Inside is not the dark side!!!!

Dear Hecate,

You really have to get rid of your attitude about public officials!! There are many of us working as policy analysts or managers of public programs in state and local government who used to be outside advocates representing various special interest groups. And, frankly we honestly feel we have more power to make change than we ever did when we were outside! And we don't have to put up with self rightous purists in our former organizations who are unwilling to say thank you to a public official for an important incremental policy change because they find it "unacceptable" to say thank you for less than the perfect solution. They are their own worst enemy as far as I'm concerned.

Frustrated on Ashburton St.

Dear Frustrated,

Sorry about the attitude. I have always believed that most public officials get into the business because they really want to make a measurable positive change in the the lives of their consitutents. And get credit for it. The identification of and nurturing of inside advocates is one of the most important elements of a winning policy change campaign. Keep at it and thank you in advance.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ............

Dear Hecate:

Our organization has been very grateful for Governor Patrick's public and private support for our programs. We actually got a modest increase in our budget line item, and the administration has been very responsive to a number of our suggestions for improving regulatory policies and streamlining some management practices.
We are now working with budget analysts in the Agency and the Administration and Finance to advocate for some expansion dollars, and we are preparing all of the backup materials to justify the request. (Thanks for your advice on that.)


Now tell us how to respond to some broad hints from our friends in the Administration that they have all been "knee deep" in analyzing the fiscal and human impact of the casino plan, and will be interested in briefing US about that "soon". Our lobbyist is telling us that the casino debate has "sucked the air" out of all the other important policy debates and we should start thinking of reasons to support casinos and even start thinking about earmarking some of the revenues for our programs. YUK!!


Dear Yuk

You know your Runyard Kipling's poem a has some good advice. (Dismiss the gender limiting last line -- Kipling was not the last of the white male imperialists.)

IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Keep the common touch here, and keep a laser like focus on promoting postive policy change for your constituency, including possibly earmarking casino proceeds to your programs.

The casino debate will be sucking the air out of the State House, but maybe it will also serve to illustrate and illuminate the need for a broader publc debate about all of the revenue streams that fund the governments public programs and infrastructures -- from income taxes to fishing fees to gambling. Been a lot of tax cuts in Massachusetts over the last 15 years or so. And a lot of programs have been slashed because of a shrinking reveues.

Is it time to look at the big picture?

Being recruited by the Administration - Don't want to be a sell out.

Dear Hecate

I work for a respected advocacy organization and the new Administration is recruiting me to a farly high level position in the Agency that largly manages the programs we've all been working on to improve for years. Ironically, the position is the one that is responsible for "building positive and productive relationships with outside constituencies"-- the community of providers as well as the community of advocacy organizations and parent consumer groups. The person who used to hold this position was a real jerk with a lot of control issues -- to say the least. Frankly her rudeness gave us all an excuse to go around her to her boss, who would have to meet with us to mend fences. While I can imagine how a friendly, visably concerned sincere person could really help defuse angry advocates, who would want to be "gentle" with a former colleague, I'm really uncomfortable with being used that way. On the other hand it's a lot more money than I make now.

Dear Don't want to sell out.

This ain't going to be easy for someone with principles. On one hand you might be able to be the vehicle for genuine input for outside advocates and experienced providers who have really good suggestions. On the other hand you might be setting yourself up to be a flak in charge of bringing in those same people for a cuppa coffee in order to help them try and understand the difficult choices that your boss has to make sometimes. Have an honest conversation with your prospective boss about your worries, and set up an internal process for measuring your own abilities to absorb the inevitable compromises you'll have to accept. Can you keep taking that big paycheck if you have to explain away only three stupid decisions out of ten. Five out of ten? You can sell out at any price you choose.

Keep your own counsel, pay no attention to what you see and hear

Dear Hecate:

Well, the session is over for the summer, and our line item that had been vetoed by the governor was NOT over-ridden by the Legislature. In fact they did not take up any of the vetoes, even after we did all the stuff you told us too. We got one theory from our so-called champions in the House and Senate, another theory from our so-called friends in the administration, another theory from our contract lobbyist, and still another theory from a reporter from the State House News Service we ran into in the coffee shop. As a matter of fact, the reporter's theory made the most sense. She said "Don't pay any attention to what you hear from any of them. they are all making excuses --- think of it as a big circle of potential heroes all pointing fingers at the other guy for "not doing his or her part." NOT helpful. How do I figure hout what really happened?

Confused and Bewildered


Hecate says:

Maybe you have heard the wonderful advice from Frank Mankiewicz, Press Secretary to Robert Kennedy's Presidential campaign. Keep your own counsel. Pay no attention to what you see and hear. In practice that means you soak it all in - listen to every insider's theory -- no matter how goofy or cockamamie and file away every single factoid in your head. Assuming you have a reasonable amount of judgement and common sense, there will come a moment when one of the insiders will give you one piece of gossip that will set off bells and whistles and all the odd pieces of information will fall into place. HA! That's what the SOB's were doing! Then keep it to your self and act on it strategically. None of the other insiders have to know you figured it out.

Time to take your patience pills!!

Dear Hecate:

I am so mad I could spit. Our little program got vetoed by the Governor and like your previous writer, we were told not to worry by the Governor's office but unlike your previous writer who was told the Administration would find the money to fund the program from a more approriate department, we were told that the Legislature would be certain to over-ride our veto, like they have for the last 3 years.

Well, the Legislature is NOT going to over ride our veto because they are sooooo pissed at the Governor for making a press announcement one day about cutting the Legislature's budget while at the same time reassuring advocates that they would fund their programs anyway or confidently predicting that the Legislature was certain to over ride.

Now I'm getting a lot of geewizzeswethoughtforsure from the Goveror's office and a lot of shrugs from the Legislature.

I did get some advice today that the Speaker may be open to a last minute appeal if a program could prove it would really really fall apart with out a veto override. I also heard the Speaker would be open to a last minute appeal from the Governor himself--- a sort of geewizzireallydidn'tmeantovetothatone.

What should we do?

Hecate says

Get your bookkeeper up to the State House to show the Speaker and the Senate President your books, and ask them for some of their patience pills, if they have any left. You'll need them for any future dealings with the Administration. While you'e up there go into the Governor's office and .... never mind just go back to your office and hand out the patience pills.

Aristotle on the Barbarians: Full of spirit, but lacking in intelligence and skill.

Dear Hecate,

I've been a professional lobbyist for over 30 years and I really get annoyed at all these noisey disruptive tactics by some of these new special interest groups that come up to the state house with hundreds of people to sing and chant about an obscure bill that hasn't even had a hearing yet, and then march into the Governor's office with a petition signed by hundreds of folks who probably aren't even registered to vote. Only to turn around at 2:00 in the afternoon and march to their busses and go home. I've spent a lifetime building personal relationships with individual legislators by consistently offering them accurate information about my clients bills, writing small personal checks to their re-election campaigns and I have a pretty good track record. I am reminded of a comment Aristotle made about the people to the North of Greece in what is now Europe. He pointed out that they were full of spirit by lacking in intelligence and skill. What do you think?

Hecate says:

Aristotle was always a bit of a snob. As for those barbarians they sure showed Greece and then Rome didn't they?

Insider lobbyists who would rather spend their time talking to each other on the endless round of fundraisers should never underestimate the power any special interest group with the capacity for mobilizing hundreds of people to sing and chant and collect hundreds of signatures. You may find yourself facing them on the other side of an issue one day. Not fun.

Life Sentence on the Installment Plan

Dear Hecate:

So, the Governor vetoed our little earmark, and now we have to put together yet another lobbying campaign to make sure the veto is taken up and over-ridden. We worked so hard!! What's your advice?

Hecate says:

In Massachusettes, much of the power rests in the office of the Speaker, because a veto message is always returned to the branch in which the bill originated, and the budget bill originated in the House.

In the next couple of weeks, the Speaker will be listening carefully to his own Members, to the Members of the Senate, through the office of the President, and of course to various special interest groups who will all be asking him to take up THEIR vetoed earmarks. After sharing the House priority list with the Senate President to make sure she has the support of her Senate members to over ride the House list and reviewing the Senate President's priority list to make sure he has the support of his House Members to over ride the Senate list, the Speaker and the Senate President will set a fews days before the end of July to take up some of the vetoes, and put off others till the fall. (You have till the end of the calendar year to get your earmark overridden.)

So, your job is to get a critical mass of House Members and Senate Members to add your vetoed earmark to their branch's priority list.

Now when you start your calls you may hear from some the House and Senate sponsors of your earmark that they have talked to the the Governor's office and the Governor has promised your sponsors that he will make sure your program will be funded anyway out of the correct line item or out of some "discretionary" funds.

All you can do is ask your sponsors to get something in writing from the Governor, and if you get it, put it in a safe place and stop asking for the over-ride. If your sponsors tell you that they and you must take the Governor's private word,you still have to stop asking for an over-ride. And start working with the Governor's personal staff and the appropriate Administration officals to tell them in writing that you expect the Governor to keep his private word. You'll find out soon enough whether it's worth anything at all.

She Hangs a Good Wash

Dear Hecate,

I read in my local South Shore paper that Senator Murray said that the so- called "earmarks" in the state budget are necessary because the more experienced Legislature knows more than the new Governor about each line item and where the funds in each should be directed. Sounds pretty disrespectful to me.


Hecate says:

First of all remember that it is the Legislative branch's constitutional right and obligation to appropriate funds for the budget submitted to them by the Administrative branch. And I guess there may be no more than 10 or 12 people in the whole state who know where every dollar in every line item goes and why and while Senator Murray is one of them, the new Governor is not.......yet.

Senator Murray is like the good victorian ladies on washday with worn clothes and limited lines who knew how to hang up the socks and the sheets with the same pins, keep the torn underwear hidden in the middle and hang the new shirts on the side facing the street.

BTW I recall her also saying that she assumed that once this new Governor had been around awhile she might think about giving him a little room to make some of his own spending priorities. Meanwhile as the constitution says, the Governor proposes, the Legislature disposes.

Forced to Beg Borrow or Steal

Dear Hecate:

Beg Borrow or Steal. That's what we have to do in our city because of 2 1/2. We beg private foundations and donors to fund our innovative education or job training programs for our youth and then can't raise the necessary funds from the property tax to sustain them. We borrow from our own children's future by not being able to raise the taxes to support smaller classes, early education and afterschool programs. We steal from other city programs like garbage pick upand recycling programs, or pothole repair or senior citizen transportation programs when we tell the Mayor that public education is a higher priority. I'm sick of it. Frankly I think my property tax bill of $2,000 a year is a bargain since it includes education for my 5 kids, a police and fire department, garbage pick up, snow plowing, sewerage disposal and clean water, just to name a few city services we use. I would be happy to pay another $250 a year to know that all the kids in the city had modern text books and fully equiped labs and the garbage was picked up twice a week in my neighborhood.


Hecate says

You have a choice. Get used to it, or do something about it. First of all you are not alone. More and more folks in small towns and big cities are beginning to make the connection between what they pay in taxes and what they get for it. And once they do the consumer in them realizes "What a bargain." Too many candidates for public office run with one leg on a no new taxes platform and the other leg on cleaning up government (better garbage pick up, better snow removal, better schools.)If they win they find themselves split in half because guess what!! Cleaning up government and making the schools and the public works department better and more efficient and effective costs more money and that, folks means more taxes.

Imagine what your city could do if everyone in your city was willing to pay another %10 increase in their property tax.

Indecision is the backbone of flexability

Dear Hecate,

Our little non profit is trying to come up with a strategy to get our board more involved in educating our legislative delegation about our mission, our programs and our need to get additional funding to adequately pay our direct service staff. Currently our board is debating whether or not to ask for an "earmark" for our program or to work with other programs like ours to support increased funding for us all. The problem of course is that asking for an earmark gets us a tiny bit at the expense of other programs who need the money too, but if you add up the total amount needed for all the programs like ours it comes to over 30 million dollars! And that's just for a little cost of living for the lowest paid workers! Our legislators tell us there is not that kind of money for us in the state budget. We hate this position of being in competition with other worthy programs for limited funds!!! Some of our board members are urging us to take care of ourselves first, others are saying we must work together to get additional funds for programs like ours. And that might mean finding addtional revenue streams for our state government and that might mean taxes and everybody knows that taxes is a political dirty word!! What's your advice?

Hecate says

Let's see your letter is the 4,578th version of the same question since January. At this rate, you people will beat last years stupid question record of 7,1002.

Stop whining and get your board some budget and tax literacy training from ONE Massachusetts. You will find you have only two choices. More taxes or cut your programs. Let them decide whether or not they want to preside over a fully funded quality program or not.

Talking Taxes

Dear Hecate
We are homeowners in a "wealthy suburb" of Western Mass where I work as a school teacher and my husband is a firefighter. We send our kids to the public schools, and we both participate in all the various fundraising activites that support our children's sports and "extra curricular" activities. It's a great school system and our kids are doing very well. We've worked for a 21/2 over ride and willingly paid more property taxes to support our town's current level of public services, including by the way a couple of programs for elderly residents, and a whole new water system. We're worried that eventually we'll be priced out of the town we both work in or we'll lose our jobs to budget cuts. Or both. We know that Governor Patrick is talking about finding ways to reduce local property taxes and support public services at the same time. Any hope?

Hecate says


There's always hope, but hope is not a course of action.

Increasingly, working families in towns and cities all over the state are bumping into the same "problem".........a healthy community includes good schools and safe neighborhoods, a range of public health programs and it all costs money. As Congressman Barney Frank says, you can buy lots of stuff with the money in your pocket, but we all have to pool our money to pay for things we can't do for ourselves. Like schools for the community's children, adequate salaries for trained firefighters and police officers, clean water, accessable roads etc etc.

Pooling your money with other residents in your community is called taxes. And you folks up in Massachusetts are beginning to use the word in a conjunction with the your government's services and structures that your taxes pay for.

Good for the Governor for using the word.

Good for local residents like you who have already made an informed 2 1/2 over ride decision to pay more taxes to keep the services that keep your community healthy.

That's the kind of actions that gives me hope.