If you promise not to tell anyone in Barnstable Town Hall, I’ll let you in on a secret…..

That resolve they’re debating tonight sponsored by Town Manager, John Klimm to “establish a program for senior citizen property tax work-off abatement was

approved by the Town Council on August 17, 1995

as resolve # 96-011.

Senior citizen property tax work-off has been on the Barnstable books for thirteen years.

And John Klimm is acting like he invented it.

Running for Mayor John?

Chapter 59 of MGL, Section 5K permits communities to hire people over the age of 60 to work filing papers, answering telephones, and reception work at minimum wage.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Instead of paying the folks with real money once the gross wages reach $750 the person is terminated, and his wages are applied against his or her taxes.

The person does receive a W-2 form but the federal income taxes are pre-paid by the town.  State income taxes are waived.

I wrote a post on this earlier this week criticizing the lack of a dollar cap on the program because with the current economy as many as 2,000 seniors might apply driving the cost up to $1.5 million. 

Personally I'm fed up with Klimm's signed checks with the amounts left blank.

Tonight’s request for the adoption of a general ordinance is really a rehash of a Joe Pino-sponsored resolve approved thirteen years ago via a unanimous vote of the council.

If the name Joe Pino sounds familiar, he was the guy who ran against Janet Joakim who would have kept his promise to support property tax equity...the split tax rate.

WHAT'S IN YOUR WALLET?

Pino's resolve asked Town Manager, Warren Rutherford, to institute the same program adopted by the town of Chelmsford, pursuant to MGL Ch. 59, Section 5K.

Chelmsford’s population is 33,000, and its senior population is smaller proportionately.

Chelmsford's senior citizen work-off program has been operating continually for 15 years, and has been so successful that a cap on the number of temporary employees was instituted.

Workers are drawn by a lottery, and their names withheld from ensuing lotteries until all applicants have a chance to work.

Tonight's Town Council Agenda does NOT put a cap on spending for the program.

However the resolve on the agenda does have all the requirements for a feel-good legislation.

• The hourly wage; $8.00 an hour.
• Maximum annual earnings; $750.
• Maximum number of hours to be worked; 93.75
• Minimum age; 60
• Income tax paid; $57.38
• Type of work to be performed; mail sorting, copying, filing, phone work, and reception.

The agenda item proffers an example of 20 folks taking advantage of the program at a cost of $15,000,

but the example is not a spending cap.

If 200 seniors took advantage the cost to the town would be $150,000,

and 2000; $1,500,000.

Since the maximum number of hours any one worker can work can be achieved in three weeks (@ 32 hours per week), 13 different sets of workers can be employed in one year.

In other words if John's example of 20 workers complete their work load in three weeks, it would take 260 people to complete a year's worth of work.

If the program has been on the books for thirteen years, and John Klimm the town manager for the last eight years, where the Hell has he been?

Why is he getting the big bucks?

How many seniors have lost the opportunity to pay off their taxes over the last eight years.

To get this program off and running right all the Manager needs to do is put it in the hands of the Director of the Senior Center to implement.

She'll post a notice on the bulletin board, take applications, and hold the lottery.

All the council needs to do is set the annual dollar spending limit.

The Director of the Senior Center then can divide the spending limit by $807  to determine the number of open slots for the year, and then hold the lottery.

If this ordinance were in the field of literature,

it would be called plagiarism.

Comments

[John Julius]

Gary:

All this is John Klimm trying to look good to the Seniors. And I am guessing that Janet Joakim will try to take some credit here for this....

But as you point out, so typical of these clowns is that this program ALREADY exists! And apparently not ONE of these clowns even KNOWS that this exists!

Talk about INCOMPETENCE...

So Janet, sorry, so sorry. Janet would loved to have tried to get some credit here. Janet, no offense but the VOTERS in your precinct have already spoken, in the form of the SIGNED PETITION!

Janet will go on continuing to try to fight her RECALL. Go ahead Janet. The voters will be those who decide.

And as for John Klimm, here we have this APPOINTED manager who has no accountability to ANYONE in this town except the 13 councilors and he gets paid HOW MUCH?! For WHAT? So now the golden hero manager wants to take credit for something ALREADY in PLACE?! HUH????!!

Nice try Manager Klimm, nice try!

Welcome back, John.

[John Julius]

Thanx. Yeah, I was away for a week in FLA, where I own a home. There, my taxes are going down by about $ 500 or so.... then I come back here to learn that the idiot Assessor here says the home values here have only gone down by 3%????!!!!!!! Huh?

People need to continue to spread this COG site to as many people as possible.... it is our only hope of ever fixing or changing anything here, and as we all know, A LOT NEEDS CHANGING AND FIXING!

It is so sad that Gary Lopez has been at this corruption and incompetence and waste now for OVER the last three years! And things are still not fixed and if anything, getting worse!

And now Janet Joakim will continue to fight her recall.... In this town, nothing ever changes!

[Mike Sanders]

Did I miss the vote on the recall election?

Where was Milne, licking his wounds perhaps?

Milne was engaging in a very strategic absence.