Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce held its annual Mayor’s breakfast at the Andover Country Club yesterday. Secretary of Public Safety Kevin Burke attended, representing Governor Deval Patrick. I talked about some of the exciting Economic Development occurring in Methuen, and all of the Mayors and Managers pointed out some of the inequity in the municipal finance system we are currently face. Congratulations to the Merrimack Valley Chamber and Joe Beviliqua for an outstanding event.
Bill Manzi.com 
Your Honor,
The mayors talked about “inequity in the municipal finance system”. That your honor is obfuscation (technical term for BS)if I ever heard one.
The term “inequity” means someone is getting more than someone else. The problem, your honor, is that the cities and towns are on the dole, just like any welfare recipient.
You guys can’t live with your budgets without the cash infusion from the State. So your town citizens pay twice, once through property tax and once through income and sales tax and fees.
I bet the good governor and the left tilted legislator have no solution for the coming fiasco when revenue goes in the toilet.
Question: do you have a solution to bring stability to Methuen’s financial condition that does not need an infusion from your good buddy Deval?
If not, do you intend to keep raising taxes?
I’m taking bets the answers are 1. NO and 2. yes.
Any takers.
Life is great here in Kennedy/Kerry country.
Jules
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When is Kerry coming to Methuen? He really needs to show his face up here alot more…Ogonowski did well among blue collar conservatives up this way, and he may give Kerry a run in Methuen/Dracut/Haverhill too.
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Jules,
The basis for much of the talk of inequity was not a demand for more money but rather for a level playing field when it comes to management rights. The example I used was on health care. There has been much talk of cities being allowed to join the GIC (State plan) because the GIC rate of price escalation has been roughly half of the rate of cities and towns. But it is not widely known that we do not have the management rights that the State has. From a municipal health care report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
It is not an obfuscation to say that we should be allowed to lower our own costs, and giving cities and towns additional management rights does not require money. That is but one example of some of the requests, not dealing with money, that we are making to the state. As far as the prescription for Methuen I offer the following. Unlike the federal government we cannot run deficits. Either laws are passed that give us the ability to lower our costs, or service cuts are coming. Since a vast majority of our spending is on personel that is where we are likely to cut. I will offer more in this thread later.
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Your Honor,
I have asked earlier last year about the cost of town operation impacted by State and Federal Law that is not funded by them. Without specific information, I suspected it is substantial.
Another question; how many towns like ours have objected to their passage? I have never heard of any such resistance in my lifetime.
You have a conundrum: Raise taxes and tick us off; Cut personnel and tick us off (plus those who lose their job).
You have a no win-no win situation.
I think this state is broken.
This situation along the police chief and water issues must be making interesting days for you.
I saw a trailer delivering Asprrin to the area. Were those for you?
Your buddy Jules. (see how bad things are for you, I’m your buddy)
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