In The News: Municipal

‘Unless municipal leaders are given the same powers as the state to design health plans outside of collective bargaining, surging health care costs will continue to push municipal employees off payrolls," Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation president Michael Widmer wrote in a recent letter to lawmakers and candidates for office. Any candidate who fails to support such a reasonable change doesn't deserve election.

MASSACHUSETTS CITIES and towns need to get a firmer grip on their costs. Candidates for the Legislature can help by endorsing a slate of reforms proposed by the Massachusetts Taxpayers' Foundation: clear, simple ways to curb excesses in municipal pensions and health care, thereby saving enough money to withstand flat property-tax revenues and cuts in state aid.

The Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents cities and towns, and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation said they will try to put the issue to a popular vote if the Legislature fails to act next year, but it shouldn't come to that.

"The meals tax has shown itself to be an important source of revenue,'' said Michael Widmer, executive director of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonprofit that monitors state finances. "I think we'll see more communities look to adopt it. . . . It's largely painless for the taxpayers.''

"It's a huge issue," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "The benefit is enormously rich and very difficult to change." It isn't just rising premiums that are making it harder for cities and towns; the economy, joblessness and the deterioration of private employers' health care plans play a role, as well.

"It's just a necessary evil. I mean, every community pays legal fees. It's inevitable," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

"There's been a long-term, clear decline in the municipal services," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "There's no sign that will change and every indication that it will accelerate."

Michael Widmer, president of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said he agrees with some of the changes but at best, they might eventually save about $500 million a year.

"We have a distribution formula for state aid in which the poorer, largely urban areas get much more state aid than the wealthier communities, and so in good economic times, that problem of inequity is addressed," said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan public-policy research organization. "But in bad times like these, the cities, the poorer urban areas, tend to suffer more because they depend more heavily on state aid, and they in many cases never have done an override.

Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said public employees would still have much better health plans than most private sector employees if cities and towns could unilaterally change their health plans. "No one is talking about gutting the plans," Widmer said.