Locals take first steps to amend the Constitution
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

"Initially, I agree 100 percent with the spirit, I totally oppose unfunded mandates." - LEW EVANGELIDIS STATE REPRESENTATIVE

Looking toward the upcoming budget process caused Ashburnham Westminster Regional School Committee member Ellen Holmes to realize there had to be a way to stop the stream of unfunded mandates.

So, she wrote an amendment to the state Constitution and asked her colleagues on the School Committee to support this new endeavor.

"It's time to take the plunge," Holmes said. "We've said it. We've heard it. It's time to stop saying it."

The proposal is based off a similar amendment to the California Constitution that was passed in 2004. The amendment would require the state to fund all mandates they enact.

"This incorporates more than public education," Holmes said. "That's why it has staying power."

The language, which is now being reviewed by the state Attorney General's Office states that:

"Whenever the Legislature or any state agency mandates a new program or higher level of service on any local government, the Comm onwealth shall provide a subvention of funds to reimburse that local government for the costs of the program or increased level of service. The Legislature may, but need not, provide a subvention of funds for Legislative mandates request by the local agency affected.

A mandated new program or higher level of service includes a transfer by the Legislature from the Commonwealth to cities, towns, regional school districts or special districts of complete or partial financial responsibility for a required program for which the Commonwealth previously had complete or partial financial responsibility."

Holmes said, "I am humbled by what we are talking about. It will be amazing what we have accomplished."

The next step in the process will be for the proponents of the amendments to collect 67,000 signatures from registered voters across the state to get it on the agenda for the Constitutional Convention. The signatures need to be collect by the first Wednesday of August.

"The 67,000 (signatures) may seem like a daunting task," Holmes said. "I don't think it will be that daunting."

Holmes is an active member of the Massachusetts Association School Committees including the chair of the regional school subcommittee. She said activating that organization and other similar organizations should help with the collection of signatures.

"I don't think it will be difficult," she said. "I don't think it will be hard to get people to sign on. … It's time that we take this step. There is no doubt in my mind that it's going to be easy."

Once the measure makes it to the Constitutional Convention, it will need 50 votes from the joint session of the House and Senate before making it to the ballot.

"Initially, I agree 100 percent with the spirit," said Rep. Lew Evangelidis (R-Holden). "I totally oppose unfunded mandates."

Evangelidis said funding the unfunded mandates is only one of the problems that has to be solved in terms of money to local government from the state. The other problem that goes hand-and-hand with unfunded mandates is the lack of oversight the state has on local government.

"My concern is that the state gives $4 billion in education, and more in local aid and we have never tied one penny of that to performance," he said.

Evangelidis said he would like to be able to develop a system that would reward local government (both municipal and schools) that are conservative in their spending and not those that are overspending.

"I think Ashburnham-Westminster is one of those communities that lived with in their means," he said.

Sen. Stephen Brewer (D-Barre) said he supported the attempts of the School Committee to try to do something.

"It's a long process to amend the Constitution and I wish them well," Brewer said.

He said he understands why the committee has taken the step that they have.

"It's borne of frustration," Brewer said. "We have like frustrations with the mandates from the federal level."

Brewer said there is a high level of frustration on the municipal level that has existed for the last few years because of both state and federal mandates. Brewer also expressed some concerns about the existence of the court mandates, which would not be funded through this process.

Brewer said there is part of Proposition 2 ½ that prohibits the state from instating mandates without the funding and there is the Office of State Mandates that local officials can file complaints with if they disagree a proposed funding issue.

Rep. Bob Rice (D-Gardner) said he thinks this amendment will have "broadbased support."

"I think that the state needs to recognize that we are obligated to the local government," he said. "If we are not going to fund it we should not be obligating them to do it."

But he adds that if this amendment does pass it would not help with federal mandates, such as No Child Left Behind, that have not been funded on the federal level.

He adds that there are certain obligations such a police and fire services that a community is obligated to provide regardless of state mandates and funding.

Rice said he is working with the Pioneer Institute in Boston to create a list of the state mandates and the funding.

"I'd like them to actually see what the mandates actually are," Rice said.

Sen. Robert Antonioni (D-Leominster) did not return a phone call before press time.

Holmes says if it doesn't pass the Convention then it will be up to the state's voters to decide the next step.

"The electorate will say okay and move on, or stand by (the amendment) with their votes," she said.

Since 1919 there have been three initiative petitions to amend the state Constitution, which have made it to the ballot box and two of them have passed, according to records held by the Secretary of State.

The measure needs to get 30 percent of the voters in the election to support it as well as a positive majority of the voters on the specific question to become part of the Constitution.

The two petitions that passed were a move to provide biennial sessions of the General Court and a biennial budget in 1938 and a move to use the highway tax for mass transit in 1974. A moved to create a graduated income tax in 1994 failed at the ballot.