Municipal enterprise must be reinvented

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - by Peter Golden

Arguably it is no longer a matter of if or when, but how the communities of MetroWest will respond to sharp reductions in state aid that are a virtual certainty to impact by the summer of 2004.

The ability of most communities to cobble together a funding plan through 2003 without recourse to Proposition 2 1/2 overrides or major staff layoffs notwithstanding, state tax receipts have fallen too far and fast to escape the inevitable.

With about nine months to debate, plan and act in the face of such certainty, the challenge will be to minimize the impact of what almost certainly will be sharp reductions in state aid ranging upwards of 20 percent.

Municipal governments are abuzz with suggestion as how best to stem the tide of red ink. One town prepares to lay off teachers, another to cut police and fire. Also contemplated are increases in local sales and hotel taxes, perhaps even the imposition of a municipal income tax. More than one community has already thrown in the towel and placed an operating or capital override on the ballot. In some circles this is seen as no more than an inevitable response to the false economies of an overly restrictive Proposition 2 1/2.

Representatives of the elderly express genuine anxiety about the impact of all such scenarios on their constituents. Regardless of whether one owns or rents, they say, for those on a fixed income the most marginal tax increase can drive an elder from his or her home.

Other groups, especially organized labor and the Massachusetts Municipal Association, point to the wisdom of an increase in the state income tax from the current 5 1/4 percent level to somewhere just south of 6 percent.

The appearance of television advertising suggesting such is viewed as the opening salvo in a public campaign which will see the legislature reconsider tax increases in the fall when the full effect of service cuts begins to impact on voters.

After all, the reasoning goes, state income taxes have been reduced again and again; why not raise them marginally, take advantage of historically low interest rates to undertake modest borrowings and wait out the recession? Bolstering such an argument is the suggestion that while Massachusetts' taxes may appear high in absolute terms, relative to local income levels they are really quite low. Tell that to one of the tens of thousands of laid-off technology workers struggling to pay the mortgage.

Less enthusiastic types point out the last Massachusetts general election yielded the fascinating information that almost half of the electorate would be happy if the state income tax were done away with altogether. Such a result may indicate a fair number of us would gladly live in a state of anarchy. Another interpretation might suggest even rational people abhor taxes. So where do personal prerogative and the public interest meet?

Yet to emerge in the current debate is a serious discussion of the merits of "reinventing government," a catch phrase borrowed from industry in the early 1990s when corporate boards took a long, hard look at such fundamental of business as "core competencies," "outsourcing" and "business process reengineering."

Such lingo may be foreign to our ears, but senior managers in municipal government know exactly how and where such ideas can be applied to reduce costs and enhance service.

Reorganizing government, however, is tricky business. The calculus of municipal comity is figured on jobs, not rationalized service delivery. Indeed, rational notions on one side of the equation are invariably viewed as radical and unproven on the other.

"Not with my kid, you don't," is the public equivalent of "not invented here" in the private sector and is the naturally conservative response of any parent who knows the value of small class size and gifted junior faculty.

But how can it be that with the advent of the Internet and computer literacy and high-level gaming skills pervasive among MetroWest school kids there is no area-wide or state Web site which students can visit for a rich, interactive learning experience as a supplement to classroom instruction? For those who believe instructional quality is at the center of the teaching-learning experience, to not exploit remote-learning opportunities would be a shame.

Whatever the outcome of this current epoch of recession, international instability and continuing anxiety, one factor remains constant: the average citizen grows ever more removed from the political process.

If, as some have suggested, the conduct of government is carried out on behalf of corporate titans and the right to vote has been gladly ceded to impassivity, cynicism and the hypnotic glare of the boob tube, then those of us who believe in the demos must consider reinventing ourselves.

Whether it is the worst or best of times remains to be seen. But these are our times, and not to seize and bend them to our will is to abdicate the quest for something better.

 
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