Holding out no more?

A couple of stories on the Globe's website point to the seriousness of the financial situation. Sal DiMasi is actually talking about maybe, just maybe, allowing towns to tax telecommunications facilities and meals. This may not seem like a seismic event but the legislature is very protective of its ability to raise funds and historically reluctant to share that with municipalities. Even if the legislature moves forward with both, there are a lot of towns that won't benefit. It's also likely that they'll make these local options, forcing Selectboards to call town meetings and fight it out.

DiMasi is also considering allowing town's to join the Group Insurance Commmission without having to negotiate with unions. Very few cities and towns have jumped into the GIC and being forced to deal with multiple bargaining units is certainly part of the problem – Claire Higgens in little NoHo has some fourteen to deal with. There are other hooks that make the GIC a non-starter. For a lot of towns, employees (and retirees) pay a greater share of the premiums than the GIC mandates, so joining might actually increase costs. Once a town is in the plan its experience rating gets mixed in with the larger group, so leaving after the five year minimum stay becomes real difficult, if not impossible. Many towns side step the requirement of offering an indemnity plan by using a PPO but the GIC doesn't – it offers a (more expensive) indemnity plan.

Bottom line: Mayor Higgens has it right, give municipalities the same authority over plan design that the Commonwealth reserves for itself. Those of us who've been trying to control costs through organizations like the Hampshire Insurance Trust need to be recognized as well. So when you offer incentives to join the GIC, extend them to other non-profit insurance collaboratives with proven track records.

In search of revenues Tommy Menino is looking for ways to get Boston's tax exempt non-profits to start making payments to the city. This is good news, since Boston is the big dog in such matters (and often carved out as an exception) so if the mayor can make some headway against the behemoths in the Hub, that holds out some hope for the rest of us who live in towns with a significant number of tax exempts. There are lots of arguments, many of them very good, concerning the positive financial impacts a variety to tax exempt organizations have on towns but there are costs as well. Contrary to the op-ed piece in last Friday's Bulletin, you can measure the impacts a facility like Amherst College has on a community. Larry Schaffer's pointed out that New Hampshire (where folks live free or die but do pay property taxes) manages to extract some revenue from colleges. My own modest proposal is to tariff non-profits for the costs of public safety and infrastructure maintenance.

The major tax exempts are well organized and have plenty of lobbying clout, so none of Menino's (or anyone else's) efforts will come easy.