Evaluating Setti Warren's First Term As Mayor

From Joshua Norman

On Village 14, Gail Spector recently enclosed a link to Setti Warren’s first inauguration speech as mayor.  I just read it and I hope you read it too as it reinforces the Newton Taxpayers Association’s position that things have not changed substantially under Setti Warren’s mayoral administration versus David Cohen’s mayoral administration.  Regarding Setti Warren's first inauguration speech, he failed at delivering on these following initiatives in his first term as mayor:

"Responding to questions openly and honestly" Setti Warren failed at this because he claimed that he saved Newton taxpayers $436 Million when he increased annual spending by $44 Million in his first term and he racked up over $110 Million in debt.

He also failed because when he and his cheerleaders were claiming they held compensation growth to 2.5%, they did not include the 7.5% growth in projected retirement benefit spending when talking about their claims.  Nor did they tell people about the last day raises embedded in the union contracts.

“It means inventing new mechanisms like an interactive website and Town Hall Meetings” While the administration uses Town Hall meetings to talk about its goals, it has not incorporated citizen input from the meetings into key decisions.

“Together, we will have to make difficult choices in the months and years ahead to preserve what’s best about our city while living within our means”

Unfortunately, Setti Warren failed at this because he accrued $12 Million in deficits in his first term and is projecting another $12 Million in deficits from 2015 to 2019. 

"I am prepared to make the tough decisions that will be necessary" Setti Warren failed at this because he has done nothing to get increased reimbursement to deal with the $8 Million annual cost for educating 583 non-resident students attending Newton Public Schools.

Although he was willing to support naming rights, he did nothing to move it forward once Ward 7 Democrat Boss Professor Lisle Baker and his cronies raised objections to it.  I was under the impression that Newton had a strong-mayor system and that a popular mayor could use the power of his office and position to persuade the aldermen to support it.  Naming rights had support from left-wing Democrats like Marcia Tabenken and Claire Sokoloff, reform-oriented Democrats like Mike Striar and Ken Parker and fiscally conservative Republicans like Traute and Bob Marshall.  I was surprised that Newton’s Board of Aldermen put naming rights on hold since it represented $2.1 Million in annual non-tax inflows to the Newton Public Schools system.

In addition, he did nothing to implement the recommendations of the Special Education Review Report, which highlighted $20 Million in annual overspending primarily due to overstaffing relative to other public school districts.

“not over-burdening our current taxpayers or future residents.” Unfortunately, Mayor Warren failed at this because he pushed for the passage of an $11.4 million annual tax increase when he increased compensation spending by $33 Million in his first term as mayor. 

 "We can have the best school system in the state" Mayor Warren failed at this because Newton Public Schools spend 37% more than Winchester yet Winchester gets better results than Newton.  Furthermore, Winchester is one of 24 districts in Massachusetts that generate comparable or better academic results than Newton yet spend less per student than Newton. 

In conclusion, despite the fact that Newton’s political establishment is enthusiastic about Mayor Warren, his performance in office has failed to live up to his own rhetoric.  We at the Newton Taxpayers Association agreed with former Citizens Advisory Group member Kevin Dutt’s observations that the dialogue about how things are going in the City has really disappeared. Four years ago, we had a healthy, invigorated debate about how the City was doing, and how we could fix it. However, while Setti Warren may be more affable and gregarious relative to his predecessor David Cohen, it is obvious that Newton’s city government has not changed much from what we had four years ago, when many were outraged.  It seems that so many are willing to support Mayor Warren’s bureaucratic socialist program of more taxes, more government spending and more borrowing on top of Newton’s $1.16 BILLION in existing debt and unfunded liabilities simply because he’s their buddy.