State Treasurer Steve Grossman was kind enough to — very promptly — respond to a question posed to him last month: why do we need separate ballot questions for the two school projects to be funded by debt-exclusion overrides*? His response (boiled down): existing state policy promotes greater transparency and greater accountability (full text after the jump).
Transparency and accountability are important goals, but they don’t explain the policy’s requirement that override requests to fund school-building projects that receive funding through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) be posed as separate ballot questions. There are three problems:
- The policy means don’t promote the policy ends — separate ballot questions don’t add to (or diminish) transparency or accountability
- The policy has a predictably harmful impact on larger municipalities
- The policy perversely reinforces and extends Proposition 2-1/2
I’ll address each issue in a separate post, taking them in order. In this post, transparency and accountability.
The measure of transparency is information available to voters. With regard to school projects, the MSBA requires that:
The article, motion, resolution, order, vote must be project specific and must include specific information about the project location and scope.
The requirement mixes the good with the unnecessary. Providing project-specific information
creates transparency. Requiring project-specific questions does not. The goals of transparency would be equally well-served by a requirement that any article, motion, &c., must have project-specific information. Having separate override questions on the ballot does nothing to increase the volume of information on either the Angier or Cabot project.
The MSBA building process already requires extensive documentation for state-funded school building projects. If the MSBA wants to increase transparency, it could require that project-related documents be posted electronically — or even better, post the documents itself.
Accountability is a tougher nut to crack. In the end, accountability means responsibility. If there’s sufficient information to allow voters to judge the success of a project against the promises made at the beginning, there’s not much more that the MSBA can do to make elected officials more responsible. Ultimately, the only mechanism to hold elected officials responsible is the ballot box. If elected officials screw up the design, budgeting, or building process, Newton residents can vote them out.
The most valuable thing the MSBA can do is provide independent overview of design, budget, and build, which it does. And, the Department of Revenue already imposes significant accountability on projects funded with debt-exclusion overrides. As Ted Hess-Mahan noted in a comment, if the project costs go up by a non-trivial amount, the city has to go back to the voters with a separate override question or absorb the additional debt service in the operating budget. A debt-exclusion is not a blank check.
Having separate questions for Angier and Cabot makes Newton’s officials no more accountable.
The full text of Treasurer Grossman’s comment:
This MSBA policy (www.massschoolbuildings.org/guidelines/votes) has been in place since 2008 and has been consistently applied to all communities in the Commonwealth, large and small. It reflects the fundamental principle of transparency and open government so that the taxpayers are aware of how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent and can hold us accountable for our investment of public funds. This is in keeping with the open checkbook initiative we helped launch in 2011 http://www.mass.gov/opencheckbook, and the comprehensive financial disclosures about school projects that are available on the MSBA website: http://www.massschoolbuildings.org
Since its inception in 2004, MSBA has distributed more than 9.1 billion dollars in taxpayers’ money to the Massachusetts cities and towns for school construction. It is pivotal we continue to maintain the integrity and credibility of the program.
I look forward to working with the leadership and residents of the city in which I was born and live to realize all of our ambitious goals in the months and years ahead.
– State Treasurer Steve Grossman
*The override questions cover three school projects: Angier, Cabot, and Zervas. The first two are to be covered by debt-exclusion overrides. Because it is not expected to receive state funding, the Zervas project will be covered by the operating override. Debt-exclusion and operating overrides are different beasts (one temporary, the other permanent) and need to be separate questions.
If the MSBA was holding Newton to a different or higher standard, then this would be a fruitful discussion, but it isn’t. The MSBA is merely asking us to comply with the same rules and regulations every other city and town must adhere to – nothing more and nothing less. If a group of citizens wants to address the issue with the Treasurer, then I say go for it – as long as that doesn’t affect the timing of our override votes while they attempt to change state policy.
That’s exactly the point, Jane. Newton is being held to both a different and higher standard. It’s not a standard that’s articulated within the MSBA rule. It’s the effect the rule has on Newton that creates the different standard.
For example, in a smaller town with one elementary school, 100% of the voters are stakeholders in a school construction project, either by virtue of having school age children who might benefit as students, or through a theoretical increase in home value.
That dynamic differs considerably for Newton, where we have 17 [?] elementary schools. There is almost no incentive for a voter in Nonantum or Chestnut Hill to vote in favor of a debt exclusion that would raise their property taxes for an elementary school in Waban.
Actually it is fair and equitable, and preferable to some people. You may not like it, but it doesn’t make it unfair. In fact, I like the 3 overrides much better than the one bundled approach.
That you believe Newton votes only for “their own” is unfortunate. Call me naive, but I don’t believe that the people in Chestnut Hill who tend to be financially comfortable would vote against building a new elementary school for young children who spend their days in a disgusting facility. Not to mention, if people vote only for “their own”, we can forget about ever passing a DE override for new schools because 80% of the Newton residents don’t have kids in the system.
BTW, if you look at the history of Prop 2 1/2 overrides, passage has a high correlation to the median income and very little to do with the size of the city or town.
Jane – the problem is that some people will vote for only 1. If those who don’t live in either school district evenly split their votes between the 2 schools, then neither will win enough votes to pass. I understand the reasoning behind having the school vote be separate from the non-school vote, but it would have made much more sense to allow there to be 2 ballot questions – one for the schools and one for everything else.
While I can see the merits on both sides of this debate, I do not see project specific debt exclusions as inherently unfair. I disagree that the number of schools in Newton versus other communities makes the prospect of debt exclusions somehow more unfair. Like Newton, a majority of voters do not even have children in the public schools in those communities. Moreover, the corresponding tax burden is proportionally greater because in towns with fewer schools there are fewer property owners who must share that burden. Rather, voters here and elsewhere support overrides and debt exclusions because their respective local governments effectively make the case that those overrides and debt exclusions are needed, not out of any purely self-serving motive but out of a sense of shared commitment to meet the needs of their communities.
I have faith in Newton voters that if the case can be made for increasing the tax levy to pay for fixing or replacing broken school buildings and fire stations, they will support it. The problem, as I see it, is that for the last thirty years that we have had Prop 2-1/2, Newton has avoided seeking overrides or debt exclusions to meet its operating and capital needs until the situation is so dire that it can no longer be ignored. As a result, every time there is an override proposal, that administration is backed into asking for a huge amount of money and promising it won’t seek another for five years. This leads to a divisive public debate in which proponents invariably argue, correctly, that if the override does not pass, crucial needs will not be met and/or drastic cuts will have severe consequences. In a way, this is Newton’s version of the “fiscal cliff.” But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Other communities have been far more proactive and successful in seeking modest, but more frequent overrides and debt exclusions to meet their operating and capital needs. Not every override or debt exclusion passes, but those communities are not led to the precipice every time the city or town needs more police, teachers or firefighters, or has to replace a school or other public building.
As I have said before, I am still struggling with what to do because I am not sure that proposal that is on the table will best meet the city’s operating and capital needs. Speaking for myself, I would rather see all of the capital projects funded through debt exclusions and all of the operating needs funded through an override if the city cannot meet those needs within the limits of Prop 2-1/2.
Over the past several weeks, I have spoken to a number of my colleagues and other community leaders who, like me, are not satisfied with what is on the table but do not have a viable alternative to propose. So, I assume the board will put all of these questions on the ballot as proposed. I further assume that voters will approve one or more of these questions. I am unsure, however, that all of the ballot questions will pass. Then the question will be “now what?” Which operating and capital needs will be met and which will have to be deferred? The virtue of separate questions is that the electorate gets a chance to weigh in on which operating and capital needs should be prioritized. The downside is that some needs may go unmet.
At present, I do not see any way to untie this Gordian knot. Neither this administration nor the MSBA created this situation, and each is, IMHO, acting reasonably and responsibly. As the famous philosopher Bill Belichick would say, “it is what it is.” As a community, we will just have to figure out how to deal with it.
Personally, I think Ted, and Jane are being overly optimistic about the the willingness of taxpayers to fund projects in which they have no clearly definable interest. Jane says, “… I do not believe that the people in Chestnut Hill who tend to be financially comfortable would vote against building a new elementary school for young children who spend their days in a disgusting facility.”
Um, Jane, they already did. The last override attempt in Newton principally targeted school infrastructure and city services. Despite the fact that it was a general override from which every voter could theoretically benefit, it failed.
I think Newton desperately needs an override. I want that override proposal to be structured in a way that gives it the best possible odds of success. I think the structure of this override package significantly decreases the likelihood of success, particularly for the two debt exclusions. But perhaps I’m wrong. Can anyone point to a similar situation where a city with more than 10 elementary schools, passed a debt exclusion override that benefited only one of those schools? It would make me feel a lot better if I knew this approach had been successful somewhere before.
Mike wrote:
I don’t think we can assume that the last override failed because taxpayers weren’t willing to fund projects in which they had no clearly definable interest. Perhaps that was true in some cases, but it’s far more likely that the override failed because voters were so angry about Newton North.
All these projects affect Newton taxpayers in some way because they reflect back on our community. That’s the message that needs to be out there. Everyone drives on the roads. Fire station HQ: That’s citywide. Elementary schools: If Newton taxpayers aren’t willing to update dilapidated elementary schools, we deserve to see our property values drop.
Ted,
I address the city’s numerical disadvantage in its own post. I won’t belabor the point here, other than to say I agree with Mike. Whether it’s a major issue or a minor issue, the numbers are not in favor of yes. I hope you’ll comment there.
As for your main point — that we’re operating in crisis mode, to our disadvantage — I agree and offer one word: NNHS debt-exclusion override.
If we take NNHS debt service out of the operating budget, we get out of crisis mode, we could add a much more moderate operating override, and we could ask for smaller debt-exclusion overrides when the relevant projects are better understood.
@Mike, here is the DOR webpage with databases that contains the results for every override, debt exclusion and other Prop 2-1/2 ballot question.
I sincerely hope you are wrong, but, as I said, I see the merits in both sides of this debate. But, gosh, I hope voters understand that these two schools have to be replaced and that if the money does not come out of a debt exclusion, it will have to come from someplace else or they will simply not get fixed. And that if we don’t fix the schools, fire stations, streets and sidewalks, everybody loses.