Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
The House and Senate have each approved long-awaited municipal relief legislation intended to help cities and towns reduce costs and operate more efficiently.
A legislative conference committee now must resolve differences between the bills before a final bill can be passed and sent to the governor by the time formal legislation sessions end on July 31.
While both branches included urgently needed provisions to allow local retirement systems to avoid spikes in pension assessments and to develop early retirement programs (see related story), there are no silver bullets in either bill that will by themselves solve deep-seated local budget woes.
Most of the provisions modernize outdated laws to help cities and towns save modest amounts of money in the short term and be more efficient over the long term.
The House members of the conference committee are Rep. Charles Murphy, chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means; Rep. Paul Donato, House chair of the Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government; and Rep. Jay Barrows. The Senate members are Sen. Steven Panagiotakos, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee; Sen. James Eldridge, Senate Chair of the Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government; and Sen. Richard Ross.
The bill filed by the Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government, drafted after the committee held hearings across the state and reviewed dozens of recommendations by local officials, included a wide range of proposals. But the House bill (H. 4631), approved on April 14, included a limited number of the committee’s recommendations.
The House bill includes a handful of updates to procurement rules and the laws governing the administration of local government finance. The House bill also includes statutory authority for statewide public safety and public works mutual aid agreements.
The Senate bill (S. 2436), approved on May 13, includes most of what the House approved, plus a greater number of provisions to update procurement and public construction laws and to modernize tax and finance rules.
Neither the House nor the Senate bill includes language that would give cities and towns authority to make health insurance plan design changes in order to reduce costs. This MMA priority is still the subject of State House discussions and may be addressed in separate legislation before the end of the year.
The following are some of the highlights of the “municipal relief” bills:
• Construction bonds for small projects: The Senate bill would increase the dollar amount of state and local public construction contracts above which a payment or security bond is required for not less than one half of the contract price. The state amount is now $5,000 and the local amount is $2,000. This provision would increase the state and local amounts to $25,000. There is no similar section in the House bill.
• Out-of-state cooperative purchasing: Both the House and Senate bills would allow local governments to participate in out-of-state cooperative purchasing groups for the procurement of supplies.
• Procurement rules for small public construction projects: Both the House and Senate bills would increase the dollar amount for the use of the “sound business practices” procurement process from contracts of less than $5,000 to those less than $10,000.
• Reverse auctions: Both the House and Senate bills would amend Chapter 30B to authorize cities, towns and other local government bodies to use “reverse auctions” for contracts for supplies and services of $25,000 or more. The Senate language would exclude contracts for architectural, engineering and other related professional services.