Conference committee releases ‘municipal relief’ bill

The legislative conference committee that had been working on the long-awaited “municipal relief” bill released its version of the bill last night.

The package of state law changes is intended to make the administration of local government a little easier and to provide some ways to save money.

The bill (H. 4877) was expected to be taken up by the House for a final vote today, with the Senate expected to vote tomorrow. The governor is expected to sign the bill when it reaches him.

The bill includes urgently needed provisions to let local retirement systems extend their pension funding schedules out as far as 2040 to avoid spikes in pension assessments. It would also allow cities and towns to develop targeted early retirement programs.

Most of the provisions in the bill simply modernize outdated state laws to help cities and towns save modest amounts of money in the short term and be more efficient over the long term. The bill includes provisions related to procurement and public construction, tax collection, borrowing and mutual aid for public safety and public works purposes.

As expected, the conference committee did not include any provision related to health insurance cost-control for local government. Health insurance language was not included in either the House or Senate versions of the legislation sent to the committee. The attempt to reach agreement on the issue during debate on the fiscal 2011 state budget was not successful.

The following are some of the highlights of the bill:

Construction bonds for small projects
For state and local public construction contracts, the bill would increase the dollar threshold for requiring a payment or security bond for not less than one half of the contract price. Currently, the state amount is $5,000, and the local amount is $2,000. The bill would increase the state and local amounts to $25,000.

Public works and safety mutual aid
The bill would establish a statewide public works mutual aid agreement to provide for the cross-jurisdictional provision of public works services, materials and facilities. Participation in the agreement would be at local option by the municipal executive. It would also establish a statewide public safety mutual aid agreement to provide for the cross-jurisdictional provision of emergency services and materials.

Procurement rules for small public construction projects
The bill would increase the maximum dollar amount for use of the “sound business practices” procurement process from contracts of less than $5,000 to those under $10,000.

Schedule for state certification of tax valuations
The bill would authorize the commissioner of revenue to revise the three-year schedule for state certification of locally set property values. The goals of any revisions would be to even out the number of certifications each year, facilitate cooperative assessing agreements, and improve, in other ways, the administration of local assessment.

Joint assessing agreements
The bill would update the statutory provision that currently allows joint assessing agreements. The new language would limit agreements to 25 years. It would also explicitly allow the formation of a regional board of assessors.

Terms of borrowing
The bill would eliminate the fixed statutory terms for borrowing for certain purposes and replace them with a term based on the useful life of the asset being financed, not to exceed 30 years. These purposes include the acquisition and improvement of land, the construction and reconstruction of roads, bridges and buildings, and other purposes.

Borrowing for dredging
The bill would allow borrowing for the purpose of dredging rivers, streams and other waterways.

Borrowing for pollution mitigation at a municipal facility
The bill would allow borrowing for the purpose of cleaning up or preventing pollution by certain operating or closed municipal facilities. Section 27 of the House bill included similar language.

• Conference committee summary of “municipal relief” bill (96K PDF)
• Text of “municipal relief” bill (340K PDF)