December 28, 2010

Municipal Bankruptcy

I am starting to see this as a real possibility.    Not in the short-term but 10-15 years from now?   There is no doubt in my mind that the City of Worcester will be at their maximum tax levy limit within 2-3 years.   Although it was good to see something other then the lowest residential rate approved, both residents and businesses got an increase.  

Do not see the City of Worcester at this pace being able to expand the tax base fast enough to meet the expenses.  Wall Street journal has a great blog on this, click here.     Even closer to home read about Central Falls, RI.     

There was a guy at the meeting last Tuesday who talked about cutting expenses.   Starting to see how much sense this really does make more then anything else.   

4 comments:

zed said...

Suggestions for cutting expenses?

Bill Randell said...

Zed:

Think we should look no further then Springfield and adopt the same things that they did.

Bill

Jahn said...

Or look no further than Chelsea of the 1990's.

Suggestions ........

a. trash collections every 2weeks vs. the current weekly trash runs

b. complete privatization of trash collection services.

c. firemen will paid only for dousing fires....when not wizzing on domestic trash can fires they will do DPW type work at DPW rates....night shifts will do city clerical work via computers in fire stations and/or janitorial work in city schools.

d. no more need to spend money on pool tables, beds, alarm clocks, mattresses, box springs, head boards, foot boards, comforters, barbells, and the like for fire stations.

e. no more defined benefit, 80% pensions for city employees.......everyone will be in a contibutory 401k plan.....city will match 'ee contribution 50 cents on the dollar.

f. no more city paid medical ins. during retirment.....get medicare or get lost

g. city will pay only 60% for a single person medical ins. plan..got a family....cough up the family plan cost differnetial out of employee's pockets via paycheck withholdings. (Imagine a private employer with an 18k per yr employee who works 2/3's of a year & who gets a family ins. plan that cost the city 13,0000....well imagine no longer b/c teachers aides get just that...add in the pension bennie and the teachers aide makes almost more in beenies than they do in their paycheck.

h. pemanent ban on non profit low income housing constr until the city drops below the 10 low income, 40b req'd threshold.

i. no more loan gauranteees by the city.

j. put all unpaid water bills out to collection once they are 60 days past due..........for u Somerville boyz........thats a 2 month grace period beyond the 30 day due date..........that those of us who do pay on time dont get.

Jahn said...

FWIW Mun. bankruptcy is called Chapter 9.

I have predicted on this blog many times before Worc Bankruptcy in 2013. However now that Deval & Tim have clawed their way to another 4 years, I may have to move that date further out on the calendar. The reason is that Devals pal Barack will print whatever money he needs to help out Deval and we got 2 more yrs of Barack. So therefore I will move prediction out to 2015.......and move it out to 2017 (end of Deval & Tim) if ACORN gets Barack a 2nd term. (God Help us all!!!!!!! )

Kriss is so right, the gov't empoloyee unions have an absolute straglehold on Mass. and the only way it will end is when the money runs out.
Add into the Massachusetts mix all teh colleges& hospitals & non profits that are dependent on gov't money and all the employees in these organizations that will vote 99% democratic and basically we're ++++ed until the money runs out. Politician are just not capable of making critical decisions.

BTW ,under the Pacheo Bill ( Dumbocrat Taunton?) passed years ago, no state jobs in Mass can be privatized unless thereis at least a 10% ( i think is 10%) savings. So if putting the county (state?) jails under the managemnt of CCA ( Correction Corp of AMer.) saves only 9%....well guess what.........it cant be done..........nice huh?? welll that what happens when Beacon Hill is 89% democratic.

I mean who needs a bunch of hacks ( Smith, Blotis, and now Lew LaVanJailista) who have zero managemtn exp running these huge organizations. If anything, there S/b one jailmaster statewide and then 100's of Screws under him withw supervisor at each jail site and why do we need a jail in every county?...........well proablaby b/c we needed a Sheriffs job in every county.

Time to give the the county jail system a Middlesex style "DePaola".... a.k.a. we'll see you later Alligator



How about we go back to all teh Worc Mun. researh Bureau's ideas and finding on how to run city gov't more effectively.