Tag: Massachusetts

Massachusetts’ Graduated Income Tax Amendment Threatens the Commonwealth’s Economic Transformation

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://taxfoundation.org/massachusetts-graduated-income-tax-amendment/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Massachusetts is already trending in the wrong direction in terms of migration. Since 2013, Massachusetts’ net population change levels have been trending downward; and in 2020 the Commonwealth realized its first net negative population change since 2004. Massachusetts lost an estimated 1,309 residents in 2020 but that figure grew to 37,497 by 2021. Much of that change is likely attributable to various changes brought on by the pandemic, including the expansion of remote work opportunities. However, Massachusetts’ struggle with migration precedes the pandemic.

The Bay State’s net migration levels generally mirror the downward trajectory of the net population change figures, but a closer look reveals that Massachusetts was experiencing net negative migration even before the pandemic began. The downward trend for net migration reached net negative levels in 2019, the first year since 2007.

Whether Massachusetts’ net migration figure is positive or negative primarily depends on the strength of net international migration. For 20 of the last 22 years, Massachusetts has seen net negative domestic migration. What this effectively means is that it is preferable to migrate to Massachusetts from abroad, but once a person lives there, it is preferable to move somewhere else. Between July 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021, an estimated 12,675 more people moved to the Bay State from abroad than left for foreign destinations. However, 46,187 more people left Massachusetts for other domestic locations than moved in from elsewhere in the United States.[14] This should concern policymakers, but the figure that should be even more concerning is the net outmigration of adjusted gross income (AGI).

Author(s): Timothy Vermeer

Publication Date: 13 Sept 2022

Publication Site: Tax Foundation

Union officials sue MBTA after arbitrator proposes slashing pensions of those who retire before age 65

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/26/metro/union-officials-sue-mbta-after-arbitrator-proposes-slashing-pensions-those-who-retire-before-age-65/

Excerpt:

The MBTA’s largest union is challenging an independent arbitrator’s decision that would reshape the rules of the authority’s $1.66 billion retirement system, including slashing the pensions of those who retire before the age of 65.

…..

Still, after more than four years of negotiations over a pension agreement, it’s unclear what exact changes could come to the MBTA’s retirement fund, where the number of retirees has long outpaced the amount of workers paying into it, and MBTA officials have long pressed for sweeping changes.

As of the end of last year, the fund’s unfunded liability hovered at more than $1.3 billion, and, despite changes that went into effect a decade ago to stem what were considered lavish retirement perks, younger retirees have continued to flow into the retirement system, creating more financial pressure.

….

The arbitrator’s decision included a series of changes, most notably in lifting the age at which a retiree would collect an “unreduced” pension. Under the ruling, workers who opt for early retirement — in this case, before the age of 65 — would have 6 percent deducted from their pension benefit for every year of retirement before the age of 65.

Currently, anyone who is 55 and has at least 25 years of service qualifies for a so-called normal monthly pension, calculated at 2.46 percent of the average of a person’s three consecutive highest-earning years, multiplied by years of service.

Author(s): Matt Stout

Publication Date: 26 Sept 2022

Publication Site: Boston Globe

Study Finds Pension Obligation Bonds Could Worsen T Retirement Fund’s Financial Woes

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/study-finds-pension-obligation-bonds-could-worsen-t-retirement-funds-financial-woes/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

A new study published by Pioneer Institute finds that issuing pension obligation bonds (POBs) to refinance $360 million of the MBTA Retirement Fund’s (MBTARF’s) $1.3 billion unfunded pension liability would only compound the T’s already serious financial risks.

With POBs, government entities deposit revenues from bond sales into their pension funds and use the money to make investments they hope will deliver returns that outpace borrowing costs.

“Virtually every study of POBs finds that timing and duration of the bond issues are critical,” said E.J. McMahon, author of “Rolling the Retirement Dice.”  “Bonds floated at the end of a bull market are the most likely to lose money, and that makes this idea a wrong turn at the worst possible time.”

If investments don’t meet a pension fund’s assumed rate of return, it could be left with debt service costs in addition to the pre-existing unfunded liability.  In 2015, the Government Finance Officers Association bluntly warned that “State and local governments should not issue POBs.”  It reaffirmed its guidance last year.

Author(s): E.J. McMahon

Publication Date: 21 Jun 2022

Publication Site: Pioneer Institute

Massachusetts Should Reject Gross Receipts Taxes

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://taxfoundation.org/massachusetts-gross-receipts-tax/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The economic harms of the gross receipts tax (GRT) were well understood by the early 20th century. Not only is the tax inequitable, but it is also inefficient and distortionary. That is why most states abandoned GRTs in the early 1900s, as states developed the capacity to administer less harmful taxes. Unfortunately, some policymakers in Massachusetts want to turn back the clock.

Today, only a handful of states levy any variation of the GRT. Those that still rely on them as a significant source of revenue (like Texas, Nevada, Ohio, and Washington) typically do so in lieu of one or more alternative taxes. None of these states imposes a corporate income tax, and Ohio repealed several other business taxes as well when it adopted its GRT.

Some Massachusetts policymakers, however, want to layer a GRT atop the state’s existing corporate income tax. If H.2855 becomes law, it would reduce the competitiveness of the Bay State and increase prices for consumers on already expensive goods and services. To make matters worse, Bay Staters would be asked to shoulder the added tax burden at a time when inflation is already eroding purchasing power at a rate not seen 1982.

Author(s): Timothy Vermeer

Publication Date: 9 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Tax Foundation

Massachusetts PRIM Proposes $1 Billion Investment to Boost Diversity in Managers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.ai-cio.com/news/massachusetts-prim-proposes-1-billion-investment-to-boost-diversity-in-managers/

Excerpt:

Massachusetts’ $95.7 billion state pension fund has preliminarily approved a plan to invest up to $1 billion in emerging-diverse managers over the next two years. The move is part of the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM)’s initiative to abide by the state’s investment equity law, which contains a target of at least 20% diversity among PRIM’s vendor base.

“The PRIM team, by investing $1 billion into its emerging-diverse managers program, is taking important steps in addressing the inequities endemic in the financial services sector,” State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, who is also the chair of PRIM’s board, said in a statement. “This is real and tangible progress that will reduce barriers and expand opportunities for diverse investment managers.”

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 1 Dec 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Look out for Zombie States – not only on Halloween

Mary Pat Campbell
Link:https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/look-out-for-zombie-states-not-only-on-halloween

Video:

Excerpt:

We call it the “Zombie Index” based on the work of Edward Kane, a prolific and respected finance professor at Boston College. Back in 1985 and 1989, Ed wrote two books warning about taxpayer exposure to losses from bank deposit insurance schemes, before we knew what hit us in the savings and loan crisis. Ed coined the term “zombie bank” to identify effectively-insolvent banks that were allowed to remain open by regulators and others. Deceptive accounting principles greased the wheels for regulatory forbearance, making “zombies” appear to be solvent. 

Zombies had incentives, in Ed’s terms, to “gamble for resurrection.” Insiders could capture the upside of riskier investments, while prospective losses could be socialized through the government’s sponsorship (and ultimately, bailout) of deposit insurance systems. These incentives ended up magnifying taxpayer losses during the 1980s deposit insurance crisis. Those losses ran in the hundreds of billions of dollars and helped set the stage for the massive financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Author(s): Bill Bergman

Publication Date: 25 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Truth in Accounting

Virus surge hits New England despite high vaccination rates

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.yahoo.com/news/delta-tearing-states-despite-high-115328590.html

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Even though parts of New England are seeing record case counts, hospitalizations and deaths that rival pre-vaccine peaks, largely among the unvaccinated, the region hasn’t seen the impact the delta variant wave has wrought on other parts of the country. 

According to statistics from The Associated Press, the five states with the highest percentage of a fully vaccinated population are all in New England, with Vermont leading, followed by Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. New Hampshire is 10th.

….

Case counts in Vermont, which has continually boasted about high vaccination and low hospitalization and death rates, are the highest during the pandemic. Hospitalizations are approaching the pandemic peak from last winter and September was Vermont’s second-deadliest month during the pandemic.

Author(s): Wilson Ring

Publication Date: 3 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo News

Public Statement on the MA Legislature’s Blanket Pension Giveaway

Mary Pat Campbell
Public Statement on the MA Legislature’s Blanket Pension Giveaway

Excerpt:

And it doesn’t apply just to state and municipal workers who had to actually go into work during the pandemic; they must only have “volunteered to work… at their respective worksites or any worksite outside of their personal residence.”  Employees who went in for a single day would also qualify.  So do employees who worked from home but one day when the internet was down went to a family member’s home to work.  (They meet the provision that you did your job from a “worksite outside of [your] personal residence.”)

Administrators, accountants, techies, teachers, finance officers, grant writers, trash collectors and all those paid with public dollars are potentially in line for the benefit.  As currently written, state legislators are eligible to take advantage of the bill.  More than half of the Legislature has signed on to H.2808. Support spans the political spectrum.  The bill may provide a jump in pension benefits for those employed during the pandemic who have already retired.

…..

Pioneer estimates that the bill’s cost would be in the billions of dollars. As of this May, the state pension fund, state Teachers’ Retirement System and the Boston Teachers Retirement system were underfunded by a combined $44 billion.  Annual payments to the systems are scheduled to rise from the current $3.1 billion to nearly $12.4 billion over the next 15 years, and would be even higher under H.2808.  The bill would also further burden over 100 local pension funds in the Commonwealth, many of which are already woefully underfunded.

Author(s): editorial staff

Publication Date: 26 July 2021

Publication Site: Pioneer Institute

Opposition mounts on bill to boost pension payouts for Massachusetts COVID public workers

Mary Pat Campbell
Opposition mounts on bill to boost pension payouts for Massachusetts COVID public workers

Excerpt:

Opposition is mounting on a bill that seeks to boost pension payouts for public employees who went to work throughout the pandemic at the expense of billions to taxpayers despite widespread support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The Pioneer Institute, a government watchdog, sounded the alarm with a public statement that estimates the cost of the “broadly” worded bill “would be in the billions of dollars.”

The bill would let public workers cash in on three extra years of service for their pensions when they retire if they worked — or volunteered to work — outside their home anytime between March 10 and Dec. 31 of last year, according to the legislation filed by state Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, D-Gardner, and Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield. Sen. Nick Collins, D-Boston, filed a companion bill in the Senate.

….

Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance spokesman Paul Diego Craney echoed Pioneer’s concerns, saying lawmakers “are attempting to boost some of their own pensions in a bill framed as crediting essential workers that risked their health in the earlier days of the pandemic.”

The bill has gained the signatures of more than 100 lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons also denounced the proposal on Monday, calling it a “slap in the face” to anyone who lost their job or their livelihood due to COVID-19 emergency regulations.

Author(s): ERIN TIERNAN

Publication Date: 26 July 2021

Publication Site: Boston Herald

The Massachusetts ‘Essential Worker’ Pension Boost Proposal Is A Case Study In Public Pension Failures

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2021/08/19/the-massachusetts-essential-worker-pension-boost-proposal-is-a-case-study-in-public-pension-failures/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The text of the bill, H. 2808/S. 1669, is brief. All employees of the state, its political subdivisions, and its public colleges and universities, a bonus of three years “added to age or years of service or a combination thereof for the purpose of calculating a retirement benefit,” if, at any point between March 10, 2020 and December 21, 2020, they had “volunteered to work or who [had] been required to work at their respective worksites or any other worksite outside of their personal residence.”

…..

In subsequent reporting, government watchdog group The Pioneer Institute voiced its opposition. In a statement posted on their website, they criticized the broad coverage — acting as an unfunded mandate for municipalities, including workers even if they had worked outside their home for a single day, encompassing both blue collar and white collar workers. They estimate the bill’s cost at “in the billions of dollars” and point to a massive boost even for a single individual, the president of the University of Massachusetts, whose lifetime pension benefit would increase by $790,750.

…..

And left out of Zlotnik’s proposal is a recognition that the state’s main retirement fund is 64% funded, and the teachers’ fund, 52%, as of 2019.

Author(s): Elizabeth Bauer

Publication Date: 19 August 2021

Publication Site: Forbes

Mayor Of Quincy Proposes $400 Billion Bond To Fund Pension Plan

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://patch.com/massachusetts/quincy/mayor-quincy-proposes-400-billion-bond-fund-pension-plan

Excerpt:

The Mayor of Quincy, Thomas Koch, proposed a bond of $400 billion to city council to fund the entirety of the town’s pension plan. Koch’s proposal for this bond includes changing the way Quincy’s pension liability is paid down. Under the new plan, the pension system would be paid all at once, as opposed to a payment annually which can vary in amounts each year.

Koch claims that this new plan and bond will save the city lots of money each year and set a consistent expectation of expenses for pension payments. Quincy’s pensions and health insurance are the largest fixed costs the city has that change annually, so Mayor Koch wants these issues to be top priorities when it comes to discussing the city budget. The proposal was sent on Monday and city councilors sent it to the council’s finance committee, which has yet to schedule a hearing for the proposal.

Author(s): Colin Ames

Publication Date: 7 March 2021

Publication Site: Patch.com

Mass. sanctions against Iran could be tested

Mary Pat Campbell
Mass. sanctions against Iran could be tested

Excerpt:

On August 4, 2010, Massachusetts passed “An Act Relative to Pension Divestment from Certain Companies that Invest in the Republic of Iran.”  The act directs the Massachusetts public pension funds to divest from certain companies “providing goods or services deployed to develop petroleum resources in Iran.”

In an effort to avoid conflict with federal policy, the Massachusetts act has two features.  First, it exempts from state divestment “any company” that the US “affirmatively declares to be excluded from” federal sanctions.  Second, the act has a sunset provision.  The act expires if (1) the US “remov[es] Iran from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and certify[ies] that Iran is no longer pursuing a nuclear capability in violation of its international commitments and obligations,” or (2) the president “declar[es] that [the Massachusetts act] interferes with the conduct of the United States foreign policy.”

The Massachusetts Iran boycott has a long pedigree.  In New England and other colonies, the founding generation considered the boycott of English tea and other products to be a wise alternative to war.  Prior to the Civil War, Massachusetts abolitionists urged private boycotts of Southern goods.  In the 1980s, Massachusetts was one of scores of states and cities to enact divestment and selective purchasing laws regarding South Africa.  In 1996, Massachusetts restricted state purchasing from companies doing business in Burma, though the act was later struck down by the Supreme Court.  Massachusetts today maintains laws restricting state investment or procurement with Sudan, China, and Northern Ireland.

Author(s): Thomas A. Barnico

Publication Date: 24 April 2021

Publication Site: CommonWealth