If, even to those of us with short memories, the budget debate
unfolding on Beacon Hill sounds familiar, it's because it is. In 1991, during the
last recession, deep budget cuts were required to close a huge deficit, on the heels of a large tax
increase....
There is one sure way to curb spending and that is
to take the revenue off the table in the first place by returning it to its rightful owners - the
taxpayers. Romney has promised to fulfill the voter-approved initiative to roll back the
income tax to 5 percent by the end of his four-year term.
It may seem downright strange to talk about tax cuts
in the midst of this budget crisis, but if memory serves, this too shall pass. The economy will
rebound and state revenues will grow. The sooner Romney makes good on his
tax cut promise the better. State government, unlike the federal government,
can't print its own money and, therefore, can't spend money it doesn't have.
Cut taxes, and it won't have the extra money to spend. But the people who
earned it will.
A Boston Herald editorial
Mar. 3, 2003
Finding a real cure for state budget ills
Between 1995 and 2000, during the stock market
bubble, state spending ballooned from $16.3 billion to $21.8 billion. If the budget had grown by
inflation and population growth it would have stood at just $18.9 billion.
Instead, as the money poured in, Beacon Hill added an extra $2.8 billion in
annual spending. That additional spending came from deliberate decisions to
grow government.
One of the biggest was the decision to expand Medicaid. Lost in much of the
hullabaloo about rising health care costs is the simple fact that most of the
state's rising Medicaid budget comes for expanding eligibility. By 2000,
Medicaid enrollment had grown by 50 percent over 1996 levels....
In these and in numerous other ways, Beacon Hill set
its priorities by expanding government services and putting more local government expenses
onto the plate of state taxpayers. And they did so knowing full well that the
revenue growth supporting the new spending was unsustainable.
The Boston Herald
Mar. 3, 2003
Romney's budget lays out priorities
By Stephen J. Adams
Gov. Mitt Romney's budget chief says he's ready to
go to the wall with one of the most politically unpopular fights around: the battle to rein in the
budget-busting Medicaid program, provider of state-sponsored health care for
nearly 1 million of the poorest citizens.
The $6.5 billion program is growing at the out-of-control pace of 15 percent per
year, piling an extra billion dollars a year onto the state's bottom line - and with
no end in sight, only an ever-growing tab....
But as a "last resort," [state Rep. Daniel] Keenan
said, the House would consider rolling back some of the state's aggressive Medicaid expansions, which
have added 300,000 people to the program's rolls since 1996.
The Boston Herald
Mar. 2, 2003
Kriss ready to wade into Medicaid's rising red ink
A report released Friday by the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation ... found that nearly two-thirds of the $2 billion that Romney has said
the state would save by eliminating waste and inefficiency would actually be obtained through
increased fees and one-time moves that do little to solve the state's budget
problems.
"The basic way to close a budget gap is to increase
revenue and cut spending," said Michael J. Widmer, president of the taxpayers foundation, a
business-backed, nonpartisan group. "But since the focus [of the Romney administration] has really been
on savings, we're trying to clarify what savings is." ...
Romney has promised to veto any tax hike that reaches his desk, but Rogers
and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini have said new revenues must be
considered.
The Boston Globe
Mar. 3, 2003
Doubt cast in House on Romney budget plan
For the past several years, critics have unsuccessfully pushed the Legislature
to reform or reverse the many tax cuts given to local businesses in the 1990s.
This time around, those critics might make some headway....
But Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation, said reversing corporate tax incentives would bring a relatively small amount
of new dollars compared to the state's giant budget gap.
"It's absolutely short-sighted," Widmer said. "You
harm your economy and you barely make a dent in your fiscal problem."
The Boston Herald
Mar. 3, 2003
Tax cuts in the crosshairs
Overhauling state labor practices promises to be one
of the toughest, yet most far-reaching, fights picked by Gov. Mitt Romney....
So far, union groups and their supporters haven't begun predicting fatal
consequences from Romney's proposals, but it's early in the game. You'll
recognize the rhetorical peak when activists and their political allies begin
claiming that kids will die if Romney gets his way....
Our Legislature, dominated by Democrats who rely on
union political support, will fight tooth and nail against Romney's labor-reform proposals.
The Boston Herald
Mar. 3, 2003
Romney will labor in this reform fight
By Ted Bunker
It's hard to decide whether to laugh or cry over how amazingly accurate we at CLT have
been over the past decade as revenue began to pour in, the spending frenzy erupted and
increased year after year, and the "temporary" tax hike was locked into place with empty
promises.
CLT was warning that truly the sky will fall in the end if
the spending frenzy wasn't halted, and the best -- the only -- way to stop it was to cut taxes and take taxpayer money off
the table.
We warned that so long as the cash remained in the Beacon
Hill pols' hands they would spend it -- that it was simply their nature -- and spend it they did.
We warned that spending an additional billion "surplus"
dollars a year was not only unconscionable but unsustainable, and now we all know that it was; CLT was right.
Because hindsight is 20/20 and the political and fiscal
"analysts" have perfect hindsight, they're picking through the bones, figuring out what went wrong, confirming our assertions
made over the past decade.
We could do it because we were here during the last
Dukakis regime, when taxpayers endured the same "Massachusetts
Miracle" overspending and mismanagement with the same devastating
results. The late-90s was simply a rerun of the late-80s.
The president of the so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation (Mass. TaxSpenders Foundation, in truth), Michael Widmer,
is beginning to bounce like a tennis ball: "We need more taxes"
... thwok ... "we don't want to harm the economy" ... thwok ...
"the way to close a budget gap is to increase revenue" ... thwok
... "reversing corporate tax incentives is absolutely
short-sighted" ... thwok ... "a sales tax increase will
work" ... thwok.
Mickey W's sure got our heads swinging back and forth trying
to follow his serve, as if it matters. All that matters to him and MTF is tax advantages for his Boston big-business
Fat Cats ... at anyone else's expense. That's what he's paid for, why MTF exists.
MTF opposed our tax rollback at every turn over the past
half dozen years. MTF enabled the Legislature's spending binge year after year, while passively offering its
quickly-ignored "structural imbalance" advice as cover.
The so-called Mass. Taxpayers Foundation could have been
part of the solution, could have helped prevent this latest fiasco, could
at least now be able to also say "we told you so."
Instead, MTF -- part of the problem then and now -- is playing its same cozy insiders
game, still providing cover while desperately protecting its special interests.
The Boston Herald
Monday, March 3, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Finding a real cure for state budget ills
If, even to those of us with short memories, the budget
debate unfolding on Beacon Hill sounds familiar, it's because it is. In 1991, during the last recession,
deep budget cuts were required to close a huge deficit, on the heels of a large
tax increase.
The Romney administration and the Legislature, while fixing
the immediate budget mess, should enshrine, institutionally and legally, ways to avoid the
same tax, spend and cut cycle when the economy rebounds.
Legislative leaders will quibble with Gov. Mitt Romney over
how we got here, arguing new spending on programs was balanced by tax cuts and rainy day
fund deposits. (On that score we would refer you to the column on the opposite
page by Pioneer Institute President Steve Adams.) But even now, it's more
important to focus on the future.
In a recent meeting with Herald editors and reporters,
Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss was asked what the state could do to avoid
handing a future secretary in the job a similar budget crisis. Kriss suggested
some of the structural changes Romney is pushing for now will pay dividends
down the road.
And certainly the flexibility gained by work force changes
such as eliminating civil service, reorganizing executive branch agencies and changing the structure
of the budget itself by erasing most line items will help.
Continuing to direct funds to reserves also matters. Kriss,
though, dismisses last year's legislative initiative to limit spending to 2 percent plus inflation as a
"trick" that can be easily undone. Yes, what the Legislature giveth the
Legislature can take away. And how often has that happened in the past?
There is one sure way to curb spending and that is to take
the revenue off the table in the first place by returning it to its rightful owners - the taxpayers.
Romney has promised to fulfill the voter-approved initiative to roll back the
income tax to 5 percent by the end of his four-year term.
It may seem downright strange to talk about tax cuts in the
midst of this budget crisis, but if memory serves, this too shall pass. The economy will
rebound and state revenues will grow. The sooner Romney makes good on his
tax cut promise the better. State government, unlike the federal government,
can't print its own money and, therefore, can't spend money it doesn't have.
Cut taxes, and it won't have the extra money to spend. But
the people who earned it will.
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Monday, March 3, 2003
Romney's budget lays out priorities
By Stephen J. Adams
Creating a budget is about setting priorities.
Between 1995 and 2000, during the stock market bubble, state
spending ballooned from $16.3 billion to $21.8 billion. If the budget had grown by
inflation and population growth it would have stood at just $18.9 billion.
Instead, as the money poured in, Beacon Hill added an extra $2.8 billion in
annual spending. That additional spending came from deliberate decisions to
grow government.
One of the biggest was the decision to expand Medicaid. Lost
in much of the hullabaloo about rising health care costs is the simple fact that most of the
state's rising Medicaid budget comes for expanding eligibility. By 2000,
Medicaid enrollment had grown by 50 percent over 1996 levels.
According to analyses produced by the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation, nearly 60 percent of the cost increases in Medicaid between 1997 and 2002
were driven by expanding eligibility, not underlying costs of health care. Today
one in six Massachusetts citizens receive Medicaid support. However laudable
this goal, it is not sustainable within current revenues.
During the gravy days of stock market-induced tax revenues,
state government added other permanent costs.
Between 1996 and 2002 higher education saw a nearly 40
percent hike in state spending, as did state employee health insurance. Our fabled court system
enjoyed a 44 percent increase in spending. But the real champion high hurdler
was school building assistance. The state's bill for local school construction more
than doubled from $180 million in 1996 to $365 million in 2002. That rivals the
pace of Medicaid growth during the same period.
In these and in numerous other ways, Beacon Hill set its
priorities by expanding government services and putting more local government expenses
onto the plate of state taxpayers. And they did so knowing full well that the
revenue growth supporting the new spending was unsustainable.
Gov. Mitt Romney's budget lets stand many of the commitments
Beacon Hill made before he arrived.
He is letting stand the Medicaid eligibility expansions, but
he is asking that those in the health care system pay a larger share. He is giving state aid to
education a free pass and leaving untouched police salaries. But he wants local
governments to tighten their belts in other areas just as will state government.
The governor will continue to grow human service spending for the most
vulnerable citizens but he wants to be able to restructure the service delivery
system to send more money to direct services and less to bureaucratic overhead.
Romney wants to eliminate the Pacheco Law and let competitive bidding bring
down the cost of state services while increasing quality. He wants to reorganize
state bureaucracy to eliminate redundancies and unnecessary administrative
costs like the MDC, the Boston Municipal Court and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
Romney's court reforms will transform the judicial system
from a patronage haven for the politically connected to a legal system adjudicating disputes
efficiently and equitably across the Commonwealth.
Even the governor's new revenue proposals, and there are
many, establish priorities. Like them or not, at least most of the proposed fees hikes and new
levies have a logical nexus to the associated spending. An increase in
assessments to HMOs, hospitals and Medicaid recipients will go toward supporting
health care costs. Higher tuition will pay to keep the state colleges open.
The Legislature prefers an income tax hike where the money
is more fungible. Last year's tax hike, the largest in state history, is paying for things like
vacation time accruals for former Senate President Birmingham's staff, police
details and the salary of former House Majority Leader Nagel, the new clerk
magistrate in the new Ware court.
Through his budget, the Governor is asking the Legislature
to stick to its past commitments to citizens in need and to local schools over the interests of the
state bureaucracy. Romney's priority is changing the culture of governance in
Massachusetts. His budget seeks to move Massachusetts away from a culture
in which citizens work to keep state government afloat to one in which state
government works for its citizens.
Stephen J. Adams is President and CEO of Pioneer Institute a
Massachusetts public policy think tank.
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Kriss ready to wade into Medicaid's rising red ink
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Gov. Mitt Romney's budget chief says he's ready to go to the
wall with one of the most politically unpopular fights around: the battle to rein in the
budget-busting Medicaid program, provider of state-sponsored health care for
nearly 1 million of the poorest citizens.
The $6.5 billion program is growing at the out-of-control
pace of 15 percent per year, piling an extra billion dollars a year onto the state's bottom line - and with
no end in sight, only an ever-growing tab.
Lawmakers already are squirming over the incremental changes
Romney has proposed, but Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss is unequivocal:
If left uncontrolled, Medicaid will destroy everything else that policymakers
and citizens hold dear. "It is now at the inflection point of essentially
bankrupting government, period," Kriss said. "We must do this."
On the campaign trail and in the Corner Office, Romney and
his number-crunchers have sounded the alarm about the gigantic scope of the
Medicaid problem.
But though the rhetoric has been strong, the $176 million
worth of proposed Medicaid savings in Romney's budget amounts to nibbling at the margins - by
the administration's own admission.
Romney's move to increase premiums and co-payments would
save only $19 million per year - not even a drop in the bucket for the $6.5 billion program.
Likewise, Romney proposes to limit access to Medicaid by
tightening eligibility - refusing people who can obtain insurance through work and counting assets
like houses toward people's income.
While both measures would boot an unknown number of people
off health care - forcing them into expensive emergency rooms and further burdening
cash-strapped hospitals - they raise only $27 million.
The administration is pinning a lot of hope on the theory
that major "behavioral changes" will flow from the proposals to begin forcing Medicaid recipients to
pay a nominal fee for what is now essentially free health care.
"Free goods are wasted and they just kind of scatter with
the wind, but as soon as you impose any kind of pay, even if it's a penny, behavior changes," Kriss
said. "It will make people think twice about their own accountability and
responsibility for their own care and give them the dignity of contributing
something to it."
But when pressed, Kriss admits the administration hasn't
begun to tackle the sheer size problem. In the absence of help from the federal government - which
may or may not be forthcoming - Kriss said the only options are a "functionally
bankrupt" government or "denying care."
The battle also is brewing in the Legislature, where leaders
have promised to revisit Medicaid changes that Romney had proposed on an emergency basis,
but that lawmakers set aside because they were too complex and controversial
to immediately tackle.
The drive to squeeze Medicaid is strongest in the House,
where Speaker Thomas M. Finneran (D-Mattapan) last year secured passage of modest
voluntary co-payments and spearheaded a plan to throw 50,000 people off the
MassHealth Basic plan on April 1.
Rep. Daniel Keenan (D-Southwick), chairman of a newly
created House Medicaid Committee, expressed an affinity for many of Romney's ideas, and
said the House would seek to grab small piles of savings throughout the
Medicaid program without resorting to drastic cuts.
But as a "last resort," Keenan said, the House would
consider rolling back some of the state's aggressive Medicaid expansions, which have added 300,000
people to the program's rolls since 1996.
Romney and the House face stiff opposition in the Senate,
where President Robert E. Travaglini has pledged himself to the fight to protect the state's gains
in reducing the ranks of the uninsured.
Sen. Mark C. Montigny, a former budget chief and health-care
chairman, said he's open to ideas such as increasing co-payments and new asset tests, but he
drew the line at kicking people off the rolls.
"It is worth whatever you have to do to keep people from
dying," said Montigny (D-New Bedford).
Meanwhile, fiscal watchdogs warn the state can limp through
only two or three years before Medicaid burgeons to the point it begins gobbling up other major
priorities, such as school spending.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer
said the good news is that California and New York are both closer to the breaking point than
the Bay State.
A crisis in either of those states would precipitate some
sort of rescue effort by the federal government, Widmer said.
"Something is going to give sooner or later," Widmer said.
"Ultimately the feds are going to have to step in, whether they want to or not."
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The Boston Globe
Monday, March 3, 2003
Doubt cast in House on Romney budget plan
By Rick Klein and Cynthia Roy
Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent
Signaling deep reservations about Governor Mitt Romney's
government restructuring proposals, the House's chief budget writer is warning that
Romney's budget plan is based on unrealistic assumptions and leans too heavily
on one-time solutions.
House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers is sending a
letter to House members today with a preliminary analysis of the budget proposal Romney
filed last week. The letter states that Romney's streamlining proposals would
save no more than $100 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1 -- a long
way from the $2 billion in waste and inefficiencies Romney has claimed to have
found.
"Initial scrutiny of the governor's budget proposal raises a
number of concerns and reveals several inconsistencies which must be clearly identified," wrote
Rogers, a Norwood Democrat. "The savings that we can expect through these
efficiencies and reforms will solve only a fraction of the enormous problem."
Rogers's letter is the most detailed review to date of the
governor's $22.86 billion budget proposal, and it comes as the House begins to develop its own
plan for fiscal 2004. House and Senate members are convening a joint hearing
on Romney's budget proposal on Friday, and Rogers's committee is slated to
release its own spending plan in about six weeks, with a Senate version
to follow shortly thereafter.
Romney's press secretary, Shawn Feddeman, said the governor
stands by the numbers in his budget. He looks forward to meeting with members of the
Legislature and the public to discuss budget-balancing ideas, as long as they
don't involve new taxes, Feddeman said.
"We are extremely confident that our budget for next fiscal
year is balanced, without the need for new and higher taxes," she said. "Governor Romney has
proposed reforms that are long overdue. If the Legislature has other constructive solutions to
achieve more savings through restructuring, reorganization, and streamlining government, we look forward to hearing
them."
But Rogers said he and House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran felt
it was important to set the record straight on the details of Romney's budget
proposal. In a televised address billed as the governor's "State of the State"
speech last week, Romney claimed that his budget plan would root out $2
billion of waste and inefficiency.
The governor backtracked from that comment later in the
week, acknowledging that the $2 billion budget figure includes fee increases and the
use of one-time options like the transfer of surplus land to the state pension
fund. But Rogers said many people -- even state lawmakers -- have mistaken
impressions delivered through Romney's televised address.
"Although these addresses customarily tolerate words that
teeter on rhetoric, the governor has actually careened into misinformation," Rogers said
yesterday. "This is a clarification that needs to be told to members of the
House, the Senate, and the public."
Rogers's staff calculated that Romney's approach would close
less than 4 percent of the state's $3.2 billion budget gap for fiscal 2004 by cutting waste.
Much of the savings Romney's plan would bring -- some $900 million -- would
come from service cuts, despite the governor's contention his plan protects core
state services.
A report released Friday by the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation came to similar conclusions. It found that nearly two-thirds of the $2 billion that
Romney has said the state would save by eliminating waste and inefficiency
would actually be obtained through increased fees and one-time moves that do
little to solve the state's budget problems.
"The basic way to close a budget gap is to increase revenue
and cut spending," said Michael J. Widmer, president of the taxpayers foundation, a
business-backed, nonpartisan group. "But since the focus [of the Romney
administration] has really been on savings, we're trying to clarify what savings
is."
The debate over the true savings in Romney's budget cuts to
the heart of the governor's plans for remaking government. The newly installed governor
believes that restructuring can create a more efficient operation, significantly
lowering the state's bottom line. But others see restructuring as having little
effect on spending, undercutting Romney's argument that the overhaul is
necessary.
Rogers's letter is silent on some of the more explosive
elements of Romney's proposal, such as his bid to strip University of Massachusetts President William
M. Bulger of his job and to eliminate agencies like the Metropolitan District
Commission and state Turnpike Authority. In fact, Rogers said all ideas offered
by Romney will be strongly considered by lawmakers.
"We're actually looking at those with a fresh set of eyes,"
he said.
Romney has promised to veto any tax hike that reaches his
desk, but Rogers and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini have said new revenues must be
considered.
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The Boston Herald
Monday, March 3, 2003
Tax cuts in the crosshairs
by Jon Chesto
For the past several years, critics have unsuccessfully
pushed the Legislature to reform or reverse the many tax cuts given to local businesses in the 1990s.
This time around, those critics might make some headway.
As lawmakers wrestle with a budget gap that could be as wide
as $2.5 billion to $3 billion in the next fiscal year, they are expected to scrutinize these
incentives more closely than they have in the past.
The fact that two of the industries that benefited -
manufacturers and mutual fund firms - have been cutting jobs for the past two years is providing new
ammunition for opponents.
The review of corporate tax breaks couldn't come at a worse
time for businesses as they struggle to pull away from a recession.
The state's business community recently received a wake-up
call when the Legislature - at the request of Gov. Mitt Romney - closed a number of legal
loopholes that had allowed a range of local firms to shave their state taxes.
Now, business leaders wonder whether other tax incentives,
initially approved by the Legislature during the early and mid-1990s, could be next.
"Everything's going to be on the table this year," said Rep.
Paul Casey (D-Winchester). "We're certainly going to justify, with a fine- toothed comb,
any tax credit at this stage in the game."
Casey, co-chairman of the Legislature's taxation committee,
said he personally favors the business tax cuts. But he foresees a heated debate about the issue at
the State House this year.
The tax changes in the 1990s affected a variety of companies, ranging from
insurers to high-tech firms, in an effort to shed the state's "Taxachusetts" label
and make it more competitive.
In a recent press briefing, Boston business leaders said
they're particularly concerned about two incentives: the so-called "single sales factor" and the
state's 3 percent investment tax credit.
The Department of Revenue estimates that the investment tax
credit will cost about $31.3 million this fiscal year. The single sales formula will cost between
$35 million and $40 million in savings for the manufacturing industry, and
another $100 million to $120 million for mutual fund firms. Those numbers
could increase slightly next year.
Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln) has resumed her fight to
rewrite the single sales law to ensure manufacturers keep a certain level of staffing to take advantage
of it.
The law reworks how a company's corporate tax is calculated
by only considering sales revenue and not payroll or property levels - potentially
helping firms with large facilities here.
The change, first passed for manufacturers in 1995, was
aimed at keeping jobs at defense firms, such as Raytheon, from leaving the state. Lawmakers passed
a similar law the following year to encourage mutual fund companies to add
more workers in the state.
But the law's retention requirements for manufacturers have
been phased out, while the industry continues to steadily lose jobs.
"What Massachusetts is doing is paying the cost of the
moving vans to ship manufacturing jobs to other states," said Don Siriani, Fargo's chief of staff.
Business groups said local firms shouldn't be penalized just
because they've had to cut jobs during a downturn brought on by a national recession.
"What we should be doing is focusing on ways to re-energize
the state's economy," said Cort Boulanger, of the Massachusetts High Technology Council.
"The way to do that is not to kick businesses when they're down."
Business leaders also plan to lobby for the 3 percent
investment credit, which is set to drop to 1 percent at the end of the year. Manufacturers and certain other
firms can take advantage of the credit if they add plant space or equipment in
the state.
Robert Pozen, Romney's commerce and labor chief, said the
investment credit is one of the few incentives the state has to encourage businesses to expand
their plants and equipment here.
"This is a relatively modest incentive," said Pozen, a
supporter of the tax credit. "If you look across the country, there are other states that hand out
cash as well as tax credits."
However, Rep. James Marzilli (D-Arlington) said the tax
credit can encourage a company to plow its surplus money into capital expenditures instead of its
work force. He said all corporate tax incentives should be reviewed as painful
cuts are expected in such state services as education and health care.
"If we have to make those kinds of cuts, then we need to
make sure that everyone is paying their fair share," said Marzilli, who's also pushing a bill to
require many companies to publicly report their state corporate taxes.
But Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, said reversing corporate tax incentives would bring a relatively small amount
of new dollars compared to the state's giant budget gap.
"It's absolutely short-sighted," Widmer said. "You harm your
economy and you barely make a dent in your fiscal problem."
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The Boston Herald
Monday, March 3, 2003
Capital Focus
By Ted Bunker
Romney will labor in this reform fight
Overhauling state labor practices promises to be one of the
toughest, yet most far-reaching, fights picked by Gov. Mitt Romney.
Budget director Eric Kriss describes Romney's labor
proposals as the big untold story of his fiscal 2004 spending plan.
"We are eliminating civil service. We are dispensing with
the limitations on outsourcing. We are substantially changing ... Chapter 150 E, the umbrella
legislation with regard to collective bargaining." Kriss explained to Herald
writers last week.
Kriss couldn't put a savings figure on the proposals, but
suggested it could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year. An analysis distributed Friday by the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation says Romney's budget contains $263 million
in savings attributable to "work force and other reforms."
Kriss pointed out that these changes would reach local
governments as well, as they follow the same mandates. Some observers say that fact could bring
Romney some important political allies, even if they remain covert.
Mayors and town managers might like to have a freer hand
than is allowed under the current system, which Kriss calls "unfair labor practice, but in
reverse." And the fiscal crisis confronting all local governments injects some
urgency into the search for ways to cut costs.
But don't expect local leaders to come out and fight for the
changes Romney wants. Most of them rely too heavily on the support of unions to win their jobs
come Election Day.
Governments remain the last bastion of union strength, both
in Massachusetts and around the nations. So any attempt to tinker with state compensation
systems or labor practices is guaranteed to provoke howls of outrage, particularly from union
leaders.
Consider what Catherine A. Boudreau, president of the
Massachusetts Teachers Association, had to say about Romney's fiscal 2003 budget.
In one statement, Boudreau called it a "wholesale assault on
public employees' collective bargaining rights." In another, she described the "major stake
holders affected" by the budget proposal, then listed first school faculty, then
staff and finally, students.
So far, union groups and their supporters haven't begun
predicting fatal consequences from Romney's proposals, but it's early in the game. You'll
recognize the rhetorical peak when activists and their political allies begin
claiming that kids will die if Romney gets his way.
All that is just window dressing on the real struggle, which
will likely play out largely behind the scenes. And it's there where Romney faces the stiffest
challenge.
Our Legislature, dominated by Democrats who rely on union
political support, will fight tooth and nail against Romney's labor-reform proposals.
Never mind that the current system keeps about half of the
state's 800 lawyers in unions, even though as Kriss put is, their sole client is the governor.
And forget the 14,000 to 15,000 state managers who Kriss points out are
members of the same union as the workers that they supervise.
And you may never hear a debate about the merits of the
state's seniority system, which Kriss says wreaks havoc on attempts to eliminate redundant
jobs or unneeded government functions. With our system, unqualified workers
can bump out far more skilled people who simply have less time on the clock.
"We need to eliminate jobs because they are not necessary,
they are duplicative," Kriss said. Even dismissing slackers can be prohibitively difficult,
under state grievance procedures.
"What we seek is just a fair way of evaluating performance,
and if performance cannot be improved, the low performers are removed," Kriss said.
The logic makes good sense when it comes to a private-sector
turnaround for a business at risk of fiscal collapse.
For labor and its allies, though, those are fighting words.
But for Romney and the taxpayers he represents, however slim
the prospect of winning may be, it's well worth the fight.
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