraining order that would have barred the agency from using turnpike tolls to pay for Big Dig debt and nontoll roads.
Middlesex Superior Court Judge Herman J. Smith Jr. pointed out that the Turnpike Authority’s lawyers had argued that if the authority is prevented from diverting turnpike and tunnel tolls to cover other costs, it “would be unable to meet its financial obligations and could be forced to withhold essential services or even shut down entire segments of central roadways.’’
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“I understand that some people do not like paying tolls, but that does not make them unlawful or unconstitutional,’’ Jeffrey B. Mullan, executive director of the Turnpike Authority, said in a phone interview yesterday. “It is the system that the Legislature has provided to us, and we are maintaining it the best we can.’’
Before 1997, the Turnpike Authority collected tolls only for the maintenance and operation of the Turnpike. But after legislation enacted that year, the Authority has used tolls collected on the Turnpike and tunnels to subsidize costs associated with the Big Dig. “We’re not diverting our revenues,’’ Mullan said. “We are using all of the revenues we collect on our highway system for lawful purposes.’’
--more--"
Except when it comes to collective bargaining with a union.
Theeeeennnnn.....
“A government cannot come in after a contract is formed and knock out your rights’’
Yeah, but only if you are a banker getting a bonus.
"T unions sue state on their benefits; Action seeks to block cutbacks" by Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | September 18, 2009
Twenty-two MBTA labor unions have filed a lawsuit to block the state from cutting their benefits, putting at risk a cornerstone of Governor Deval Patrick’s plan to repair the state’s heavily indebted transportation system.
The unions’ benefits, which include free health care for retirees, are considered some of the most generous of any public agency in the nation and have long been the target of public and political scorn. Slicing those benefits provided the most concrete savings, an estimated $30 million a year, in the landmark transportation law signed by Patrick in June.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has been running a consistent deficit, threatening large fare increases, as it copes with more than $8 billion in debt and interest. Patrick has touted the reduction in MBTA benefits as a key cost-saving change and a demonstration that he is willing to take on an entrenched Beacon Hill interest group.
Oh, I agree, the looters over at the T should see some reductions; however, it is A CONTRACT! I'm also not knocking the savings, but they are minimal compared to the DEBT and INTEREST to BANKS!!! Once again you are being diverted, citizen-taxpayer!
But unions representing the vast majority of the MBTA’s 6,100 employees argue in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court that the new transportation law illegally subverts collective bargaining rights by changing their benefits without going to the negotiating table. They say they earned the benefits over many years and that the T’s real problem is the debt that has piled up from years of unfunded expansion projects.
See: Massachusetts Democrats Keep Making the Same Mistakes
Even with the cuts, the T’s benefit package compares very well with others in public and private industry, said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
“The reason [the new law] was able to preserve a very generous package for MBTA employees and retirees and still save $30 million a year is because the current benefits are absolutely off the chart, public or private,’’ Widmer said. “So the sacrifice they have to make is minimal, compared to what people across the country are making.’’
I agree, they should be pitching in; however, they HAVE a CONTRACT, right?
****************
The law requires MBTA workers and retirees to join the state health care plan by next July. That plan is less generous, charging higher premiums, which vary by plan but generally require workers to pay 20 to 25 percent of insurance costs depending on date of hiring. Retired workers who have long received free health care will have to begin paying 15 percent of the costs.
The new law also ends the MBTA’s “23 and out’’ retirement provision that allows workers to collect substantial pensions and free healthcare after 23 years on the job, regardless of age. The change in the law will affect only new hires, requiring them to work 25 years and reach age 55 before qualifying for regular pensions....
Here's a thought: Why did the state negotiate such a bad deal on your behalf, taxpayers?
Harold L. Lichten, a labor and employment lawyer who has filed a similar suit against the state challenging a new pension law, said the basic principle involved dates back at least to the Colonial era. “A government cannot come in after a contract is formed and knock out your rights,’’ Lichten said.
Yeah they can -- if you are an autoworker.
