Prop 2 1/2 scare tactics
IT'S OVERRIDE season in cities and towns across the state. Once again, we are being told that a failure to override Proposition 2 1/2 will mean that schools will be forced to cut athletic budgets, reduce maintenance and custodial services, lay off nurses, eliminate talented and gifted programs, and cease providing tutors. Other scare tactics include closing libraries, operating inadequately staffed fire departments, and other moves, usually accompanied by such apocalyptic modifiers as ''devastating" or ''catastrophic."
But it's nonsense. All of it.
We don't need to override Proposition 2 1/2. And, without an override, there is no need to cut programs, people, and services. We don't even need the level of property taxes that we now pay.
It's time for city and town officials to get creative. It's time to eliminate the massive cross-subsidization that exists in our schools, and other municipal services. Think of who already subsidizes whom:
Schools: Families with no children subsidize families with children; families with a few children subsidize families with many children.
High school athletics: Nerds subsidize athletes; females subsidize males (think of the cost of the football program).
Talented and gifted programs: Athletes subsidize nerds.
Trash pickup: Small, abstemious families subsidize big wasteful families.
Fire protection: Safety conscious people subsidize careless people.
Snowplowing: People who live in apartments (minimal street frontage on a per-person basis) subsidize people in single-family homes; people with narrow frontage subsidize people with wide frontage.
In instances where there's a benefit that accrues to the whole city or town, the use of property tax revenue to pay for a service makes sense. Most of us with no children in the public school system, for example, are happy to have our property taxes subsidize K-12 education, since it benefits the entire community. The same goes for public safety, and a number of other services. But there is no need to subsidize the athletes, the nerds, the filthy, and the careless. For them, the solution is to establish usage fees.
Some cities and towns have adopted usage fees, notably for pay-as-you-throw trash and for water and sewer. But even with sewage, there's cross subsidization: Consumption is measured only by water going in, meaning that people with large lawns and gardens to water (watering doesn't generate sewage) subsidize people with small ones.
So, let's keep Proposition 2 1/2 in place and suggest to our cities and towns that they consider usage fees. Here are a few possibilities:
But usage fees are not enough. We then need to make sure that they are set fairly and equitably. This means that municipal budgets need to identify inefficiencies, such as by benchmarking against other cities and towns. And they need to hold managers accountable for providing services efficiently. Otherwise, like property taxes, usage fees will simply increase year after year.
As an example, to have a public works department say, ''It cost more for snowplowing this year because there was more snow" is inexcusable. Yes, in a heavy winter there will be more linear feet of snow to be plowed, and that, other things equal, will cost more. The public works department cannot control the amount of snow. But the department can be held accountable for keeping the cost per linear foot plowed at the budgeted level, and at a level that is comparable to other municipalities. At the moment, simply saying ''there was more snow" obscures whatever inefficiencies the department incurred in providing the service.
The same for trash pickup. What should it cost per ton of waste? More tons means more cost, but the cost per ton should not increase because the contractor or the public works department experienced inefficiencies.
Ditto for fire protection. What should it cost for responses to different situations? The fire department cannot control the number or kinds of calls it gets, but it can control the cost per call.
We need to keep Proposition 2 1/2 in place, and we need to do so with a vengeance. We don't need higher property taxes; we need more usage fees and more creative management of our city and town governments. In short, we need to encourage our public officials get their minds out of the property tax gutter.
David W. Young, a professor at Boston University School of Management, is co-author, with Robert N. Anthony, of ''Management Control in Nonprofit Organizations." 
