Massachusetts: $450 Million and Holding
by Bill Dusty
Seeking to divert some state-held “rainy day” funding to local cities and towns, Massachusetts state representatives are putting up a bill that would transfer $450,000,000 into the state’s General Fund, which would then be disbursed to communities throughout the state.
From a December opinion article in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, State Representative and House minority whip George N. Peterson Jr. said; “Our bill is fair, reasonable and affordable. The state currently has well over $2.2 billion in its rainy-day fund. Even if we returned the $450 million to cities and towns, we would still have over $1.8 billion in reserves.”
The story begins back in 2003 when the State Legislature, faced with tough financial times, voted to place a cap on local aid coming from the state Lottery. Peterson asserted in his article that the resulting total amount withheld up to fiscal year 2006 – the $450 million – ended up not being needed by the state, and therefore should be re-allocated to the cities and towns. This linked chart shows the disparity between state “rainy day” funding compared to local funding from 2003 to 2006.
If the bill is passed, the City of Springfield would receive over $21 million of the reimbursed funds.
According to the article, the legislators sponsoring the bill include Peterson and State Representatives Paul Frost, Karyn Polito, Lewis Evangelidis, Paul Loscosso, Todd Smola, and also the Republican caucus led by Representative Brad Jones.
Below is an excerpt of the Sections included in the proposed bill. Follow this link for more information, including a listing of cities and towns and their respective reimbursements. More information can also be found here.
SECTION 1. This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the “Massachusetts Municipal Finance Relief Act of 2007.”
SECTION 2. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, within 30 days of the effective date of this act, the comptroller shall transfer $450,000,000 from the Commonwealth Stabilization Fund, established under section 2H of chapter 29 of the General Laws, to the General Fund.
SECTION 3. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, within 30 days of the effective date of this act and without further appropriation, the state treasurer shall distribute a total of $450,000,000 to the cities and towns of the commonwealth as a onetime, non-recurring supplemental local aid payment….
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6 Responses for “Massachusetts: $450 Million and Holding”
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Congrats on the praise you received in Local Buzz! Not online, but is in the print edition.
Yeah, I noticed that. For some reason they had the URL for my personal blog there. No biggie, though – there’s a big banner at my personal blog pointing folks to the Intruder. I appreciate the mention.
Bill great story. If we include the lottery money that we did not receive over three years and the school busing reimbursement (that we never received) over the same three years, it almost totals the loan amount we have received from the State to bail out Springfield.
Tim Rooke
That school bus funding has probably cost a lot of cities and towns a lot of money down through the years. Seems like the State just says “oh well”, and as far as they’re concerned, that’s our [collective] tough luck.
Bill, this sounds like a partisan bill.
Where’s the outcry from our local Democratic delegation
concerning this matter? Has it fallen on deaf ears.
Has any democrat signed on to this bill?
I don’t know the positions of Puppolo or Rivera. There’s been no local reporting (ie: Spfld Republican) on this issue that I know of.
I guess we’ll find out if/when it goes up to a vote.