Voting the pocketbook

For perhaps the first time, the Massachusetts business community’s political radar screen is more focused on employee pocketbook issues than corporate taxes this election season. "Taxes are not the No. 1 issue right now," says David Begelfer, CEO of the Mass. Chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. "That is not even in the top three."  top three."

Mark Donahue, an attorney specializing in land development at Worcester-based Fletcher, Tilton and Whipple, liked what Deval Patrick had to say about streamlining regulations and providing adequate staff to make them work.

Helen Miller, owner of computer training company Miller & Associates in Northboro, was interested in Christy Mihos as a catalyst for change in state government. And Bryan Rourke, a partner at Westboro-based Metrowest Financial Partners LLC, said he was sold on Kerry Healey as the gubernatorial candidate who would serve as the "brake on some of the more hair-brained politically motivated proposals of the day" on Beacon Hill.

Jacki Rose, owner of Milford-based presentation consulting firm Top Performance, didn’t miss Healey. "I was glad she didn’t come," she said. "...She’s too negative." She found Patrick a dynamic, strong speaker who "made me think the way he thinks." But Rose hadn’t heard anything concrete from anyone about her biggest concern as a business person - health-care costs.

Miller, too, lists health care as her biggest concern, followed by a need to streamline regulation for business. "There’s too many hurdles put up for small businesses," she said.

Rourke was concerned that Patrick had a good chance of winning the corner office, with his strong following and a "certain presence" at the podium. That, he said, wouldn’t provide the balance he is looking for to the liberal focus that, Rourke says, pervades Beacon Hill.

Michael Rupert, published of the Blackstone Valley Shopper in South Grafton, liked Patrick’s ideas but gave Mihos points for being a business owner. His top issue is being able to find qualified employees with basic skills and ethics. "Education is more than learning to add, subtract and multiply," he says.

Rupert said he would probably support Patrick after reading about his work and background. He wants a governor that isn’t afraid to "think outside the box."

Jeannie Hebert, senior tourism and marketing director for the Central Mass. Visitors Bureau and owner of EJ Candies in Sturbridge, was delighted to hear in talking privately with Mihos that he understands the importance of tourism as a state industry. She said she hadn’t yet decided who she will vote for.

M.B.

Similarly, the Massachusetts High Technology Council calls for the next governor to provide a stable business climate without new taxes, but it also wants improved teacher training and lowering housing costs.

The Mass. Bankers Association, a longtime affordable-housing advocate since mortgages are a key part of its members’ business, says the issue is even more important this year.

More than ever, business groups’ focus is going beyond their traditional board room, business-tax purview, to issues previously considered to be home-front. They still want Massachusetts to be less regulatory and more business-friendly to their respective industries, but now they’re also pushing for changes to make it more resident-friendly, or rather employee-friendly. Creating affordable housing and easing municipal financial struggles with local services have joined the more established quests of improving schools and making health care affordable.

Out-of-reach housing prices and under-funded community services have "started to hit businesses where they live," Begelfer says. NAIOP’s commercial property owners and renters are not bent on promoting affordable housing for residents’ sake, he notes. They’re concerned that the state’s housing prices are causing young, talented workers to leave the state, or not want to move here, to fill the thousands of higher-skilled jobs that the companies need to do business in Massachusetts.

That kind of linkage between businesses and quality-of-life/cost-of-living issues has grown stronger in recent years, says John Schneider, vice president of Boston-based MassINC., a non-partisan research organization which advocates for a strong, stable middle class. He attributes it to an increasing awareness by business leaders, in part due to MassINC’s efforts to mobilize them around such concerns. A 2003 MassINC study surveying 1,000 residents found cost of living to be a major concern. The fact that such quality-of-life concerns have resulted in key business consequences like the out-migration of skilled labor has helped dissolve earlier business community skepticism about whether quality of life issues are, in essence, the business of business.

Housing elephant in the room

Not surprisingly, the state’s residential housing market industries are most intent on resolving the affordable housing problem and the negative role they see municipalities playing in it. The Massachusetts Association of Realtors, the Homebuilders Association of Massachusetts and the Builders Association of Central Massachusetts all consider affordable housing the most critical issue on the next governor’s agenda. But now, they’ve got outside-industry buy-in from the Mass. Biotechnology Council and the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, which join the Mass. High Technology Council, the Bankers’ Association and NAIOP in saying that the housing issue must be solved if the state is to hang on to its skilled workforce, one of its most valuable resources.

Most housing industry leaders consider home rule, under which cities and towns set their own land-use regulations, the main culprit. And that has prompted them to call for more funding for municipalities to ease the resistance to housing growth.

Prohibitive local regulations that slow down the permitting process result in a lack of homes that young families or skilled workers can afford, says Mark Leff, president elect of the Homebuilders Association of Mass. and senior vice president of the Salem Five Bank. While a computer software engineer can find a 2,500-square-foot home in South Carolina for $250,000 to $300,000, Leff says, the same house costs $600,000 to $700,000 in Massachusetts.

But business leaders don’t expect gubernatorial candidates to actually take on home rule, which is an age-old Massachusetts tradition. Rather, Begelfer points out, it tends to be "the elephant in the room" that no candidate wants to talk about. "It’s the political third rail," adds Webb. "You’re playing with fire when you talk about home rule."

They are:
• Associated Industries of Mass. (AIM), 7,600 members;
• Builders Association of Central Mass. (BACM), 250 members;
• Homebuilders Association of Mass. (HAM), 1,600 members;
• Mass. Association of Realtors (MAR), 23,000 members:
• Mass. Bankers Association (MBA) 210 members;
• Mass. Biotech Council (MBC), 500 members:
• Mass. High Tech Council (MHTC), 130 members;
• Mass. Hospital Association (MHA), 116 members;
• Mass. Lodging Association (MLA), 420 members;
• Mass. Restaurant Association (MRA), 1,500 members;
• Mass. Taxpayers Association (MTA), 500 members;
• National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), 10,000 members;
• National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, Mass. Chapter (NAIOP), 1,800 members;
• Retailers Association of Mass. (RAM), 3,000 members.

Issue

Organizations making it a priority Affordable health care
AIM, MAR, MBA, MHA, MRA, MTA, NFIB, RAM

Affordable housing
BACM, HAM, MBA, MAR, NAIOP - Mass.

Invest more in training for workforce,particularly nurses, teachers
MBC, MHTC, MTF

More municipal aid
BACM, MAR, NAIOP-MA

Positive business tax climate and/or income tax rollback
MBC, NFIB

Stop out-migration of skilled workers
MBC, NAIOP-MA

Stable economic and/or fiscal policy
MHTC, MTF

Job creation
MAR

Specialty issues
So-called "single-organization issues" were only listed by one group.

No biotech price controls
MBC

No imports of cheaper drugs
MBC

Reliable energy source
AIM

More use of room tax to promote tourism
MLA

Appoint state tourism czar
MLA

No local meals tax
MRA

Improve transportation infrastructure
MTF

No paid family leave regulations
NFIB

Tort reform
RAM

Training wage and no time and a half Sundays
RAM

Chris Anderson, president of the Mass. High Technology Council, agrees that the high cost of housing remains a big challenge to the current business climate, and it needs to be fought on the municipal level. He says the state needs to provide lower-cost housing incentives for communities, but there isn’t "enough political capital in Massachusetts to force communities to do something they don’t want to do."

More competitive students needed

While the housing issue looms large as a barrier to the state’s ability to compete, education and health-care costs also remain priorities for business groups. The Mass. High Technology Council wants the state to build on the progress that MCAS has made in improving Mass. schools to make them more nationally and globally competitive, Anderson says.

MCAS has provided a minimum standard for education, he says, and now the state must address how it will recruit and train the next generation of teachers as well as help the professional development of veteran teachers. It is critical, he says, that the next governor hone the state’s education delivery system, and realize that testing students isn’t enough.

The state should also examine teaching colleges’ approach to teacher training to keep the state globally competitive in providing skilled workers. Companies, Anderson says, don’t just export jobs to other countries because of lower cost but, increasingly, due to access to highly skilled workers in China and India. They are producing better skilled students, he says.

As for health-care costs, they remain on the list of just about every business group, from the Mass. Restaurant Association, to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, to the Mass. Biotech Council. And most are waiting to see what the state’s new health-care reform measure will bring. The Mass Hospital Association had polled primary candidates for the gubernatorial race and was attempting to do so with the current slate of candidates as we went to press. Deval Patrick had answered its primary query, but Healey had not. MHA’s priorities include supporting the reform measure, ensuring that the state has the capacity as well as a statewide network of hospitals and investing in public education to stem the shortage of nurses and other health-care professionals.

Of course, various business groups still have very industry-specific issues they want the next governor to address (see chart). The Mass. Lodging Association wants more of the sales tax the state collects on hotel rooms used for promotion of tourism in the state as well as a more prominent voice in state government, perhaps with a secretary of tourism or tourism czar. The Mass. Biotech Council wants whoever is in the corner office to continue to support that burgeoning industry and not undermined it by putting price controls on new biotech innovations or turning to importing cheaper drugs from other countries. The Retailers Association of Massachusetts wants parity on health insurance premiums by being allowed to buy insurance in groups. Most business groups also want unemployment insurance reform to address the fact that Massachusetts has per employee rates some six times higher than other states.

The closer alignment of business issues with those of the general voter is a change from the past, says Michael Widmer, president of the Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, which represents 500 of the state’s largest corporations and organizations. But ultimately, he says, it is a matter of promoting the state’s long-term business competitiveness. "The reality is that, with the kinds of cuts that have taken place during the fiscal crisis and the backlog of capital investment," he says, "factors are coming together to get the attention of the business community and the public in general."

Micky Baca can be reached at mbaca@wbjournal.com