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Can Cape Cod’s economy rely on tourism forever?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Economy /by Andrew MikulaCape Cod’s character has long been dependent on the season. As the leaves change colors in October and November, bustling summer colonies quickly transform into sleepy New England towns. This dichotomy has heightened in recent decades, and depopulation in the region has raised concerns about the economic sustainability of the Cape and the well-being of its all-season residents. Barnstable County’s year-round population has generally declined since around 2003, stabilizing only very recently. Even then, there’s reason to believe that future population trends on the Cape (and throughout Massachusetts) are highly dependent on economic conditions. This insight may prove daunting for towns that are heavily reliant on a single industry: tourism, in the Cape’s case. Furthermore, aging populations have […]
How does the Commonwealth Pay for Roads?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: Transparency, News, Transparency /by Daniel O'LearyMaintaining, safe, efficient public infrastructure challenges local, state and federal governments alike. Communities need to build new core public assets to support growing populations while maintaining those that are aging. Accomplishing those goals eats into local public works budgets. The Commonwealth provides funding to localities which help alleviate the burden cities and towns face. Routinely, the legislature provides $200 Million dollars in Chapter 90 funding. This funding is a mainstay in local budgets and helps cities and towns pay for road resurfacing as well as new road construction. Pioneer Institute has previously written about the differences in public works expenditures across the Gateway Cities. There, Pioneer found that Peabody spends significantly more than any other Gateway City on public works. […]
Andover’s OPEB Lawsuit could have Implications for Towns Across the State
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Pensions /by Daniel O'LearyThe Town of Andover has taken significant steps to decrease its future financial obligations. Like other towns across the Commonwealth, Andover faces a number of financial pressures, including the impact of municipal employee retirement obligations. Unlike many towns, Andover has made the tough decisions necessary to reduce the amount it will pay for retiree healthcare. Specifically, Andover has moved to increase retirees’ contributions towards their healthcare premiums.
What has Andover Done?
What can be learned from the Commonwealth’s new 9-1-1 system?
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Daniel O'LearyThe State 9-1-1 Department recently finished building an enhanced 9-1-1 system that migrates state 9-1-1 call centers to the new Next Generation system, which features many improvements. For instance, the Next Generation 9-1-1 system lets people send more information to 9-1-1 operators, including GPS location data. This is a great leap forward for public safety in Massachusetts. The Department of Telecommunications and Cable charges every phone line in Massachusetts a fee to support Massachusetts’ 911 system. The State 9-1-1 Department asked for the fee to be increased to pay for this project. For the first year the project was underway the DTC charged every phone line $1.25 per month; since July 2016 the monthly fee has been $1.00. Prior […]
Gateway Cities Face Educational Spending Challenges
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education /by Will KauppilaAs the Boston Globe recently reported, Gateway Cities Brockton and Worcester are mulling a lawsuit against the Commonwealth. They cite the methodology the state uses to address funding aid inequity for public schools in poorer municipalities as insufficient to meet their students’ needs. The article also demonstrated the wide gap between public school resources available to Brockton and wealthy towns like Weston which are able to fund their school systems through higher property wealth. Data from Pioneer’s online transparency toolset, MassAnalysis.com, shows that the average single family tax bill in 2016 was $3,264 in Brockton, and $3,643 in Worcester. Weston’s was almost 5 times higher at $17,832. Using data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), Pioneer […]
New entry deadline: March 30th! Enter the 2018 Better Government Competition: “Making Higher Education & Career Training Options Affordable & Effective”
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Featured /by Editorial StaffEach year, the Better Government Competition focuses on one of the country’s greatest public policy challenges. Families today are struggling to afford college, young adults are saddled with crippling debt, and government workforce development programs and existing education models have not been reliable pipelines to stable employment. In recognition of these challenges, Pioneer Institute’s 2018 Better Government Competition seeks ideas to make postsecondary education options for high school graduates more affordable, accessible, and effective. Download the contest guidelines, visit us online to learn more, and submit your proposal today! *New entry deadline: March 30, 2018. POTENTIAL AREAS FOR APPLICANTS TO CONSIDER • Develop approaches to address escalating education costs and student loan debt. • Generate new information resources to: o […]
Which Cape Cod Town has the Best Summertime Revenue Take?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: Transparency, News, Transparency /by Daniel O'LearyThe towns of the Cape and Islands have economies built around summer tourism. The allure of vast shorelines and beautiful public beaches swell the population in the warmer months; the result – beach sticker fee income abounds. Whether it’s from beach revenue, greens fees or shellfish permits, the seasonal revenue means fewer property taxes are needed to cover the cost of services. So which Cape town has the best take when it comes to the summertime revenue boom? Broadly speaking MassAnalysis.com can answer the question. The revenue category “Licenses, Permits, and Fees” includes this kind of income. An analysis shows that in 2015, towns in the Cape and Islands took in an average of $99.19 per capita from licenses, permits, […]
Public Works Expenditures Across All 26 Gateway Cities
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency /by Will KauppilaUsing MassAnalysis.com, a free government transparency tool provided by Pioneer Institute, with a few clicks, a report was generated to compare 2016 public works expenditures across all 26 Gateway Cities in Massachusetts. The results are demonstrated in the chart below: The findings were unexpected. Peabody is the 15th largest city, but had both the highest public works expenditures with costs amounting to $23,199,119 in total and $443 on a per capita basis. These costs are almost twice the amount of Everett, the city that has next highest costs per capita, which amount to $261. Worcester and Quincy had the 2nd and 3rd highest costs, $19,739,457 and $18,160,826, respectively. However, this can be explained by the size of the cities, Worcester […]
What Janus Means for Massachusetts
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Featured /by Jim StergiosIn downtown Boston Monday there was a rally of a few hundred public union members, with a speaker roster that included U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, among many other elected officials. The reason was that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) was hearing oral arguments on the Janus v. AFSCME case. The plaintiff in the case, Mark Janus, is a state child-support specialist in Illinois who had opted not to join the state employees’ union – AFSCME. He has asked SCOTUS to overturn a precedent from a 1977 case that allows public employee unions to compel non-members working in the public sector to pay union ‘agency fees’ against their wishes. Janus argues that compelling non-union members to pay union dues constitutes forced speech in violation […]
Celebrating Black History Month
/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Blog: US History, Charter Schools, School Choice, US History /by Editorial StaffIn the month of February, the nation honors the achievements of African Americans; their stories and historical accomplishments are worthy of recognition year round. That’s why Pioneer Institute has sponsored events, produced videos, and published opinion pieces informing the public about important leaders and key milestones in the African-American experience, as well as the need for more educational choice options for all children. Pioneer supports school choice and improvements to academic instruction, especially in U.S. history, so all schoolchildren learn about African-Americans’ long struggle for freedom and equal opportunity. Below, we share some highlights from our coverage of seminal figures, topics, and periods such as slavery during the Founding era, the Civil War, and Civil Rights icons such as Fannie […]
Where Does Your Community Stand: Using MassAnalysis to Compare Weston to Peer Towns
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: Transparency, Transparency /by Daniel O'LearyWe can all learn a lot about our own behavior by watching the actions of our peers. The same concept can be applied to municipalities. Pioneer Institute’s MassAnalysis tools allows the public to do exactly that, compare their town or city to others like it across the Commonwealth. The free online tool allows up to 25 peer municipalities to be generated based on an assortment of metrics (population, income, etc.) selected by the user. From there, the user can compare his or her own town’s financial and other data to towns like it. For example, consider the Town of Weston. Using the metric of per capita income, MassAnalysis can identify the 25 towns most similar to Weston in terms of […]
The Link Between Police Spending and Crime in Gateway Cities
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency /by Will KauppilaMassachusetts “Gateway Cities” were defined in a 2007 Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC) and Brookings Institution report as midsize cities throughout the Commonwealth that historically had strong economies centered around manufacturing, but have since struggled with unemployment, crime rates, educational performance, and property values as a result of shifting economic trends. The original eleven Gateway cities were Brockton, Fall River, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester. Section 3A of Chapter 23A of the General Laws of Massachusetts defines a Gateway City as, “a municipality with a population greater than 35,000 and less than 250,000 with a median household income below the Commonwealth’s average and a rate of educational attainment of a bachelor’s degree […]
2016 MBTA Bus Maintenance Costs up 27% Since 2011
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: MBTA, Blog: Transparency, Blog: Transportation /by Will KauppilaLast spring, Pioneer reported on the MBTA’s out of control 2015 bus maintenance costs, which were the highest of any transit agency in the nation at $44.30 per hour of bus operation. A small consolation prize, according to MBTAanalysis.com, is that New York City’s MTA Bus Company surpassed the MBTA in 2016 by rising from $42.27 in 2015 to $44.94 per hour of bus operation. As the graph below demonstrates, the MBTA still came in a close second at $44.64 per hour of bus operation in 2016. Pioneer’s study last spring “2015 MBTA Bus Maintenance Costs Were Nation’s Highest,” identified five peer transit agencies (Miami-Dade Transit, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Maryland Transit Administration, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and Metropolitan […]
Top 10 Government Transparency Resolutions for 2018
/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: Transparency, Featured, News, Transparency /by Mary ConnaughtonWe hear the word transparency a lot these days. Whether it’s the public demanding it or public figures claiming to embody it, transparency is rightly viewed as an admirable pursuit. When it comes to government, transparency fosters civic engagement and promotes public trust. Openness in government is the cornerstone of a healthy, vibrant democracy. In 2016, Beacon Hill took some steps to promote transparency with public records law reform, but fell short of what Pioneer had hoped for. The Commonwealth continues to advance in terms of spending transparency and, as Pioneer reported, Massachusetts municipalities were more transparent than their national peers when it came to disclosing the details of their bids for Amazon’s second headquarters – kudos to them! There was […]
Join Us on Catholic Schools Week for Special Film Screening Events
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Featured, School Choice /by Editorial StaffJoin us as we celebrate Catholic Schools Week, with special film screenings of our new documentary, “Big Sacrifices, Big Dreams: Ending America’s Bigoted Education Laws,” at Boston College High School in Boston, MA on Monday, January 29th at 6:30pm; Marian High School in Framingham, MA on Tuesday, January 30th at 6:30pm; and Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River, MA on Thursday, February 1st at 5:30pm. View a film trailer featuring Sarah Kelter, a student at Framingham’s Marian High School: “Big Sacrifices, Big Dreams” profiles four American families, two of which are from Massachusetts. Their pursuit of educational opportunity is impeded by so-called Blaine Amendments, which prohibit state money from supporting families sending their children to religiously affiliated schools. There […]