The Boston Herald
Saturday, March 29, 2003
House budget honcho rips gov's 'vague ideas'
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
The House budget chief blasted Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday for skimping on budget details - prompting Romney's budget chief to accuse House leaders of using a "smokescreen" to avoid making reforms.
The scuffling broke out when House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers complained he still doesn't have a clear picture of Romney's unprecedented reorganization plans - even after 100 hours of hearings and "thousands of pages" of testimony.
"We need real numbers, not vague ideas or press releases," Rogers (D-Norwood) said.
In a letter to Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss, Rogers demanded new information on Romney's proposals for workforce reforms, merging the transportation agencies, consolidating human services, selling state land and closing state facilities.
In an interview, Rogers openly threatened to trash Romney's proposals and wield a heavy budget ax instead, if the administration isn't able to satisfy House number crunchers.
"If we don't find that level of detail, then the direction the committee will be forced in will be to cut further since there's no appetite to raise taxes," Rogers said.
A clearly taken-aback Kriss told reporters he was "surprised" by the "rather harsh tone" of Rogers' letter - which Kriss described as "a hindrance" to leaders' ability to work together.
"I hope it's not a smokescreen for just doing nothing and going back to business as usual or in fact politics as usual, which is the very thing we're seeking to avoid," Kriss said.
In a Thursday conversation with Rogers, Kriss said he was "led to believe" the only details left to clear up were "relatively minor."
Kriss insisted Romney's budget team has provided more information on its proposals than any past administration - or the Legislature.
"We're not trying to hide or obscure anything," Kriss said.
With the budget battles ramping up to next month's release of the House spending plan, the state's largest teachers union unveiled a massive ad blitz yesterday aimed at drumming up support for tax hikes.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association spent $2 million on radio and TV ads, to begin airing Monday, that blast Romney's cuts to local aid and higher education, and warn of teacher layoffs and larger class sizes if revenues aren't raised.
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The Boston Globe
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Legislative leaders say details lacking on Romney budget
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff
In a rebuke to Governor Mitt Romney, the House's top budget writer is accusing the administration of keeping "basic information" about his budget proposals from legislators, possibly forcing them to jettison his central plans because they can't properly analyze them.
House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers sent a letter to Romney's budget chief yesterday saying that about 100 hours of testimony and thousands of pages of paperwork supplied by the administration have produced "more questions than answers."
"The administration's attempts to share information thus far have amounted to little more than press releases and PowerPoint presentations lacking in specifics," Rogers, a Norwood Democrat, wrote to Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss. "We need real numbers, not vague ideas or press releases, so that we may give meaningful consideration to the proposals you ask us to enact."
House leaders will spend the next three weeks completing their own budget document, and Rogers's letter suggests that they may ignore many of Romney's main proposals and cut much more than the governor has proposed. Some in the Legislature may also push to raise taxes, though House leaders have said that is highly unlikely given Romney's promise to veto any tax hike.
Kriss said he was surprised by the letter and taken aback by its "harsh tone" because he thought the administration had developed a good working relationship with members of the Legislature. He said the governor's budget proposal was always meant to be a blueprint that would be refined with the collaboration of the Legislature, and he suggested that the letter may be intended as a "smokescreen that obscures the need for real reform."
"We've provided more detailed information than prior administrations have in support of our budget proposal," Kriss said. "We're not trying to hide or obscure anything. ... I frankly don't know what the rhetoric means."
But Senate Ways and Means chairwoman Therese Murray echoed Rogers's complaints yesterday, saying in an interview that her committee believes that between $400 million and $600 million of Romney's assumed savings through reorganization cannot materialize in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
That money will have to be made up by larger spending cuts, particularly in local aid and in benefits under the state's Medicaid program, she said.
"There's still a lot of questions out there and not a lot of backup for some of the assumptions we've been given," said Murray, a Plymouth Democrat. "This is going to have to have to be an incredibly bleak budget."
The sharp words from Rogers and Murray, two of the most powerful members of the House and Senate, appear to mark a low point in Romney's relations with the Legislature after early weeks when the major players promised to work closely.
Romney's attempts to build support for his budget by appealing to public sentiment for reform has irked some lawmakers, and Rogers said he and other committee members are feeling frustrated by the occasional disconnection between Romney's public statements and private details. Two weeks ago, House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran accused the governor of misleading voters by claiming that his plans accomplish more that they actually do.
Rogers's letter said Romney has failed to describe the extent of his privatization plans; has not explained the values and environmental restrictions on properties he wants to transfer to the state pension fund; has not detailed administrative savings that would come from a merger of the Turnpike Authority and the Highway Department; and has not said what would happen to mentally ill and mentally retarded residents whose facilities would close.
Yesterday was the last public hearing on Romney's budget and House and Senate Ways and Means committees heard six hours of testimony from disabled, poor, and elderly residents who implored them to maintain state services despite a $3 billion budget gap next fiscal year.
Lawmakers heard from waves of people who asked for taxes to be raised, despite the political hurdles any tax hike would face, and the Massachusetts Teachers Association on Monday is launching a $2 million radio and television advertising campaign that asks for revenues to be raised to prevent education cuts.
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The Lowell Sun
Thursday, March 27, 2003
School leaders flunk cuts to education aid
Lawmakers: Level-funding will delay tough choices
By Erik Arvidson
Sun Statehouse Bureau
School superintendents urged lawmakers yesterday to raise taxes to close a $3.2 billion budget gap rather than cut education spending that could lead to program cuts and layoffs of teachers and paraprofessionals.
With potential local aid cuts of 15 to 20 percent looming, educators said schools fear that K-12 education aid will no longer be held harmless as it has in past years.
"If you make these cuts, you could ask, 'What did we spend 10 years of time and effort only to go back to a primitive approach to education?' " said Sheldon H. Berman, president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. "We don't have a place to go. These cuts mean that it's all about teachers and classrooms."
Berman, school superintendent in Hudson, said the country pulled itself out of its economic doldrums in the 1930s partly by investing in education.
"A cut of $3 billion will decimate education reform and decimate the economy," Berman told a House task force that is studying education financing.
But a top deputy to House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran told Berman bluntly that there is not enough support in the House for increased taxes, and that most of the deficit will have to be made up through cutting.
"I have a $3 billion problem," said Rep. Peter J. Larkin, D-Pittsfield, the assistant vice chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. "We're coming off an election where 45 percent of the electorate voted themselves a cut of the entire income tax. We have a governor that has promised no new taxes. I believe in some respects that you have to deal with the rhetoric in front of you."
Larkin said the suggestion by the superintendents' association that the state borrow $1 billion one-third of the total deficit only would delay the tough decisions for a year.
"Borrowing means we'd head into next year with a structural deficit, and that means we'll be back here next year," Larkin said. "That's the frustration we have."
State Rep. Robert A. Hargraves, R-Groton, a task force member, said state leaders are going to have to "bite the bullet" and determine a fair way to spread the cuts.
"I have people in my district who are absolutely deaf on taxes. They're paying enough now. We can't tax our way out of a recession," Hargraves said.
Gov. Mitt Romney's $22.8 billion fiscal 2004 budget proposed cutting local aid by about 5 percent, and made only modest cuts to education. Lawmakers have warned that Romney's local aid cuts didn't go far enough and that his budget is not balanced. Legislators have said cuts of 10 to 20 percent in local aid are possible.
The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents has proposed modest changes to state mandates and regulations to help school districts save costs.
Those include giving cities and towns more flexibility to change health plans for employees without going through collective bargaining, halting the opening of any new charter schools, and releasing districts and communities from the requirement of paying prevailing wages for contracts.
Lowell School Superintendent Karla Brooks Baehr said the Legislature should eliminate the eligibility for school-year employees to collect unemployment during the summer. Lowell spent $200,000 last year on teachers and other school employees who collected unemployment and were called back that fall.
Baehr also said education aid to school districts should be level-funded next year. She pointed to the progress from education reform made by urban districts like Lowell, where 83 percent of students have passed both portions of the
MCAS.
Baehr said districts need flexibility with professional development to keep student-to-teacher ratios at an acceptable level during the fiscal crisis. Baehr said the Legislature should not require schools to put all staff on a path for certification, which is worthwhile but costly.
Charles Lyons, superintendent of Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica, urged lawmakers not to reduce reimbursements to regional school districts for transportation. He said the Romney administration has proposed cutting such funding, and is considering whether to allow districts to charge a fee to families to transport students.
Lyons, who is also an Arlington selectman, said that idea was "crazy." Public school districts have a responsibility to provide a way for students to get to school, he said.
"In some regional school districts, kids are on the buses for 80 minutes. In some districts, transportation costs $800 a pupil," said Lyons, whose Shawsheen district also includes Tewksbury, Wilmington, Bedford and Burlington.
The House is expected to begin debate on Romney's budget proposal by April 30. The Senate will debate it soon after.
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The Boston Globe
Friday, March 28, 2003
House set to take up debate on gambling
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff
In a move that may short-circuit talk of the expansion of gambling in Massachusetts, the House is slated to spend an entire day next month debating the possibility of allowing slot machines and full-scale casinos in the state.
The scheduling of that debate on April 15 -- before the House takes up next year's budget -- could ease the way for the proposals to be defeated by taking the issue out of the context of the state's fiscal crunch.
House leaders say the issue should be considered before the budget, so that lawmakers will be mindful of the state's long-term interests, not just current revenue shortfalls.
But some say the House may be trying to quickly dispatch all casino and slot machine bills to send a message to the Senate and governor that gambling is a dead issue.
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, a Mattapan Democrat, has consistently opposed gambling expansions, and if the House defeats the bills now, the Senate would be hard-pressed to push them later, under legislative rules that prohibit items from coming up twice in the same body in the same legislative term. "It could be a preemptive strike," said state Senator Michael W. Morrissey, a Quincy Democrat who is cochairman of the Legislature's Government Regulations Committee, which has authority over gambling bills. "We need more time, and the discussions should be dictated by how bad the fiscal crisis is. We should know fully the budget picture, and we should have before us all of the options."
At Finneran's urging, the House passed a rule Wednesday that will prevent any amendments that include gambling expansions from being considered when state representatives take up the budget, starting April 30. The April 15 gambling debate was scheduled instead, and it could mark the Legislature's most comprehensive discussion of legalized gambling issues in recent history.
In a break from previous years, Finneran is backing the release of at least one gambling bill to the House floor. That bill could be discussed as soon as Monday, when the committee is scheduled to host a daylong public hearing on gambling-related bills.
"Everybody agrees that given the publicity around this, we need to have a full debate," said state Representative Daniel E. Bosley, a North Adams Democrat who cochairs the committee and has staunchly opposed gambling expansion. "Let's get over this early, so we'll put a bill out that will allow us to debate every corner of gambling."
Finneran's spokesman, Charles Rasmussen, said votes in the House will not be foregone conclusions, despite the expected opposition of the speaker. "If there's enough reps who think there's enough money in there, then we'll pass it," Rasmussen said.
But the House Republican leader, Bradley H. Jones Jr., said the schedule demonstrates that the speaker clearly wants gambling bills to fail. While House members will consider tax increases after the budget is released by Finneran's leadership team, they will not know the extent of possible budget cuts when they vote on gambling matters a few weeks earlier, he said.
"Why aren't those revenue ideas put on the same playing field?" said Jones, of North Reading. "The speaker is stacking the deck."
The next few weeks figure to be dominated by discussions of legalized gambling on Beacon Hill, and myriad options have been offered, all with various social consequences and legal ramifications. In addition to slots at racetracks or other sites and the possibility of privately developed casinos, several Indian tribes are seeking the right to build casinos.
Many lawmakers, meanwhile, say they are wary of damaging the success of the state Lottery, and argue that any revenue the state would derive from gambling would be offset by new costs in public safety and social services.
Governor Mitt Romney said last month that he wants gambling operators in neighboring states to pay Massachusetts to avoid casinos and slots -- which would take away from their business -- but several operators have ruled that out. Romney has said he would allow video slot machines to be installed at several sites if such "blocking payments" prove unworkable.
Support for legalized gambling expansions is stronger in the Senate than in the House. Even if the House rejects gambling bills, the Senate could include gambling expansions in its budget, but such a move could create a major rift with the House when the two sides negotiate the state's final spending plan.
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