Candidates dodge numbers

During the same period, Parks Department spending rose 53 percent; public works, 64 percent; the library, 32 percent. A savvy fourth-grader can see that pensions and health insurance are taking their toll on other city services. He can also surmise that, if unchecked, these obligations will eventually bankrupt Boston.

They mean fewer police, fewer firemen, a further decline in the sad state of our parks. It goes on.

“If there are no new resources,’’ says Mayor Thomas M. Menino, “you could see rubbish collection every three weeks, and the treasury office down to two days a week from four.’’

If all of this weren’t enough, consider the 24 percent loss in the city pension fund in 2008, from $4 billion down to about $3 billion. We won’t start to feel the effects of this until FY 2012, a rude intrusion into Tomorrowland. It’s also a good bet that the $243 million in reduced state tax receipts reported last week will mean more cuts in Boston’s operating revenues.

Given all of this, the Observer was stunned - I mean Tasered - by the absence in all three televised mayoral debates of any discussion of this subject. None of the candidates touched it, nor did any of the moderators raise it.

“It’s the 1,000-pound gorilla that no one wants to talk about,’’ says Sam Tyler, head of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, in a moment of some understatement. The bureau is an independent outfit that keeps tabs on city tax policies, service delivery, and schools.

Mayor Scott Lang of New Bedford has long been vocal on this topic, Menino not. Lang wants a pay-as-you-go pension system for municipal workers similar to a 401(k). Can you imagine that idea even whispered here?

When things get bad enough, Bostonians will rise up with pitchforks. But this arcane, numbers-infested issue is lost on most people today. Menino should publish annually how much each Boston household has to pay to cover city workers’ pensions and health insurance.

Now we’re down to the Gang of Two in the mayoral race - Menino and Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty. Both support those absurd police traffic details. Neither is ready to take on the firefighters, teachers, or police patrolmen’s unions for real structural change. (The word “progressive’’ in the same sentence with any of these outfits is risible.)

“There is not the willingness to buck the unions,’’ says Tyler. Flaherty has been endorsed by the firefighters and the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, so how much change can we expect out of him?

Nothing was done over the last 16 years of Menino’s mayoralty to increase the workers’ contribution for their health insurance until he negotiated a change from a 90/10 percent city-union split, to 85/15 percent, excluding the firemen’s union, that took effect only last year.

For many of those years, to be fair, the city was not facing the fiscal crisis it is today. Also, consider what Menino has been up against. The firefighters union is still balking at mandatory random drug and alcohol testing unless it gets more money. Why should someone get paid more to be tested for drugs? Why is money in this equation at all?

“They always equate change with more money,’’ says John Dunlap, Menino’s top labor negotiator, about the union. On drug testing, he adds, “From the time it was put on the table, they made it clear, ‘If you want this, you have to pay for it.’’

(Neither firemen’s union chief Ed Kelly nor patrolmen’s union chief Tom Nee returned my calls. The office of teachers union boss Richard Stutman referred me to a spokesman who left a voicemail late Friday, but we never connected.)

The answer to the pension and health insurance death spiral, say both candidates, is for Boston to join a state program called the Group Insurance Commission, which handles health insurance for state workers and retirees, or to get the kind of absolute clout over insurance benefits that the Commission enjoys.

The G.I.C. is a much better deal for cities and towns because it determines benefits and its decisions are not negotiable. But to join the G.I.C., cities and towns must get a 70 percent approval from their union representative committees. I know with a moral certainty that I will be in adult diapers before the firemen, teachers, and police here ever buy that idea.

Credit Menino for filing legislation earlier this year for Boston, and all cities and towns, to get the same control over health insurance benefits that the state has. Its future? To quote Edward R. Murrow, good night and good luck. So what now? Not much. Menino correctly maintains real change can only be reached through legislation. Flaherty wants to join the G.I.C., but beyond that is most interested in whacking Menino for record on this, as any challenger would.

“Where has the leadership on this been over the last 16 years?’’ he asks. A valid question. But he has little to say about the immediate future: “I will provide new leadership to negotiate the best deal for the taxpayers of Boston.’’ Well, that clears that up.

Sooner or later, some mayoral candidate will make this a major campaign issue. There will be buckets of blood on the floor. Don’t look to Menino and certainly not to Flaherty to do it. Whoever does, though, will earn the respect and gratitude of all Bostonians.

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com.