Legislation the Gov. filed this AM, that Assistant Town Admiistrator Nick Milano says is expected to be passed by the House today, allowing for postponement of our annual town meeting and municipal relief with respect to our impending budget issues –
Posted in Budgets, Financial, State, Town Meeting
Division of Local Services (DLS) of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue has released the final state aid amounts based on the recently passed and signed state budget.
Our total state aid monies are up about $130,000 over the $7,822,174 received last year.
At the select board meeting on 6/4/19, Town Administrator Kristine Trierweiler distributed her draft calendar for the budget cycle for this coming year. This was music to my ears, as the sort of structure I have hoped to see for quite some time. I have inserted the calendar below and here via a link if you instead want a PDF – 20190604-Kristine Trierweiler-budget calendar
This is the sort of institutionalizing of a structure for the town government that we have been needing, so that all residents can understand how and when we make the sausages, and I am looking forward to more such protocols being implemented.
Posted in Budgets, Financial, Selectmen matters
Many towns are now providing some property taxes relief for seniors. I think Sudbury was the first to initiate doing so and got special legislation to allow the town to help its economically more needy seniors by shifting part of their taxes to the rest of the residents.
At the Massachusetts Selectmen Association meeting I attended Saturday I spoke with Jonathan, a Wakefield Select board member (it is a 7 member board), learned they are doing so too, and he got me information on their program from their Assessor (copy attached below).
First, below are my notes from when I spoke with the Sudbury Assessor and got its system. This is their PowerPoint from their town meeting: 2018 ATM Article 15 Senior Means Tested Exemption Presentation
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Telephone call to Cynthia Gerry, Assessor – assessors@sudbury.ma.us | (978) 639 – 3393
a. 2012 special legislation
b. Renewed a couple of times
c. In place through FY21
d. Senior means program
e. Linked to circuit breaker
f. Long time resident who qualify for circuit breaker can qualify for property tax relief
g. Well received
h. FY14 was first year
i. Average of about 110 applicants
j. Not funded by overlay, so residential exemption funded
k. Benefit cap was at 0.5% of total levy
l. The Board of Selectmen can increase it to 1%, but have not gone that high
m. $400K last year, about 0.5%
n. Pay about 10% of circuit breaker income plus 10% of circuit breaker income
o. Asset component to legislation, but vague and up to the board of assessors to use
i. No set limit
ii. Do get a financial statement
p. Deferral of RE taxes
i. Age 60
ii. Income matches circuit breaker ($86K)
iii. 2% rate
iv. Mortgage companies will not agree, as town becomes first lien holder
q. She will email me info
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Second, this is the email from the Assessor for Wakefield, who appears to also be the Asessor for Reading, describing his program –
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Hey Pete and Jonathan,
Yup, I did this in Reading and we’re going to do it in Wakefield. I can’t count the number of friends and colleagues that have reached out to me on this important topic.
Reading plan is simple:
Senior must receive the Senior Circuit Breaker Income Tax Credit. Pls see state guidelines.
Senior is 65 and co-applicant at least 60
Own and occupy home in the town for 10 years.
No other significant assets (tough to define as it’s one of those ‘I’l know it when I see it’ things, second home, etc)
In Reading, the benefit is anywhere from 50% to 200% of their CB credit.
Cost is shifted onto the Residential class of property
Wakefield is similar except that the credit is simply a 100% match. No disrespect intended but politics and taxes don’t mix
My models rely on receipt of the CB Credit. I did this because it’s already a state sponsored means test. Any changes like house value, assets, etc. would result in a local means test like a couple of towns have. I have about 650 people that receive the CB credit in each town. In Reading for FY 2018 195 applied and 183 were approved at 200% relief but, too much relief has an unintended consequence whereby some folks lost their CB credit the following year. FY 2019 Reading did 150% and 177 received it. I anticipate more folks being eligible for Fy 2020. Moreover, since it involves a shift in the tax rate, the application time is the month of August to allow me enough time for tax rate computation.
Hope this helps and feel free to email any further questions that you may have.
Best,
Victor
This is from the Division of Local Services (DLS) e-newsletter. USE THE LINK BELOW TO COMPARE TOWNS – I just learned that the per capita income in Weston is $351K, which makes me want to move there and have a big family –
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Databank Highlight of the Month: Updated Community Comparison Report The new and improved Community Comparison Report is now up and running. It can be found on the front page of the Municipal Databank. If you have used this report in the past, you will be in for a treat. The updated report is sleek, streamlined and very user friendly. Still drawing on 65 data elements, each of the seven easily accessible tabs on the top of the page pulls the information from multiple data sources onto one page. This provides a snapshot of your data removing the often tedious task of scrolling and scrolling found on the old report. Using any of the 12 different search criteria on each heading refines your search across all the tabs. If you are looking to see what communities with a population between 30,000 and 50,000 with an annual budget between $50 million and $90 million, you just enter that criteria and it will carry over to each tab. Since the search criteria carries over, the Community Comparison report essentially does the work for you. In the report you can quickly extract the most current available comparative municipal finance and demographic data for multiple communities, it eliminates the frustrating task of opening numerous spreadsheets to sort, cut and paste data to compare. A simple click and you can download your information into Excel. Please contact us if you need any help using the application atdatabank@dor.state.ma.us. |
Posted in Financial, Information, State
The Senate actually seems more willing than the House to look at the revenue side of the equation, and seek out new revenue.
Please Call Your Senators Today and Ask them to Support Key Municipal and School Aid Priorities!
May 1, 2019
Dear Osler Peterson,
Now that the House of Representatives has adopted their proposed fiscal 2020 state budget, all attention has turned to the Senate. The Senate Ways & Means Committee is developing a separate spending plan, and we expect to see a Senate budget committee recommendation within the next two weeks. This is the time to call your Senators to emphasize the importance of full funding for municipal and school aid priorities!
This is a great time to check in with your Senators – so that you can ask your Senators to contact the budget committee before the Senate Ways & Means budget is released. After the budget is released, Senators will be scrambling to file amendments, and then the debate will occur during a whirlwind of activity over 3 or 4 days.
The MMA testified at the joint House and Senate Ways & Means Committee’s budget hearing in Fall River on March 18, and our budget testimony provides excellent talking points on the major municipal and school aid priorities.
Please click here to read a copy of MMA’s budget testimony
Please talk to your Senators about these budget accounts and any others that might be a local priority.
Last year, there were almost 1,200 proposed amendments filed when the Senate debated the budget. The Senate Ways & Means recommendation may not be the last word on the Senate spending plan, but individual Senators will have their greatest influence from now through the end of the floor debate. That’s why it is so important for you to contact them now to discuss the budget items that matter most to you.
Here are some of the priority highlights to discuss:
UNRESTRICTED GENERAL GOVERNMENT AID (UGGA) – Ask your Senators to fund the UGGA account at $1.13 billion, which would provide an increase of $29.7 million, or 2.7 percent, consistent with the “consensus” state tax revenue growth forecast. The House and Governor’s budgets do this.
REFORMING AND INCREASING PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING – There are a number of Chapter 70 funding issues:
SPECIAL EDUCATION CIRCUIT BREAKER – Ask your Senators to support full funding of the Special Education Circuit Breaker Program. (The House underfunds this account by approximately $15 million, while the Governor’s budget is $20 million short.)
STUDENT TRANSPORTATION REIMBURSEMENTS – Ask your Senators to support full funding for: 1) reimbursements to regional school districts; 2) the transportation of homeless students under the McKinney-Vento program; and 3) transporting out-of-district vocational students.
PAYMENTS IN LIEU OF TAXES (PILOT) – Ask your Senators to support increased funding for the Commonwealth’s obligations and commitments to the program for Payments in Lieu of Taxes for state-owned land (PILOT), at a minimum including funds to hold communities harmless from changes in property valuation.
Please Call Your Senators Today to Support Municipal and School Accounts!
Thank You Very Much!!
Posted in Budgets, Financial, Selectmen matters, State
From the Moderator, Scott McDermott – NB starts at 7PM, not 7:30
Posted in Budgets, Financial, Town Meeting
Medfield Select Board member
I started this blog to share the interesting and useful information that I saw while doing my job as a Medfield select board member. I thought that my fellow Medfield residents would also find that information interesting and useful as well. This blog is my effort to assist in creating a system to push the information out from the Town House to residents. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how it can be done better.
For information on my other job as an attorney (personal injury, civil litigation, estate planning and administration, and real estate), please feel free to contact me at 617-969-1500 or Osler.Peterson@OslerPeterson.com.
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