Municipal Meltdown The Fiscal Crisis Facing Massachusetts Cities and Towns

GREG TORRES, MASSINC PRESIDENT: Good morning. I want to thank you for coming out on a cold December morning. This is a follow-up to a piece by Gabrielle Gurley in Commonwealth and MassINC will focus on municipal finance in the next 12 to 18 months. Michael Jonas said there is a material difference in what is going on in municipal finance these days. We spend a great deal of time on broader economic issues, but the stability of municipalities is of tremendous concern. We will release brief paper in January on trends in government spending. Assistant Minority Leader Rep. George Peterson is with us.

MICHAEL JONAS, COMMONWEALTH MAGAZINE: Good morning. Sen. Rosenberg is here as well. We will discuss the fiscal challenges facing cities and towns. It’s a huge issue facing the state. In addition to our cover story, we earlier this week launched an online forum with commentaries reacting to the article in the magazine. They are posted at massinc.org. Barbara Anderson and Mayor Kezer have commented. We are trying to convene the conversation in as many ways as possible. Local government is in many ways the face of government; it’s government at the ground level. It’s the education of our children, our streets and basic services. It’s parks and ball fields and public spaces. Local government is facing extraordinary pressures. There is mounting evidence that revenue streams are not keeping pace with costs. The fast rising costs are outstripping the ability to pay for services. How you frame the problem frames how you think about solutions. We have a panel from state and local government and citizen activism. We hear increasingly about ways to bolster and shore up budgets with user fees and paying for sports and paying as you throw. The best evidence to support the idea of cities and towns facing an increasing crunch comes from Jeff Beckwith talking about a quiet crisis. Barbara Anderson said it’s not the usual sky is falling, this time I think the sky really is going to fall. No one will suggest they are joined at the hip. But they both seem to agree times are bad. How sick is the patient and what’s the nature of the illness?

GEOFFREY BECKWITH, MASS MUNICIPAL ASSOCIATION DIRECTOR: There is a lot of evidence that it’s a serious situation – a fiscal freeze, a creeping fiscal distress. We have seen fiscally conservative communities attempting large overrides and failing to pass them and then imposing deep cuts. They are known for being frugal and they have large structural deficits and are increasing class sizes and imposing fees. We see reliance on property taxes and fees at their highest levels. Free cash is down. All the indicators show communities closer and closer to fiscal distress. They look at their options. Communities are looking to be more empowered. The other part is local government is the most transparent level of government. They vet their budgets more than any other layer of government. They have an understanding of where revenues are being raised and how they are being spent. We have a lot more regional activities than people understand, such as libraries, mutual aid for public safety, purchasing is done off the state purchasing list or in regional consortiums. There is a lot of good work and transparency there and communities have really squeezed out so much in terms of the current system, but that’s not going to close the gap. The property tax is tapped out. Fees are very regressive. On the other side, people want their services. Studies show a major connection between the fiscal health of cities and towns and local services and our state economy. Northeastern and Fannie Mae have studied this. There needs to be a fiscal partnership for states to be competitive. We talk about long-term investments to grow our business climate. A building block for the economy is solving the fiscal crisis at the local level to keep the young people and wealth producers in Massachusetts.

BARBARA ANDERSON, CITIZENS FOR LIMITED TAXATION DIRECTOR: I was thinking on the train on the way in here about religion and politics. I got my morality from Aesop’s Fables and we all read the story about crying wolf. Municipal officials never really grasped the lesson there. Ever since 1980 when we had Proposition 2 ½ on the ballot and when we hear local officials talk about disaster and devastation, my mind downshifts to daydream and my eyes glaze over. Even though I am now moving into a mode where yeah, we really are looking at trouble in the future, I still kind of do that automatically. But I don’t buy it. That is the probably you have Jeff and other local officials. Nobody believes you anymore when you say this. That’s why I decided this time I better join in and warn people about what is coming down the road – not now, not this year – but with the pension and health care liabilities and Baby Boomers, we are going to face a major crisis and somebody better do something about this. The Boston media became fascinated with Saugus, of all communities. They had a big override this year and the unions were saying this is the end of the world, the library will be shut, no public safety. I am never sure if the voters don’t believe them, or are just so fed up that they don’t care. They voted no and a few months later they found a million dollars they overlooked when they did their first disaster and devastation computation. So they are not going to lay off those police and firemen. This happens over and over and over again. It’s one reason why overrides don’t pass. The other reason is Deval Patrick ran on property tax relief platform and independents voted for him because of that promise and a few months later they are seeing override signs sprouting like weeds all over their lawns and they are waiting for their property tax relief. Why vote for an override if any day now we are going to have the governor’s property tax relief? Credibility of state and local government is at the floor level and they have to build that up to make the legitimate case for things that are eventually going to be true.

THATCHER KEZER, AMESBURY MAYOR: I am the one local official here who has to make decisions on how to run a city, the city known as the town of Amesbury. There is a real problem. We are in the middle of a fiscal meltdown. If we were a bridge and you inspected us, you would see degraded beams and structures but we don’t fall in a river. Our meltdown is just not as juicy on the headlines as a bridge collapse. But it’s a lack of investment and maintenance. The first problem we have is denial that there is a problem. There is a lot of finger pointing between state and local government and they are both half right. We have a $50 million budget and are down $3 million in local aid from four or five years ago. There are tools the state should give us to give us more control. The state can make decisions on health benefit plans, we can’t. We have to bargain it with the unions and need 100 percent support to make any changes. So basically we can’t. If you are not going to give us the money, give us the tools to manage. We do have to build the credibility factor to allow us to make the tough decisions. The question is, is this important? When you dial 911, who shows up? When you need to go to work in a blizzard, who clears your street? And who teaches your children? The answer is local government. So we can’t deny that there is a problem. We are not talking about the real issues yet and are debating at a level that is esoteric. Every city and town is drifting towards failure. Some have already reached it. Springfield and Stoneham and Randolph have already made Draconian moves. Andover just got a downgrade in their bond rating. We have well managed communities starting down the path. So it’s real. We need to start talking about what we are really going to do to fix it.

STEVEN TOLMAN, STATE SENATOR: I want to thank MassINC for doing this. The first thing we have to do is to all be talking. This is really about as residents, we have to look at infrastructure and it is in trouble. The governor has come out with finally a housing bond bill of $1.1 billion that has half a billion dollars for deteriorating housing stock. There has been little investment. We have vacant apartments in Cambridge. He tried to leverage $2.9 billion to bring in about $5 billion for bridges and roads. Every one of these investments help municipalities in a large way. To think it’s been neglected for so long, municipal government is us. Without a good municipal government, we have nothing. We did everything we could to help Springfield. We have to examine the problems. It frustrates me to hear – we have to negotiate with the unions. Darn it, that’s your job. Health care is out of control. No one was saying anything about it. Ten to 15 percent increases. That is totally unacceptable. We have high rates of addiction. Our health care industry has diminished its commitment to people with addiction. We have to figure who the real villains are here and it isn’t about us fighting against each other. George Peterson and Will Brownsberger are here. The state is committed to working with municipalities. We are in it together. We spent $52 billion on health care last year. One third to 40 percent does not go to direct services. When are we going to ask where is that money going? There are some wolves crying out. How about the Blue Cross Blue Shield guy leaving with $16 million? Hello? We are in trouble. When I talk about the opiate epidemic, it’s in every one of our towns and cities. It’s breaking hearts. We lost more children to poisonous overdoses than car accidents in ’03. We spent $167 million on opiate related hospitalizations. I shudder to think of what it is going to be in ’07. This affects municipalities.

JONAS: Until a big fix for spiraling costs comes in, we pay the bills on health care. It is a matter of who is going to pay them. That brings up the Municipal Partnership Act that the governor introduced. He proposed a telecom tax to remove an exemption and a local option tax. Those seem, if not dead, then languishing. A health care provision to allow cities and towns to join the state GIC went through. There is concern that when the details are worked out, with approval from local unions, there has not been a tremendous amount of buy-in in the early going. Are people patting themselves on the back for a reform that isn’t working so much? There is a question of whether it’s really going to make something happen.

PAUL TONER, MASS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION VICE PRESIDENT: Six or seven municipalities have gone into the GIC. The bill didn’t get approved until July and the deadline was October and there was not a lot of time to analyze options. I travel around the state and a number of locals are interested and they need to be educated and need the time to meet with local unions. There is a great deal of interest. There was not enough time this year. MTA is working hard to educate members about the pros and cons. It isn’t for everybody. Some municipal leaders say the plan we have now is good enough or they don’t want to give up control over plan design. It isn’t just that the unions are opposed. Just forcing it down people’s throats is not going to work from our standpoint. I’d like us to give this experiment a little more time to work. We are out there educating our members.

BECKWITH: It’s important to do two things at the same time. First the Legislature and the administration and the participants deserve applause and appreciation. It was a compromise to provide some options for some communities. State government does not have to negotiate co-pays, deductibles or networks. Cities and towns need to negotiate with unions or in a coalition bargaining type of way. For many communities it wouldn’t save them money. The legislation adds flexibility but we don’t live in the era of one size fits all. If we had parity in management power, then communities would be able to make more progress.

ANDERSON: Jeff is absolutely right. In Swampscott, town managers wanted to go into the GIC. The unions refused to meet with town managers to discuss this. The manager went to the newspapers. They finally met. The unions refused to go along unless they got half the savings. The deadline came and went. Swampscott didn’t get to do it. The employees and the town and taxpayers lost. Thank God Sal DiMasi is actually talking about coming in and taking on the unions. Until we take on the unions, all of us, until we all come in and legislators get over their terror of the unions, we are not going to be able to save ourselves from this fiscal meltdown. Keep that in mind.

BECKWITH: We need to avoid the kind of standoff approach and the kind of tossing and generalizations.

ANDERSON: It’s worked so well Jeff.

BECKWITH: We need to work toward having discussions are having public discussion of the mandates and that represents progress. We need to do that but to alienate traditional participants in that kind of process actually impedes the ability to make progress.

KEZER: Let me talk about practical experience. Before being elected mayor, I was the purchasing director in Beverly. They had union contracts expired for two years and I was charged with negotiating them. It took a year and a half to negotiate eight city union contracts and then I negotiated the teacher contracts. It was hard. But we did it. We shifted from 90-10 to 80-20 but we structured over four years and you have to buy that change. It was brutal. The process was absolutely brutal. We hear about local officials giving away the store. That is baloney. It’s the toughest thing you do. We don’t fear it, but it’s a structural system that is not in management’s favor. It’s geared more towards labor. If you really want to see some change, you make the barrier into the GIC fairly low to get in. You let us make the decision. If it’s cheaper for us to jump in, we will. We are talking street level practical changes we need to make to have an impact. Some solutions neither side is really going to like.

TOLMAN: In municipal government, many municipalities gave up raises to keep health care costs down. They were looking forward. We talk about GIC as the same equal health care. When Dolores Mitchell saw the problem of rising costs, she really went at the insurance companies like many cities and towns should be doing. There are better plans at the municipal level. We have at the GIC increased deductibles and co-pays. I hear the word unions – that first guy running up the ladder, the policeman who comes to a disturbance in your house or a teacher who educates our children. These are the people that make municipalities work. They are not our enemy. We shouldn’t be saying, Oh they’re the unions. We need to work with them. If you say there is a budget crunch and we need to be creative, there is none of them that wouldn’t work with you. I worked on the Hamill Commission and have mixed views about saying the GIC is the answer. The answer is, are we going to accept these kinds of increases?

KEZER: We talk about management union clashes. The only time you hear that language is when we are in the room to negotiate. In the city, we don’t look at each other at that level. We all care about what we are doing. We are all trying to do our jobs.

JONAS: Let’s look at other areas of what cities and towns could be doing. Barbara, you say the response is often, we can’t do these reforms here. What is it that frustrates you about that?

ANDERSON: Almost everything we do is different from what they do in the rest of the country. The obvious and best example – we can’t say anything negative about the unions because they rush into burning buildings. That is what they are paid to do. The union mindset doesn’t grasp the marketplace. They are not millionaires because lots of people want to be police and firemen. You appreciate the job and what they do but there are a lot of people in line to take their job. The classic example is the police details – the policeman with the coffee and the donut in the other watching the hole being dug. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows it’s ridiculous. Every other state in the United States and country in the world uses civilian flagmen. Every single hole in the ground has to be watched by a paid policeman at $37.50 an hour. In my home state, in Pennsylvania, they use senior citizens and college girls to do this work. In this state, because the Legislature is so afraid of the police unions, they won’t do anything about it. Then you grasp why they won’t do all of the other things.

TOLMAN: That is not accurate. Cite the law. It is not a legislative problem. That is a municipalities issue. There is no law that requires that.

ANDERSON: We need the Legislature and bills have been filed to say we are not going to do this anymore and let the local officials off the hook. They are all unions that insist upon this benefit. Every time there is a bill the policemen show up there in mass in uniform and the legislators disappear. They are hiding under their desks or in the district or something.

TOLMAN: There is no law that requires that.

BECKWITH: For a second, I’m sorry, I was daydreaming Barbara. Moving on, not engaging in a sort of bashing part of the panel. The issue of details versus flaggers, modernizing health plans and the personnel system, of management authority, they are all important issues. It will remain an issue until it’s resolved. We need to have all parties talking about it and taking action in all those areas. To drive people away and engage in an attack is counterproductive. These are important issues. We need to empower management at the local level and not seek one-size-fits-all state solutions. I hope we talk about revenue side solutions. We can take all of these reforms and communities are still going to be facing large fiscal gaps. We need to talk about revenue sharing and additional revenue options.

KEZER: Let me jump on that. The impact that issue has is that big (holding two fingers close to each other). That’s the problem we have. We are not talking the real issues. We are talking all the headline stuff. When are we going to talk about real change in local government that make the situation better? That’s a blip on the scale of where the real problems are.

ANDERSON: The impact on your budget is huge. It’s the public out there that Jeff wants to go and get more taxes from who are fed up to here and one reason is the visibility of all the waste in government and no one will do anything about it.

KEZER: The only time it affects my budget is when the detail is doing a municipal job. It’s paid for by the utilities. Yes, it comes back to the ratepayers. Yes, it can be abused. Yes, it needs to be done better. But on the scale where the real problems are, that’s a blip.

JONAS: The mayor in Amesbury has a system for accountability. It seems to have a lot of sense to it. Is the system we have for running cities and towns for the last couple of hundreds of years – we have these complicated entities that we are not applying the management principles that we would of an institution that size. Maybe the local aid allocations might come with accountability demands or transparency. It’s not a mandate – they could give up the local aid.

KEZER: It’s not a software program or a label on a meeting, but a management approach to running a city and using data to flow up to the CEO. Everyone assumes local government is a single entity. It’s a loose configuration of boards and departments. The goal is to bring some coherence to it. I have done a complete reform of the executive branch to streamline it down. I have five standing meetings aligned with fundamental functions: public infrastructure, land use and permitting, administration and finance, health and human services. They meet every two weeks. Department heads are in my office using PowerPoint and accounting for our people and time utilization and overtime and where we are on the budget. Every two weeks we are touching those issues and comparing to where we were a year ago. It improves our decision-making. It’s getting from crisis mode to making decisions in advance. I am a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and the strategic sense for the Air Force, the number one priority is information systems, not more bombers or missiles. If you have restrained resources but superior information, you can apply those resources much more effectively. What is lacking in local government is we do not have the information systems in place. We use MUNIS. It is designed for a regulatory system for oversight and controls. It’s not a financial system for program budgeting. The goal is transparency and clarity in real time of what’s going on in my city.

JONAS: Residents would have an idea of how the city is run and maybe confidence in it. People work and are busy and they come home and deal with kids. They are not at town budget meetings. How do they know if their community is being run efficiently?

BECKWITH: How do we know any level of government or a company is being run well? It’s when you pay attention. It’s having these discussions. Communities, when they want to override 2 ½, have to have local ballot campaigns. The votes are very close. Tax more or cut services. It can be controversial. Regardless of what happens, they have to balance the budget. But we have a process and people understand choices. In terms of confidence in management, a lot can be done to go out there, not just on cable TV. The real issue here is engagement and trying to figure out and be ahead of the curve. Communities have engaged professional management. Bond ratings are going down. They are facing budget gaps. It’s not a question of whether there is good management.

KEZER: Under Proposition 2 ½, our total recent annual increase was $1.5 million. It’s the new money I have to run the city. My special ed costs went up $1.6 million. Police details, that is $30,000.

ANDERSON: That’s an area where the law comes in. The Legislature can change that law (special education).

TONER: There are restrictions on local revenue and state funds are going down. What boggles my mind is we actually have a potential petition to cut the income tax by a billion dollars and completely wipe out that source of funding. I just don’t understand how we can even be talking about that. Education funding is down $452 million when you take into account inflation. We are not able to provide the services that we want out children to have. Children are losing sports and facing larger class sizes. When we take the pulse, that’s the stuff we hear about, losing art and physical education. The education of the whole child is great to talk about, but it’s going out the window. Four hundred teachers got pink slips in 1980 and Bob Healy came in and I give him credit, as well as Kendall Square. I am lucky to live in Cambridge and to have grown up there. We need a highly educated workforce. That is all I keep hearing. We are not going to get those things if we gut state and municipal budgets.

ANDERSON: I am glad you mentioned the income tax. I signed the income tax petition. It’s exactly to my point. It’s on the ballot and will probably pass because we were told in 1989 by our Legislature about a temporary income tax increase. And they lied. Eleven years later we got signatures for the ballot to over three years gently roll it back to 5 percent. Two years later the Legislature came in and kicked the voters in the behind and said we are going to freeze that, but only temporarily. And they lied. So now it’s six years later the income tax is not rolling back because they lied. They have no credibility. They don’t care what the voters say. They have no respect for the voters and consequently the voters have no respect for you. Jeff can talk all he wants about sitting down and talking together. No one is talking to the people who pay the bills. No one is being respectful to them, at either the state or local level where they threaten dire results from overrides not passing and then it doesn’t work out. Until you listen to the voters, you are not going to get respect or cooperation and you are going to be wondering why these things happen.

KEZER: The people I directly impact walk by me on the street every day. Yes, I am listening to them and yes I am dialoguing.

BECKWITH: The voters voted twice to reject your argument Barbara. In 1990, they voted 60-40 to keep the tax increases in place. In the last gubernatorial election, there were clear choices and the public voted 60 percent for the candidate who said, let’s not go there, that issue is behind us. You can keep raising these issues but I believe the public has spoken and we need to respect them.

JONAS: If I can interpret the conflicting messages – it’s a little bit four against one here – in 2002 when the question was on the ballot it got 45 percent and shocked the political landscape without any particular campaign. And the default is generally to say no. There is a real message being sent there. At the same time, voters are distressed about seeing services cut. Maybe there is something to the idea – people may vote for it who may not be happy with the outcome – and they are sending a message. Police details are symbolic and it’s hard to convince them to pony up more money. That’s a big visible thing. In Billerica, people were upset that people could cash in up to 300 days of sick pay. People do see the disparities and it helps to explain the cognitive dissonance. People are fearful of an undercurrent of anger that could cause this to pass. I wonder in some ways will there be a need for folks who argue against this to argue not just about schools and public safety but to go further and say there is some urgency to putting these things on the table.

BECKWITH: You have hit it right on. The public is ambivalent. There may be anger. People are upset about their own pension benefits and health care. There is a lot of uncertainty among the workforce about health and retirement and income security. That is the backdrop. There is concern about modernizing personnel systems and dealing with substantive and symbolic issues in ways that parallel what is happening out there in the private sector. Cities and towns and the state have to move forward and take on these difficult issues. We need to talk about the revenue that the state needs, and cities and towns. People want the most for the least amount of taxes. That is normal. The state and cities and towns have structural budgets gaps. It’s not one against the other. It really is a partnership. It is citizens more that need to be joined in there as well. We need to be talking to each other and not dividing and separating.

TONER: You need to start building relationships between municipal and union leaders. People need to be educated about costs. I want to end the fallacy that every public employee has some rich benefit package. There has been a lot of cherry picking. The average teacher when they retire gets a $30,000-a-year pension and the average salary is $58,000. At age 41, I am a senior teacher in Cambridge. A whole generation walked away and now we are trying to get teachers to come in and one reason they come in and take a pay cut is because of benefits.

KEZER: We discussed the tax rollback. The issue with taxpayers is what they are getting for the dollar. We have some of the highest property taxes in Amesbury in the region and there was a $1 million underride that got defeated by a two to one margin. Despite the angst, they understood the need to deliver services. If you are going to spend $50,000 for a BMW, you want a BMW. They don’t want $50,000 for an Escort. We have to communicate that connection. I have a training program for city councilors. That will also go out to the public. The people know I am working my buns off to change the way we are doing things at the local level. That gives credibility when I go out and ask for more resources. It’s the key ingredient. We need to focus on the real issues that have a real impact and less time on esoteric headline grabbing issues.

ANDERSON: Jeff almost got it. He got the fact about people having the angst. With the Baby Boomers, there will be more seniors on fixed incomes than in 1980 when we passed 2 ½ for the senior citizens of which I am now one. The solution – you haven’t talked about it Jeff but I see it in your literature – to raise taxes, this is Deval Patrick’s property tax relief. Charge seniors a tax when they meet friends for breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts. The unions want the income tax rate up to 5.65. The repeal on the ballot will be a nice balance. The Legislature seems to have put its foot down on some of Deval’s most bizarre plans for overspending and on tax increases. Deal with visible issues. If you want to defeat that ballot question, I could run the campaign – get rid of police details, deal with the public employee benefits, deal with the non-maintained schools and bridges and roads. Show that for the fifth highest per capita tax burden in the country that you are getting value for the money and don’t want to cut taxes. If you are going to start talking about tax increases, you are going to lose one huge tax come next November.

TOLMAN: The truth is, you just heard the mayor. You have a future leader. He is focused and sees a problem and is trying to change it. He’s not striking out. This dialogue has to happen for us to get down and figure out what the real problems are. You have a Legislature that is really focused on trying to address the problem. Municipal government is the strength of everything we do. If they fall, we fall. The Legislature is looking forward to working with municipal government.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: The wolf is crying that the sky is falling. Barbara brought up real issues, going into health care in Swampscott and police details. Each time, you said let’s not alienate and let’s not bash. When she brings up real issues and real money, you say: we can’t talk about that. Why are they not real issues that can be discussed?

TOLMAN: We have to collectively look at everything. I heard a story about a bank robbery in the presence of a police detail.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Community foundations can provide private funds for public needs. What kind of forum can provide that?

BECKWITH: I am interested in learning more about partnerships.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: What are some more creative mechanisms for growth?

BECKWITH: The Boston Foundation has an excellent report, Boston Bound. It’s about the myth of home rule and the way we need to unshackle communities to let them lead in zoning and land use controls and in finance and management. It’s an excellent point. The empowerment of communities is a critical part of the solution.

KEZER: A few years ago with the Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, we took on issues collaboratively and the Boston Foundation said here is some money. Donations create opportunities to give us better capacity. The coalition is a leader on some major issues. We have other mayors’ coalitions. We are sharing equipment lists and doing joint purchasing – things that save money. State laws prevent towns from going into joint collaboratives without going into town meeting, which happens once a year.

REP. GEORGE PETERSON (R-GRAFTON): In the Legislature, we face the problem of local aid funding with funding a $30 billion budget. What would you like to see to aid you Jeff?

BECKWITH: It’s going to take a while to fix the situation and rebalance it. We have a revenue-sharing plan called 40-10. Over time it’s affordable to the state. We want to set apart funds as discretionary aid because communities are different. A revenue-sharing compact, and bringing down these barriers like providing other tax authority, closing the telecom loophole, making it easier to purchase goods and services. We have de facto revenue sharing. The Lottery has underperformed regarding its benchmark. The Legislature and the governor have made sure communities have been held harmless. The state is stepping in and providing funds form its operating budget or reserves to hit those benchmarks. We have to take it a step further and formalize it. Local aid, when adjusted for inflation, is $621 million lower today than in 2002, but the state budget, adjusted for inflation, is lower than in 2002 as well.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I am a director of senior services on the North Shore and I have three children. Most municipalities spend less than $100 per senior. People can’t get by with the increases. What are your thoughts about addressing those issues?

KEZER: An impact of 2 ½ that has taken a hit is health and human services functions. A couple of months after I was in office, there were 30 homeless children. I fell off my chair. Did it used to be 20 or 50? I created a heath and human services division and I need the money to put a person in charge of all of that. Non-profits are doing terrific work. There is no coordination. We have a bunch of people doing one thing and no one doing another. I want to play a coordinating role.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Speaker DiMasi made comments about reforming but said he wants to know where municipalities are spending all the money we sent to them. What do you think he meant by that and what actions could be taken to force these issues to come out?

TOLMAN: He’s in the lower branch. Some of the comments he could make could be made to stir debate. I don’t know exactly what he is thinking.

AUDIENCE RESPONSE: So you don’t come together then?

TOLMAN: Of course you do. I talk to Reps. Peterson and Brownsberger more than I would a Speaker. Legislators are focused on this stuff. The cost of special ed on communities affects seniors – we let it go out of control and let spiral a fight between special ed and athletics. Instead of addressing the issue early on – and seeing that we need to focus on this. A consultant said this would happen one day in private business and then we would set up an insurance policy.

ANDERSON: So do it.

JONAS: We are out of time. I want to thank everyone for being here.