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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
 Posted - 12/11/2008 : 09:47:55 AM
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I missed the live broadcast of the joint convention last night where the Minimum Residential Factor (MRF) was adopted for FY 2009. I stayed up to watch the replay at 11 PM. Although I came away from this viewing with some information, I was taken aback somewhat by the lack of information that we received from last night's meetings. In prior years, I believe that we have come out of these meetings with some idea of what the tax rate will be. While I agree with Mr. Hart that there a number of factors that can change in the process of coming up with the tax rate, the vast majority of these factors are the same ones that would have to be known in order to determine the property tax levy and the excess levy capacity. These amounts were announced down to the penny! After the levy amount has been determined, I believe it is only a matter of plugging in the adopted MRF into a formula to determine the tax rates. It shouldn't have been an issue to come to the meetings prepared with two sets of tax rates, one if the MRF wasn't adopted and one if it was. There is always the possibility that the DOR could find an error in the city's calculations that would change the tax rates, as they did a couple of years ago, but that could be explained later.
It's difficult to determine where the property tax rates are going without being privy to all of the necessary information. It looks like more of the tax burden will be shifted to commercial property as Mr. Hart stated that commercial property values have held up and the residential percentage of the tax levy mentioned last night was less than what I found on the DOR web site for FY2008. But, the property tax levy has gone up by $4,000,000 and residential property values have gone down fairly significantly. As I said before, it's not easy to determine where the rates are going without all the information but think about this for a minute. Your property tax is determined by multiplying the valuation of your property by the tax rate. If the value of your property goes down, the tax rate will have to rise just to tax you the same amount of money. So I think that there is a very good chance that the tax rate will go up significantly but I'm less sure of what the impact on our total tax bills will be.
I thought that there was a huge missed opportunity last night to educate the tax payers. Justme had a great post last weekend about perception being reality. If a significantly higher tax rate gets out there without it being explained properly, much ado will be made about. It's hard to put the genie back into the bottle once it is out.
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2008 : 11:32:07 AM
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| I cant even imagine what the rate would be if the housing market did not decrease so drastically. Looks as if this administration may have dodged another bullet. |
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Political Hack
Member
11 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2008 : 8:47:21 PM
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The residential tax rate is going up $.83
Political Hack |
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formally from everett
Member
7 Posts |
Posted - 01/03/2009 : 5:58:00 PM
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I am formally from Everett and just received the news on the tax bill. It just makes me all the more happy I moved out of Everett right before this last administration took over. The previous one cost me enough in tax increases, now this guy wants to make the claim he stabilized the tax rate? What nonsense!! We are hearing this in Florida. We love Florida, you people need to get the hell out of there and come down here. As soon as the market adjusts a bit I'm unloading my rental property in Everett as well - I can see where all this is headed if the Everett voters let him continue beyond two years.
Now that we sold the house and it seems Everett is fast going to hell in a hand basket, I see no use on hanging on to the property any longer than I have to. And the way this Mayor is spending money, sooner or later, we will all have to pay for his poor judgment, the high paying jobs he is handing out, and the way he is spending money like it is nothing.
DeMaria has no vision or temperance, and certainly no control on spending. I'd rather not have to be one of those paying any more in a year or two while I watch a city I loved decline into a patronage haven for crooked politicians and their cronies or a personal dumping ground for a millionaire developer who only wants to get richer regardless of who he hurts. The true insult is to the people of Everett whom he thinks are stupid enough to believe these childish ploys he puts on in order to cover up the truth and that honestly thinks the residents lack the basic intelligence to see through those thinly veiled public relation lies. It is remarkable that he has such a low opinion of the people of Everett but could yet fool enough of us to get elected. I wonder if he can find enough people this time around to reelect him now that he has shown us he thinks they are fools in the first place. He offers on the one hand "You are too stupid to see the plain truth before you" and argues on the other hand "But, you should reelect me because I love Everett." He slaps every resident in the face with that approach but in amazement, some lemmings are still following him right over the cliff.
It is kind of funny how this has worked out. Take a look back and tell me that I am wrong on this one, please? I know I’m not wrong, but I cannot believe that the residents or Jim Mitchell believe what is written in the Advocate. I still read the Advocate online , but last Friday’s top stories made me blow my top. Just as the holidays ended, the people of Everett received their first FY 09 tax bill. The papers say that Mayor DeMaria and his public relations machine claim that the bill you received was the result of his administration's ability to get the city's skyrocketing budget under control. This could not be further from the truth. It has often been stated that facts are stubborn things, not subject to change.
Let's take a look at the facts. The FY 09 budget for the City of Everett increased by approximately $8,000,000 (EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS) over the FY 08 budget. I hardly consider an $8,000,000 increase as an act of control. The tax rate went from $10.35 per thousand in FY08 to $11.18 per thousand in FY09 - an 83 cent increase per thousand.
So, if you owned a $400,000 house, your tax bill would have increased by $332.00 over last year's bill, assuming your assessment stayed the same. Again, this is not my definition of getting things under control. The Mayor, being the egomaniacal, spoiled brat that he is, claims his administration is responsible for the stability and/or reduction which we saw in our residential bills. This is another lie designed to create the perception that Carlo DeMaria is fiscally responsible.
Here's the truth: If you own that $400,000 house which I spoke of above, your tax bill, assuming the real estate market held steady and as mentioned above, would have increased by $332.00 over last year. However, because of a collapsed real estate market, homes in Everett on average lost between 15,000 and 45,000 of their assessed value. That's the equity in your house. That's what you otherwise should have been able to sell your house at. That's money directly out of your pocket!
In FY 08 your tax bill was $4,140.00 ($400,000 x $10.35 per thousand). Now, let's assume that $400,000 house of yours just lost $30,000 off of its assessment. With your reduced assessment at $370,000, your tax bill would now be $4,136.60 ($370,000 x $11.18 per thousand). That's a savings of $3.40 over your tax bill from last year, while you lost $30,000 in value on your home this year! The facts are clear. The City budget increased $8,000,000 from FY 08 to FY 09. The real estate market collapsed at the same time - and the people of Everett lost thousands in value.
That's why your tax bill looks the way it does. Seems Mayor DeMaria and his illegal Communications Director are at it again! Shame on them!
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2009 : 09:53:10 AM
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We all know that we are paying less, because our houses are worth less. If the Mayor wants to take credit for that.....all the power to him, but I do not believe that will go over too well.
For years, the fight with city government has been, lower the budget and do not over run accounts and go over the budget. That is not being fiscally responsible. Jim Mitchell looks like a big idiot for his "over the top" stories. But, look where he got it from, bigger idiots.
"blatantly, gone are the days" |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2009 : 12:05:34 PM
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I've been meaning to post this since the Globe article first appeared to confirm the new tax rate. Congratulations to Political Hack for calling the increase in the tax rate correctly; they must be someone in the know. But, it just goes to show that more was known on the night that the MRF was adopted than the administration wanted the taxpayers to know and I'm not sure why. As I stated in the first post in this thread, it is possible that the state could have found an error in the city's submission; but, other than that, we could have been told everything that night with a disclaimer that it still needed to be approved.
My favorite quote from last Friday's Advocate was the following:
"For the two years that John Hanlon was the mayor, there was chaos at city hall during "budget time". In the end, Everett ended up with bloated budgets that resulted in record-high tax increases two years in a row. This year Mayor DeMaria in sharp contrast submitted a streamlined, fiscally responsible budget"
Can somebody please explain to me how Mayor DeMaria first budget was all that much different from Mayor Hanlon's last budget? With the exception of the contract that was taken away from Wood Waste, where is this streamlining? The budget line item for municipal solid waste went down signficantly but wasn't that a result of the recycling contract that was signed at the end of the Hanlon administration? Even though I wasn't a Hanlon fan after his performance as mayor, I have to give his administration and more accurately, Jon Norton, credit for that. Savings from consolidations? Go back and look at some of the posts done at budget time to see that the consolidations actually saved very little money, at least as we could understand them. What about Mr. Carlisle little shell game of moving capital expenditures outside the actual budget when they had been included in prior years? Although somewhat minimal in the big picture, they did make the budget look smaller than it really was.
I don't deny that finding ways to reduce the city's budget is challenging, to say the least. If the Advocate wanted to say that the rate of the increase in the city budget decreased under Mayor DeMaria, I wouldn't have had any problem with that (Remember almost $6 million of the increase in the budget was mandated and came from a state funded increase in Chapter 70 money). But, let's not try to make the first DeMaria budget to be something that it wasn't and still isn't. As stated earlier in this thread, the people of Everett are not stupid. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2009 : 8:19:39 PM
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| The bottom line is that our tax rate went up $.83 per thousand from last year. It doesn't matter how the Advocate spins it. The fact is the budget increased and so did our tax rate. |
Edited by - massdee on 01/04/2009 8:52:35 PM |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2009 : 8:44:34 PM
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Exactly....just like formally from Everett said, it's because of a collapsed real estate market and at the same time, we lost thousands in value. If that did not happen, our taxes would have gone up. This administration is not responsible for any of it. If anything, they are responsible for an increased budget and increased tax rate. A grammar school child can even understand that, and see how ridiculous the Advocate looks.
"blatantly, gone are the days" |
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Cam
Member
82 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2009 : 09:31:51 AM
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| The small businesses in Everett are going to be hit hard. Their assessments basically remained the same and were hit with a $4.00+ per-thousand increase. All they did was play a numbers game this year. It's an election year so they are trying to snow the people. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2009 : 10:16:38 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by tetris
Can somebody please explain to me how Mayor DeMaria first budget was all that much different from Mayor Hanlon's last budget? With the exception of the contract that was taken away from Wood Waste, where is this streamlining? The budget line item for municipal solid waste went down signficantly but wasn't that a result of the recycling contract that was signed at the end of the Hanlon administration? Even though I wasn't a Hanlon fan after his performance as mayor, I have to give his administration and more accurately, Jon Norton, credit for that. Savings from consolidations? Go back and look at some of the posts done at budget time to see that the consolidations actually saved very little money, at least as we could understand them. What about Mr. Carlisle little shell game of moving capital expenditures outside the actual budget when they had been included in prior years? Although somewhat minimal in the big picture, they did make the budget look smaller than it really was.
I don't deny that finding ways to reduce the city's budget is challenging, to say the least. If the Advocate wanted to say that the rate of the increase in the city budget decreased under Mayor DeMaria, I wouldn't have had any problem with that (Remember almost $6 million of the increase in the budget was mandated and came from a state funded increase in Chapter 70 money). But, let's not try to make the first DeMaria budget to be something that it wasn't and still isn't. As stated earlier in this thread, the people of Everett are not stupid.
The waste management line item that was taken away from Wood Waste is going to another company but it's the same owner in Dracut. It got taken away from Wood Waste for 750K but went to another of his company. I also hear this was a total set up by Erin Deveney and Brian Zaniboni. Anyone else aware of the fact that Mr. Thibeault is the owner of the company?
So, yea he gets kudos for it being cheaper but it's still going to Thibeult. It's all a shell game, like everything else.
"blatantly, gone are the days" |
Edited by - Tails on 01/05/2009 11:45:31 AM |
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Cam
Member
82 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2009 : 1:23:09 PM
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| Are you saying Mr Thibeault is the owner of the waste company that the city is now using for its street debris? I thought the mayor pulled the citys contract away from Mr Thibeault. I am sure I heard that more than once at various meetings on TV. If this is true then Mayor DeMaria took the contract away from Wood Waste and gave it to another holding of Mr Thibeaults. Do you have proof of this? I would like to know for sure. I want to know if we have been deceived by the mayor. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2009 : 2:20:32 PM
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| I don't believe could be called a "total set up." As I stated in a recent post in the War of Words thread, I believe that this was not a contract that Wood Waste should have ever been awarded in the first place because it deals with a type of waste that really isn't C & D material, the only type of waste that their facility is licensed to handle. Therefore, the contract needed to be moved. Other than that, I have no firm knowledge of the particulars of this contract other than the city should be paying less for it as less money was budgeted for that line item in the FY09 budget. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 01/05/2009 : 2:43:36 PM
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I think, if true, the point is the mayor made it sound like he took the contract away from Thibeault. I don't remember the mayor saying he changed companies because Thibeault wasn't supposed to bring in that type of debris. It was a cost savings move. My problem with this, if true, the mayor neglected to mention that Mr Thibeault owns the company that he gave the new contract to.
When the mayor spoke about this, he gave the impression that the city withdrew the contract completely from Thibeault, not that he changed from one of Thibeault's company's to another owned by him.
It will be interesting to see if any of this can be verified. Does anyone know the name of the company the city is now using? |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 01/06/2009 : 7:59:18 PM
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Although I was interested in the topic before (I did a lot of research on it for my "Thibeault" War of Words post), I've got to admit that Tails has really continued to pique my curiosity on this street sweeping/catch basin waste contract. Not being able to find a lot of new information, I thought that I would change tactics to see if the contract ever went out to bid when Mayor DeMaria took office. It appears that Mr. Pedulla had set up a simple system for retrieving bidding information on the city web site that, if maintained properly, could also serve as a way to determine what has gone out to bid and, by looking for something that is not on the list, what has not. Since any bidding on this waste contract would have probably happened on Mr. Pedulla's watch, I was expecting to find it in one of his sets of bid documents (open bids or closed bids), but I did not. So, I consulted MGL and found the following:
CHAPTER 30B. UNIFORM PROCUREMENT ACT
Section 1. Application of chapter
(b) This chapter shall not apply to:
(30) a contract for the collection, transportation, receipt, processing or disposal of solid waste, recyclable or compostable materials;
So, this type of contract does not have to go out to bid. I don't understand that...well, maybe I do. Probably best to move on.
I know that this is going off in an entirely different direction, but, since we're already discussing a waste contract in a budget thread, I don't think that will be too much of an issue. I wonder why the practice of posting the bid documents online seems to have stopped since Mr. Pedulla was let go? That would seem to be a step backwards. Making them available online would seem to be a more economical choice than the purchasing department making paper copies of them or having to take the time to e-mail them out. Now that they are not posted online, the instructions on how to do business with the city that are posted on the city website aren't accurate either. And as I stated, if maintained properly, it also provided a pretty transparent, concise trail of a part of the purchasing department's activities. Just an observation though. |
Edited by - tetris on 01/06/2009 8:01:34 PM |
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FY2009 Tax Rates
