Leafletting is tiring

[xiphias]

I just spent two hours walking around Melrose dropping off leaflets. I did like four or six streets. I need to go out again and do more.

I finally found the data I was looking for: the Bureau of Labor Statistics does, in fact, have regional historical consumer price index info!

Here's how Prop 2 1/2 works: every town in Massachusetts can only increase the amount of money they get from property taxes by 2 1/2 percent a year. Yes, this does mean that, if property values increase, towns have to reduce the tax rate. Also, property taxes may NEVER exceed $25 per $1000 of value, per year. A town may increase by more than 2.5% in a given year by passing an override. But the "levy ceiling" -- the $25 per $1000 -- may never be gotten rid of.

So, can someone sanity check my math here?

Okay. So 2 1/2 % increase per year, since 1993, which is when we had the last override. So, since then, our levy limit has gone up by (1.025^10), because it's been ten years. So we can now take in, in property taxes, about 128% of what we took in in 1993.

However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Massachusetts CPI for 1993 was 152.9, and for this year is 202.8. That means that the cost of living in Massachusetts has increased to about 133% of what it was in 1993.

That means that, absent any other factors, if Melrose is doing the same things now as the last time it passed an override, it's trying to do 133% the work with 128% the resources. That gap there is what the override is trying to plug.

Comments

[folzgold.livejournal.com]

thankyouthankyouthankyou soo much

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

As a rhetorical point, the numbers are even more impressive if you start from 1980, when Prop 2 1/2 passed: CPI of 80.6 in 1980, vs. today of 202.8: 252%. Without any overrides, the property tax income would be 176% of the 1980 figure.

My figures assume that the 1993 override was high enough to wipe out the 1980-1993 gap: 80.6 to 152.9 is 190%, vs. the 2 1/2 income of 138%. So you can see that the need was even more urgent during the last override. I don't know if that override was big enough to close that gap; my figures assume that it was.

[roozle.livejournal.com]

It was even more urgent the last time around. If the 1993 override had not passed, the city would have been in receivership, and been managed by the state government.

But it's urgent ENOUGH now.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

If the 1993 override had not passed, the city would have been in receivership, and been managed by the state government.

. . . that really makes the flyers the "vote no" people have been leafletting with -- the ones saying "don't make the same mistake twice" -- kind of . . . stupid. . .

Damn, but I wish I was a better advertising person. We've got such great rhetorical points here, and I'm just feeling inadequete to get them all out by Tuesday.

[brooksmoses]

The math checks out, assuming a couple of things:

Assumption 1: The 25 per $1000 ceiling hasn't come into play.

Assumption 2: The town has in fact taken the 2.5% increases each year. (Or, alternately, they're allowed to bank the increases, doing a 2% one year and then a 3% the next.)

If either of these assumptions are false, of course, the situation is even worse than you claim.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Assumption 1: it hasn't, yet. Melrose is at $13.65/$1,000. This is partially because property values have skyrocketed, so the rate had to drop.

Assumption 2: they have. Because they're not TOTAL morons.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm following up to myself, just to drop some other figures here, where I can get them: I'm using my livejournal as a data dump. . .

1999 spending: $43,103,105
1999 property tax reciepts: $30,283,709
About $13 mil from state aid.

2003 expected state aid, before budget cuts on the state level: $14,296,329
What it looks like we're getting: $13,692,304


More later, maybe. . .