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The Globe's warning about Boston's clumsy fiscal management
By Anonymous on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 3:35pm
In a recent post, The Mayor's new budget -- which raises our real estate tax the maximum amount -- I asked the question: "Do residents get good value?"
Today's Globe Editorial criticizes the city's handling of fiscal issues, in particular, school renovations:
The Boston school department wants to increase enrollment at nine of the city’s highest-performing schools by relocating, renovating, or enlarging them, but the system is all over the map on the cost of doing so. On Tuesday, it submitted a $20.8 million loan order to the Ways and Means committee of the Boston City Council — nearly double what the School Committee and councilors had anticipated last fall. It’s a sign that, once again, the department has been clumsy in executing a fundamentally sound policy.
Do you think good policy is driving new spending in Boston Public Schools? Do you feel that as a Boston taxpayer, you are getting good value for your tax dollars?
I support our public schools and I'm willing to pay for improvement. What I do not know is whether this spending, and the policy priorities it represents, will improve results.
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Comments
Also in today's Globe:
Also in today's Globe:
Tip o' the iceberg
Nice to see the Globe finally ask a question about some of the city's finances. There are plenty more questions that revolve around two themes - why have taxes gone up so much (we are now on par with most of our most exclusive neighbors on the rate per thousand dollars of value -even with classification which holds the rates down) and why do we spend so much compared to other cities in the commonwealth - slightly behind the most spendthrift community in the state - our neighobor to the north - Cambridge.
Nice to see that for the first time in years though the mayor isn't running around yelling that we are broke (or he might have to answer for where a "broke" city magically came up with about $80 million last year to supplement our ailing pension system and tens of millions more this year to spend on the game of musical chairs they are playing with the schools). Somebody other than me might finally be convinced that there's a pretty deep pool of money out there and he might have to spend it on something he'd rather see the private sector pick up the tab for - like renovations and upgrades to Boston Common and a host of other capital projects that he claims can only be accomplished by "public private partnerships" run by our friends who came up with the Greenway Conservancy.