— Quincy Massachusetts News by Quincy Quarry News – News, Opinion and Commentary

Looking at things with a magnifying glass
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Candidate statements scrutiny by Quincy Quarry News continues given fast approaching local elections.

As such, Quincy Quarry’s fabled balanced and fair coverage thus now looks to claims made by incumbent Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch and so found problems. 

All manner of problems with his brief as much of what he claims to have accomplished and so behoove his reelection has actually instead gone south on his watch while at the same time conversely failing to acknowledge all manner of other things that have gone south.

So numerous were the questionable and worse statements made by Mayor Koch as regards his purported accomplishments that Quincy Quincy News just held to addressing ones financial.

After all, matters financial set the stage for local property taxes and such is easily at least one of the biggest concerns of locals.

That and there are only so many hours in a day or even over many days for that matter to address all manner of his kochings the pooch.

Talk about a whopper ...
A Factchecker/Washington Post rating image

For starters, incumbent Mayor Koch has asserted that the City of Quincy is at its strongest financial standing in recent history and which is confirmed by the City of Quincy having the second highest possible bond rating for a municipality.

Such is not true.

The Standard and Poor (“S&P”) credit rating for the City of Quincy’s rating is only AA, the third highest rating and a recent affirmation of this LOWER credit rating can be seen on the City of Quincy’s website.

Granted, an AA rating is not a bad credit rating, however, it is not the second highest rating.

And as for the Standard and Poor (“S&P”) May 25, 2021 credit review that imposed the credit rating cut, it noted the following.

Be sure to further note that the above referenced $428 million in planned additional borrowing ended up running $475 million with the City of Quincy’s outstanding debt so then totaling up to a bit more than a billion dollars.

Further note that Mayor Koch has since seen upwards of a hundred millions of dollars or more in debt authorized since with the spending of these funds is moving forward. 

The resemblance is striking …
An Easy Money Associates/Orion Pictures image

Additionally, upwards of a couple hundred million more yet in debt authorization requests are variously in the works.

In turn, the City of Quincy’s FY 2024 budget spending on debt service went up by $11.6 million dollars, a 25% increase from the prior year’s debt service outlay, with further increases to follow in future years

This $11.6 million expense increase is not only by far the largest increase in city spending at the line item level in the FY 2024 budget, debt service expense now runs 15% of city spending.

Further troubling, annual City of Quincy debt service will surely further increase by at least a few to a handful or more millions in FY 2025 as well as that a further yet $31 million increase in debt service expense is already set in concrete for FY 2026 with even more only to be expected. 

Additionally, upwards of tens of millions more in annual debt service expense will be hitting the fan by the end of the 2020’s or shortly thereafter with annual City of Quincy debt service so looking likely to at least close to double from current outlays.

Obviously troubling is how this dramatic increase in City of Quincy debt service, along with other spending increases, will impact local residential property tax bills.

Enough already!!!
A file photo image

Quincy Quarry News has already projected that local homeowners’ property tax bills are looking likely to increase by upwards of 25% — but probably even more — in 2026 from their current 2023 levels.

Even so, Quincy Mayor Koch asserts that annual city spending increases have only been running 4% annually. 

Over what time frame, however, was not specified.

What is clear is that FY 2023 final revised budget authorization went up by 6.8% from FY 2022 spending, a then-record percentage spending increase in at least a generation as far as Quincy Quarry can tell.

Even more troubling, FY 2024 City of Quincy spending increased by 9.8% from the final revised FY 2023 budget and thus a 44% increase year-to-year increase as well as so setting another record increase in City of Quincy spending.

Burn rate, money to burn — whatever
Image via cheatsheet.com

Further troubling is how this dramatic increase in city spending will impact local homeowners’ property tax bills come the start of the fast approaching 2024 calendar tax year.

Barring a secret cookie jar to tap or Mayor Koch again opting to take down already thin city reserves, the quants on Quincy Quarry’s Financial and Other Affairs desk have already projected an at least a 7.5% increase in homeowners’ tax bills in Calendar Year 2024. 

Even worse, the Quarry’s quants further suspect that local taxpayers are looking at suffering a likely 25% but probably an even greater property tax increase on their current 2023 bills by 2026.

Generalissimo el Jefe Alcade Tomas P. Koch
A Quincy Quarry Photoshop Phun Team meme

Even so, Mayor Koch is on record as saying:

“We (meaning I, ed) have not consistently taxed to the max,” the mayor said. “And I know it sounds a little bit snarky to say we (meaning I, ed.) could tax you more,’ but we (I, ed. )could.”

Granted, such is true.  Mayor Koch could tax even more as well as has already set the table to tax locals even more.  A lot more.

At the same time, rather than further address cherry-picked as well as koched-up data behind this and other statements foisted by Mayor Koch, comparable tax bills for identical assessed value properties in peer and adjacent communities are more than sufficiently telling. 

For a few examples, per an identical assessed value basis, this year Braintree homeowners are paying 14% lower property tax bills than homeowners in Quincy, Cambridge homeowners 47% less, Somerville homeowners 7% less, and Weymouth homeowners 9% less.

And as for Boston homeowners, their residences’ assessed values have to be close to twice that of Quincy’s average assessed value for their property taxes to be at the same dollar amount as the average Quincy residential property tax bill.

Only Milton tax bills run a bit higher among these reasonable points of comparison, however, the difference is only 2.4% higher.

As Milton’s schools are newer and in better shape on average than Quincy schools, Milton public school students score better than Quincy students per MCAS and other metrics as well as that Milton’s streets are in significantly better shape than Quincy’s, Milton’s modest 2.4% higher tax bills on an identical assessed value basis are surely worth it to its locals.

Sea Street in front of the City of Quincy Department of Public Works
Conjoined Quincy Quarry exclusive images

On top of higher property taxes than reasonably comparable and adjacent communities notwithstanding, there is this word salad of a statement by Mayor Koch:

“In 2021, the average single-family home bill in the City of Quincy is $100 less than the statewide average even though the average single-family in Quincy is more than $50,000 higher than the state average.”

Problems in this statement above and beyond poor editing include the following.

Quincy Quarry was unable to corroborate “… $100 less than the statewide average (in 2021, ed).

At the same time, Quincy Quarry found that Quincy’s $6,281.00 average residential property tax bill in 2021 ranked 116th out of the 351 municipal tax imposing towns and cities in the Commonwealth.

In other words, Quincy residential property taxes in 2021 were higher than 67% of the municipalities in the Commonwealth.

And for anther problem the statement that “… the average single-family in Quincy is more than $50,000 higher than the state average.” 

Bad editing, purposeful prevarication or both?
A file photo image

Higher than what? 

Quincy Quarry knows what Mayor Koch should have noted, however, it is not up to the Quarry to edit this and numerous other errata nor is there enough time available for Quincy Quarry to be able to do so.

And finally, there is the dramatic worsening in the city’s already troubling as well as seriously in the red balance sheet.

Specifically, In 2020, the City of Quincy’s balance sheet was $651 million in the red whereas as of FY 2022, the most recent externally audited fiscal year of City of Quincy’s books, Quincy was $725 million in the red, a 14% worsening into the red.

The key driver to the $725 million negative? 

$606 million in unfunded Other Post Employment Benefits (“OPEB”) benefits due retired city employees.

Shell game, Koch and mirrors — whatever
Image via Margaret Street Church of Christ

Unlike other Massachusetts municipalities that have developed plans to address unfunded QPEB obligations, the Koch Maladministration has failed to duly address the problem — meaning set-up a proper plan to duly fund the $606 million shortfall and then hold to it. 

Instead, the Koch machine has opted to go with basically paying as things go and so kicking the costs can down down the road.

Way down the road and at a greater cost as noted by Standard & Poor.

Plied high and deep.  Especially deep.
Image via the San Jose Mercury News

Wicked way down the road.

In short, Mayor Koch’s financial campaign assertions range from koch and mirrors to gross misrepresentations to outright falsehoods.

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