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- August 18 2010The Foundation calls on legislators and candidates to address the unsustainable increase in municipal costs of health care and pensions that are leading to layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters and recommends a series of changes that would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the short term growing to billions by 2020.
- June 9 2010In a letter to conferees, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation urges legislators to reject the Senate proposal to address the issue of soaring municipal health care costs and take decisive action to provide municipal relief. Cities and towns should have unfettered powers over health plan design, consistent with the state, in order to protect municipal jobs and services.
- March 24 2010MTF President Michael J. Widmer presented to the Boston Economic Club an update on state and local finances.
- November 2009
Cities and towns across the Commonwealth are facing enormous fiscal pressures which will only worsen over the next two years and likely beyond. Confronted by structural deficits in good times, municipalities have had to deal with major cuts in local aid during two recessions this decade. There will be further cuts in state aid in fiscal 2011, made worse by the end of federal stimulus dollars which have been supporting Chapter 70 education aid.
The dramatically increasing costs of health insurance and the large jump in unfunded pension liabilities must be addressed through comprehensive reform. Controlling the growth of municipal health care costs, which have increased at five times the inflation rate since 2001, is the most important step cities and towns can take to weather the fiscal storm ahead.
- October 6 2009MTF President Michael Widmer presented an overview of state and local finances to the Boston Municipal Analyst Forum
- December 10 2008The cities and towns of Massachusetts are facing a relentless fiscal squeeze in which year after year costs are growing faster than revenues for almost all communities.
- November 2008
Driven by the global economic problems and the state's fiscal crisis, cities and towns are about to enter another period of cutbacks and serious retrenchment.
- August 2007Cities and towns across the Commonwealth can save as much as $750 million in 2013 and $2.5 billion in 2018 by taking advantage of a new law that allows them to join the Group Insurance Commission (GIC), the state agency which administers health insurance for state employees, according to a joint report by the Foundation and the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.
- November 2006The overall municipal financial picture stabilized in 2006. Nevertheless, most communities continue to face a fiscal squeeze as underlying costs grow faster than revenues, according to the Foundation's 36th annual analysis of local revenues and spending.