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Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
At the MMA’s Annual Business Meeting on Jan. 22, members endorsed resolutions calling for local authority over health insurance plan design and adequate funding for road and bridge programs.
• See text of 2011 MMA resolutions
The “Resolution Calling for Health Insurance Plan Design Authority for Cities and Towns” reflects the MMA’s top legislative priority. It states, in part, that the “cities and towns of the Commonwealth must be given the same authority that the state has to change, update and modernize the design of municipal health insurance plans.”
The MMA estimates that this one change would reduce municipal costs by $100 million statewide, helping communities to avert further cuts in school, public safety and library personnel as local leaders grapple with an ongoing fiscal crisis and a fourth straight year of cuts to local aid.
For many cities and towns, the resolution points out, the annual increase in the cost of health insurance exceeds the annual allowable increase in the property tax levy.
“Cities and towns in Massachusetts have been denied the authority to manage and decrease taxpayer-funded health insurance costs because of a restrictive state law that requires municipalities to collectively bargain and obtain union approval for even the most basic changes in the design of health insurance plans, including co-pays, deductibles and other features.”
The resolution calls for local authority “to determine plans and change health insurance co-pays and deductibles at least up to the level of the co-pays and deductibles in comparable plans that the Commonwealth offers to its own employees.”
The resolution calls for the governor and the Legislature to act on the MMA proposal “early in 2011.”
The governor announced his own municipal health insurance proposal the previous day during the opening session of the MMA Annual Meeting. Rep. Charles Murphy, the outgoing chair of the House Ways and Means Committee who spoke during the MMA business meeting, said it’s a good sign that the governor, House speaker and Senate president are all talking about the problem. He said he’s “optimistic” that the Legislature will pass a health insurance bill this year.
The “Resolution on Transportation Finance and Administration” points out that “properly maintained roadways are an essential part of a healthy and growing economy” and that cities and towns are responsible for “maintaining in safe and passable condition more than 90 percent of all roadways in the Commonwealth,” as well as bridges, sidewalks and intersections.
Local budgets are already constrained by Proposition 2 ½ as well as local aid cuts, and funding for the Chapter 90 local road and bridge program has not increased in more than a decade.
The resolution calls on the governor and the Legislature to make a new state transportation bond act an early priority in the 2011-2012 legislative session and to support Chapter 90 authorizations of at least $300 million per year.
The resolution also calls on the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Highway Division to rescind the “cost overrun” policy that assigns responsibility to the host city or town for overruns of more than 10 percent on local projects for which the Department of Transportation has taken control.
Finally, the resolution calls for an adequate federal transportation program and more local authority over the use of federal transportation funds.
At the opening session, Gov. Deval Patrick told local officials that he would propose $200 million for the Chapter 90 program in fiscal 2012, which would be an increase of $45 million over fiscal 2011.
Rep. Murphy also addressed budget issues during the business meeting, reminding local officials that the budget-crafting process is a long way from over. He said fiscal 2012 will be another very difficult budget year, particularly because about $1.5 billion in federal stimulus money used this year is no longer available. But he added that better days are ahead.
“I honestly think that fiscal 2013 is going to be the year that we’re going to start coming back,” he said.
The health insurance resolution that members adopted at the meeting was proposed by the MMA’s Policy Committee on Personnel and Labor Relations, while the transportation resolution was proposed by the MMA’s Policy Committee on Public Works, Transportation and Public Utilities.
The resolutions were approved by the MMA Board of Directors at the board’s Nov. 9 meeting. The respective policy committees accepted comments from members on the proposed resolutions through Dec. 31.