Newton Government’s Spending Addiction and You:

We at the Newton Taxpayers Association recently hosted a forum on April 24 at the Newton Free Library. Our forum “Newton’s Spending Addiction and You” discussed how the City of Newton government’s compulsive spending addiction has resulted in Newton accumulating $1.36 Billion in outstanding debt and other obligations, primarily net underfunded retirement benefit obligations such as pensions and retiree healthcare, which is $41,500+ per Newton household. Think about it this way, Newton spent $1.36 Billion dollars it did not have primarily to build the new Newton North High School and provide lavish fringe benefit packages to its unions and bureaucrats.

We at the Newton Taxpayers Association dedicate ourselves to educating Newton’s taxpayers and its public servants about Newton’s financial position and trends. We serve as a watchdog against wasteful fiscal practices in Newton, we seek to promote fiscal stewardship of taxpayer assets and hold our public servants accountable for their votes on the budget, overrides and other items with a potential impact on Newton finances. Every two years, we compile and distribute a candidate scorecard for all the contested races for mayor, city council and school committee in which we identify key votes impacting Newton finances and share with voters where the candidates stand on those issues.

Our educational seminar addressed these important to know financial facts:

• Since 2000, Newton spending increases have dramatically outpaced increases to inflation and median income.
• Newton’s Mayors and City Councilors have been walking a policy path for the last 19 years that if unchecked, will continue to damage the fiscal health of the city.
• Newton’s pile of debt and retirement benefit obligations is massive ($1.36 Billion) and requires $68.9 Million in annual interest payments just to service it ($60.6 Million off-budget for pensions and OPEB, $8.3 Million in on-budget interest expenses).
• This probably explains why even though Newton’s debt/retirement benefit levels have grown by 33% since 2010 even though Newton has increased annual contributions to the pension/OPEB trust funds by 65%.

Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller recently presented her first budget. During last year’s mayoral campaign, she campaigned as a fiscal watchdog. We found that her rhetoric on the campaign trail was a marked contrast from her city council voting record in which she endorsed the 2013 override tax increase as well as voted for all eight of former Mayor Setti Warren’s budgets, which larded up Newton’s budget with $108 Million in new annual spending growth. Still, we hope that now that Ruthanne is serving as Mayor of Newton under our “strong mayor system”, she will realize the responsibility that comes with serving full-time as mayor and will learn to how to prioritize spending when she prepares the annual budget.

The biggest problem we see in Newton finances is its lavish compensation practices. During his 2011 reelection campaign, former Newton City Councilor Charlie Shapiro noted on his website that 80% of Newton’s citywide budget goes for direct spending on compensation as well as indirect compensation in the form of out-of-district special education spending. Another 5.5% goes for debt service. It will take more than trimming the rate of growth on the remaining 14.5% of the budget in order to achieve financial sustainability. Given that Newton’s municipal and school department union labor contracts expire this August, we need Newton’s elected officials to impress upon the city’s bargaining agents that they cannot afford to give out lavish 6% cash pay raises as the Newton School Committee did for the 2015-18 labor contracts.

We appreciated the many Newton taxpayers who made it a priority to attend our seminar because this City and the money we pay to it belong to us, not the political and government class. By committing the time to learn about the reality of our community’s fiscal situation, it shows our representatives in local government they must address these issues. If the thought of receiving a $50 parking ticket upsets you, how does Newton’s debt of $1.36 Billion ($41,500+ per household) strike you? We take our responsibility to debt obligations seriously and trust as a taxpayer you do as well.