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What About Schedule A?
Jim
Rurak, Former Mayor of Haverhill
 We continue to hear from the mayor
and we continue to read in several news-papers that
Haverhill is financially strapped.
The most consistent claim is that we start each year with
a seven million dollar payment on the Hale debt.
But the facts don’t bear this out. If you’re
really interested, go on line right now to www.dls.state.ma.us/ and then go over to the
right and click the “at a glance reports.”
Scroll down to Haverhill and open the file; check the
Schedule A report for fiscal year 2006.
The Department of Revenue records that Haverhill finished
last year with a surplus of almost three million dollars.
Three million dollars! What this means is that we’ve
found a way to meet our annual debt payment on the Hale
and enjoy a surplus.
Yet the mayor says we’re financially strapped. There
has been no local announcement of this good news, there
has been no sign of hope conveyed to the community to
give it some relief from the over-arching claim that our
future is in doubt. Why this deception?
The only plausible explanation is that the mayor
hopes to announce in an election year that somehow he has
pulled Haverhill from the brink of financial
receivership. The fact is that it never was on such a
brink. When the hospital was sold, we went from annual
financial uncertainty to a fixed debt service.
Granted that debt service is large and presents a
challenge. But that challenge is being chipped away by
the overall strength of the city and by some Herculean
efforts of the local legislative delegation. Yet we hear
none of this; we’re only poised for some shockingly
good news from the mayor.
Let’s look at each of the above areas in turn
and show how they reduced the Hale debt.
First, when the Hale debt first hit, the city
reduced it by applying its reserves and free cash —
almost five million dollars in reducing the principal.
Then, the debt service of seven million was immediately
reduced to 5.8 million by using our full capacity under
Proposition Two and One Half. Then the Hale, which was
losing money for the city, paid taxes to the city from
the day it was sold to Essent.
Now, the Merrimack Valley Hospital, the old Glynn, and
additional facilities will pay over six hundred thousand
dollars annually in taxes. This brings the debt down to
5.2 million. Furthermore, with the hospital sold, the
city’s bond rating improved and we save over 200,000
dollars annually in borrowing costs. So, without any
creativity or innovation, the debt’s reduced by two
million dollars every year! Debt service down to five
million.
Next comes the Herculean effort of our legislative
delegation. The Hale was a regional facility, so the city
alone should not have to shoulder the burden of its debt.
Over the last five years, the delegation made that point
in Boston and brought home almost ten million dollars in
aid to reduce the debt service. That’s two million
per year. All of a sudden, a five million dollar payment
looks more like a three million dollar one. Furthermore,
as a result of legislation allowing early retirement, the
city cut its workforce by 55 people.
That’s an annualized savings of at least two million
per year. The seven million dollar mountain begins to
look like a one million dollar mole-hill. And the city
has climbed that hill each year by selling off land, over
10 million dollars worth of it! That’s how we now
are poised to announce a surplus.
The doom and gloom over the last three years is
killing our spirit. The mayor conducts school budget
hearings like auto auctions and our MCAS scores dip so
low the state is threatening educational receivership. We’re
building condo’s downtown, but have no plan for
parking and no projections as to what all this
residential growth will cost down the line. And when
prideful community spirit wells up, as in Team Haverhill,
the mayor’s need to get the credit trumps his duty
to embrace citizen involvement. And, all of this so that
the mayor can announce a surplus in an election year.
If you think my intended candidacy for mayor is in
any way a motive for bringing all this to light, you’re
absolutely right!
The mayor’s told the story his way too long. He
needs a challenge. And, when he hides for two years the
resources that could have benefited our community just so
that he can shine in an election year, he should be
challenged not only by me but by all the people he’s
sworn to represent.
Jim Rurak is a professor at Boston
College and is the former mayor of Haverhill. Email your
comments or questions to Jim Rurak at JARandKAS
@comcast.net.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The December, 2006
Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 10,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover,
Methuen, Haverhill, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland,
Boxford,
Lawrence, Dracut, Tewksbury, Hampton & Salisbury
Beach, and Lowell.
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