A Comity of Errors.
By Jim Conley • Feb 15th, 2008 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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Here’s how Brookline Schools Superintendent Bill Lupini plans to curb a $1.5 million deficit - push the burden of cuts onto students and then try to scare voters into a Proposition 2.5 override.
I left last night’s school committee meeting, unsure whether I had just attended a budget presentation or a seminar on the report made by the Brookline Selectmen’s Override Study Committee. It’s all tax increase, all the time in Brookline town government.
Apparently, members of the Brookline School Committee believe there’s no administrative fat in their budget left to cut; and they have to eliminate teacher, library assistant and social worker positions.
Lupini will cut three teaching positions at Brookline High School to save $163 thousand. But that’s near the total we spend on a Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning. And as far as I know, it’s the teachers in the classroom who actually provide the service of teaching and learning. Looks mighty fatuous to me.
And please God, make these people stop with the drama over how difficult these cuts are to make.
If the school committee needs more money, they ought to get it from Brookline Town Meeting. Here’s what they need to do. Tear up the ridiculous town/school partnership that locks them into a 50 percent share of property tax revenue and then put together the budget they need to operate.
Then go to the floor of town meeting and ask whether the assembly wants to fund a department of economic development (which does nothing) or several teachers at the same cost. Ask town meeting whether they want to fund new employee lounges at $19 million or they want to renovate schools (the real economic development engine in Brookline). Oops, too late for that.
They won’t do it. Because in Brookline town government, everyone needs to get along. Folks, comity works only when all parties have the interest of one another in mind. The school committee seems to have missed this point. And how they’re getting screwed in the process.
Remember, the property tax is how local education is financed - we can’t charge fees and tuition to educate resident students. And a school committee is a separate government entity (they could, in theory, levy their own property tax). So why are they letting the town administrator and the selectmen control their agenda?
Because nobody signed up for the hard work (especially most town meeting members) that comes with the friction of conflict. They scare us because they’re scared of the alternative.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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You don’t suppose a voluntary tax would work, do you? People who favor higher taxes can pay extra, and those who oppose the override would be exempt.
Naw, that won’t work. The people who want higher taxes will have to use the force of law to force everybody to pay more.
“VOLUNTARY” TAX AS A CHARITABLE DEDUCTION
Many of us who pay property taxes itemize deductions on our federal tax returns such that Uncle Sam partially subsidizes high property taxes. Charitable deductions can also be included in itemizing deductions to reduce the federal income tax bite. A contribution to the Town in the form of “voluntary” taxes may receive even more favorable tax treatment as a charitable constribution than as a tax deduction. Any volunteers? Lux, this is a good idea. Let’s see if it works.
TAX DEDUCTIONS AND BROOKLINE ELITISM
Back in 1973 when we were in the process of deciding to buy our home here, I raised with the broker the matter of property taxes on the property. The broker liltingly said (in effect) as only brokers can do, “Oh, Mr. Mazmanian, in your tax bracket Uncle Sam will be subsidizing not only your property taxes but your mortgage interest.” I knew that as I had a tax background in my law practice. At the time, federal income tax rate brackets went as high as 70%. Now I wasn’t in the highest bracket but the subsidation was significant. Also, Brookline provided such great services that other communities did not, like clearing snow from our sidewalks. At the time the tax bill was about $2,500. Today the tax bill is 9 times higher and the Town stopped clearing sidewalks of snow years ago. Back in 1973 I had a very good income. Today I am semi-retired, with income from my limited law practice dwindling (by choice, I might add). Was I, like many others, seduced by Brookline, so close to Boston, but so different, with many more amenities than Boston, with Uncle Sam’s help? Did property taxes rise so significantly because of the seduction of Brookline? But a point is reached when reality should set in. Today’s federal tax brackets are significantly lower than in 1973. Thus, Uncle Sam’s subsidation is comparatively less beneficial than it had been for homeownership.
But what the heck, Brookline is more elitist than it was in 1973. Rather than complain, perhaps I should have a piece of cake before the guillotine of the override falls.