By Laura Davison, includes “Residents of New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut will face the highest tax burdens over a lifetime, according to a new study.”
By Patrick Blais, includes “In a financial move that should pay huge dividends for the city in the years to come, Mayor Scott Galvin in recent days again called for a $750,000 deposit into a special trust fund established to cover the community's massive other-post employment benefits (OPEB) liabilities.”
By Scott Rasmussen, includes “… On a percentage basis, the biggest increases were found in Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.”
Without revealing how the Legislature would respond to the revised annual spending plan Gov. Charlie Baker unveiled last week, Senate President Karen Spilka on Wednesday praised Beacon Hill’s decision to “hit pause” on the state budget process.
That’s what Gov. Charlie Baker seemed to say with his revised $45.5 billion fiscal 2021 state budget unveiled on Wednesday.
The 2020 Financial State of the States report surveys the fiscal health of the 50 states prior to the coronavirus pandemic. This data is released today by Truth in Accounting (TIA), a think tank that analyzes government financial reporting.
Massachusetts Society of CPAs president and CEO Amy Pitter is spearheading a group of 28 state CPA society heads who have sent a letter to congressional leaders asking them to pass legislation to help state and local governments deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Senate has passed a significant new bond bill that would authorize over $17 billion in new debt to pay for major construction projects – but the new legislation would not generate new tax revenues that could pay for that debt, or support the state’s struggling transit agencies in their annual operating budgets.
How large could the shortfall in state government general revenues be, amidst the coronavirus and related crises?
The coronavirus pandemic is paving the way for a state budget crisis that will likely be deeper than any Maine has seen in decades.
Economists delivered a “sobering” wake-up call to state budget writers Tuesday, painting a bleak picture of revenues in free fall paired with an acute need for a social safety net as the coronavirus crisis rages on, warning it could lead to “human suffering” without a federal bailout.
In an alternate universe, Beacon Hill is anxiously waiting to see which direction the House will take when it rolls out its fiscal year 2021 budget next week and lawmakers are busy preparing hundreds of amendments for debate later this month.
Government watchdogs are raising concerns about the impact the coronavirus shutdown could have on property taxes, with one sounding a call to re-open businesses as soon as possible, an approach medical experts say could undercut efforts to stop the virus spread.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a package of fee and tax hikes late Wednesday night.
In recent years, buoyed by a strong stock market and surplus state revenues, Massachusetts financial managers have been able to sock away hundreds of millions of dollars into the state's Stabilization Fund. That account now stands at its highest-ever level.
Take a close look at the chart next to this and tell me you don’t wish you had gone to “work” for the MBTA right out of high school — so that you too could have retired with a full pension at age 41 just like all the cool kids did, and continue to do.
There was a time when most working Americans could count on a pension from their employer to fund the bulk of their retirement years. But those went the way of the manual typewriter as cost-conscious companies nixed the plans, due to increasing retiree longevity, lower interest rates and the introduction of the 401(k). According to CNN, 4% of American workers have a private pension plan, down from 60% in the early 1980s.
The Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office transferred from county to state control in 2010, but the regional government has been left holding the bag for its employee pensions for the past decade.
When Windover Development was converting a former box factory into veterans housing, the state and federal government awarded the company more than $2 million in tax credits through a program designed to encourage historic rehabilitation.
Conde Nast Traveler (CNT) released its "The Best Cities in the U.S.: 2019 Readers' Choice Awards" this week.