CLT
UPDATE
Thursday, April 24, 2003
"No New Taxes" answers
Boston Globe question
Any spending reduction regardless of how insignificant is always followed by howls and laments, blood in the street predictions, the same old hyperbole that's long ago become a generic kneejerk reaction from those with their hands in our pockets, always digging deeper for more, more, more.
Do these special interests honestly think their time-worn ploy still works after all their years of crying wolf? Don't they recall the last round of "compassion fatigue," when their dire forecasts only bored taxpayers just a decade ago, when the state budget was only half its current size? ...
Batten down the hatches and prepare for the next tax hike storm that is surely brewing just over the horizon. The predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth has only just begun over these relatively minor spending cuts, a gust of wind that warns of an approaching tempest.
CLT Update
January 31, 2003
"Bodies and Blood" has returned!
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state's largest teachers' union, has launched a $2 million radio and television ad campaign calling for higher taxes to solve the state's $3 billion budget crisis.
The union ads claim "Armageddon" is at hand for state public schools if lawmakers don't approve another
billion-dollar tax increase, to go along with the unprecedented $1.2 billion tax package approved last July....
It appears the MTA will stoop to any level to squeeze more money from overburdened taxpayers. This is the same group that's reaped higher salaries for the past 10 years, and refuses to make concessions to help municipalities struggling with fiscal problems.
The budget is not Armageddon for teachers, but it will be for taxpayers if the Legislature and the public buy this outrageous pitch....
Since 1992, the state and federal government have provided Massachusetts schools with $25 billion, most of it going to improve teachers' salaries....
If the teachers union is so concerned about public education and the looming Armageddon, it should put its money where its mouth is. It should encourage its 100,000 members to check off the higher, 5.85 percent income tax rate that appears as an option on the state tax return form.
As of April 15, only 738 Massachusetts residents had opted to pay the higher tax rate. We venture to guess not many were teachers.
A Lowell Sun editorial
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Out of touch teachers
A group of workers that will receive some of the largest salary increases in the state next year is using some of its cash to launch a television advertising campaign calling for state tax hikes.
The tin-eared Massachusetts Teachers Association -- a statewide union funded by hundreds of dollars in dues from each of its thousands of members -- has begun airing television commercials after several weeks of radio ads.
"This is the first step," MTA president Catherine A. Boudreau told the Globe, "and when people realize the extent and depth of the cuts, the public will revisit their belief that you don't have to raise revenues."
...
These moves will come even as teachers and other municipal workers who will keep their jobs receive contract-mandated salary increases.
Given the futility of the effort, the MTA's $2 million would have been better spent keeping another 20 or 30 teachers in the classroom.
A MetroWest Daily News editorial
Thursday, April 24, 2003
MTA barking up wrong tree
As mayors painted a bleak future of shuttered fire stations and ballooning class sizes, advocates for the poor, sick and elderly said steep health-care cuts could literally kill.
"We will lose life," said AIDS Action Committee Executive Director Rebecca Haag, of a $1.1 million Medicaid cut that would yank health care from several hundred HIV-positive citizens.
"They won't get health care, they won't get drugs to keep the virus in check. It's serious and can lead to death." ...
"(Seniors) will have to start cutting out some of their food or maybe not pay their rent, or do what the Legislature and the governor want - to die younger," said Massachusetts Senior Action Council President Phil
Mamber. "They've created a budget from hell." ...
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer predicted "thousands" of teachers, cops and firefighters would be laid off as a result of the budget....
Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn, president of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, bluntly predicted tax-averse lawmakers will soften up once the impact of the cuts begins to sink in.
"My faith is in (House Speaker Thomas M.) Finneran and (Senate President Robert E.) Travaglini," McGlynn said. "In the end, I think their membership is going to come forward with some type of (tax hike) package."
Finneran has so-far declared taxes dead on arrival, but Travaglini has raised the specter. Even House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers (D-Norwood) said he personally supports tax hikes.
Thousands of activists are expected to descend on the State House next Wednesday as House lawmakers debate the budget - and an array of tax-hiking plans....
Romney Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss said the tax-hike option is tapped out, after last year's $1.2 billion tax package.
"How many times can you go back to the same well?" Kriss asked. "That's wholly irresponsible."
The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Pink slips loom:
House budget cuts could costs jobs, health care
The $22.5 billion budget proposal was met with a huge outcry from advocates for the poor and disabled, cities and towns, and educators, who said the House should raise taxes instead of slashing so deeply....
The House plan would severely cut a number of health care programs, eliminating methadone treatment and the state's anti-smoking program, and imposing
copayments, eligibility restrictions, and limits on prescription drug spending for Medicaid recipients.
Despite those changes, the Medicaid budget would grow by $400 million....
Several mayors predicted that property taxes would skyrocket and cities and towns would have to lay off huge numbers of teachers, police officers, and firefighters if the state doesn't find additional revenue....
The Ways and Means proposal would drop overall state spending by several hundred million dollars in fiscal 2004, which begins July 1. Spending has increased every year since 1992, the end of the last fiscal crisis.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 24, 2003
School aid, drugs top list of cuts
House budget would curtail care programs, boost Medicaid
The House budget eliminates funding for methadone treatment programs and reduces funding for group homes for the mentally ill and residential programs for recovering addicts.
"The sky is falling," said Elizabeth Funk of the Natick-based Mental Health and Substance Abuse Corporations of Massachusetts. "It's worse than I thought it was going to be."
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, April 24, 2003
House budget proposes cuts of $2.3 billion,
doesn't raise taxes
Rogers, a six-term incumbent who has not had an opponent in eight years, is one of a number of influential members of House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's leadership throwing fund-raisers this spring, tapping special interests most affected by legislation before them.
Critics call the events unseemly and a blatant reminder of the nexus of money and political power on Beacon Hill....
"It is incredible that while these important issues are being discussed, these leaders who have important positions in determining certain issues are soliciting from lobbyists who are involved in the issues," said Colin
Durrant, assistant director of Common Cause of Massachusetts, a public interest group that monitors ethics and campaign fund-raising at the State House....
"It is a longstanding tradition for the top legislative leaders to hold fund-raisers at the height of the budget debate and committee hearings," said George Pillsbury, director of Money and Politics Project, a nonprofit research group that studies the role of money in campaigns. "John Rogers is not alone in this tradition of trying to leverage contributions from lobbyists and special interest donors who depend on his decisions."
The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Fiscal talks coincide with key fund-raisers
State spending in the booming 1990s increased almost $3 billion above the rate of inflation. Even with 45 tax cuts and generous deposits into the rainy day fund, spending grew too much, too fast. Programs were adopted and expanded without much heed paid to their long-term affordability. The turtle of fiscal prudence has finally caught up with the exuberant hare.
The cynic in us fears the House cuts are a feint to build pressure for tax increases. But House Speaker Tom Finneran is emphatic that new taxes are off the table.
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, April 24, 2003
House budget best at cutting spending
Without new revenues, Massachusetts residents will have to become resigned to living in a state that is less progressive, less innovative, and less compassionate than the state their parents lived in. Is that the kind of state Massachusetts wants to be? The answer needs to come from every resident.
A Boston Globe editorial
Thursday, April 24, 2003
A state of denial
Our students' future - and perhaps the very future competitiveness of our state - are the potential victims of the House Ways & Means budget as it is currently crafted. The committee members had other choices. Taxes should be raised and loopholes eliminated before the state makes cuts in public education that will reverse a decade of progress.
Massachusetts Teachers Association
April 23, 2003
Statement of MTA President Catherine A. Boudreau
in reaction to House Ways & Means budget
"This is a bad news budget for our communities, our schoolchildren, and everyone who cares about police and fire protection, fiscal stability and a good quality of life here in Massachusetts," said Geoffrey C. Beckwith, the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "If these massive local aid cuts go through, people across the state will see their local services decline and their property taxes go up."
Massachusetts Municipal Association
April 23, 2003
MMA statement on the House Ways & Means Committee's
Fiscal Year 2004 budget proposal
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Here they come -- the orchestrated "howls and laments, blood in the street
predictions" that we forecast back in January have arrived on
schedule, as anticipated.
"'Armageddon' is at hand for state public schools."
"We will lose life."
"They won't get health care, they won't get drugs to keep the virus in check. It's serious and can lead to death."
"(Seniors) will have to start cutting out some of their food or maybe not pay their rent, or do what the Legislature and the governor want - to die
younger."
"Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer predicted
'thousands' of teachers, cops and firefighters would be laid off as a result of the budget."
(MTF made this same dire prediction back in 1980 when it opposed
Proposition 2½.)
"The sky is falling."
"If these massive local aid cuts go through, people across the state will see their local services decline and their property taxes go
up," threatened Massachusetts Municipal Association executive
director Geoffrey Beckwith, echoed last night by North Adams Mayor
"Blustering John" Barrett on New England Cable News'
"Talk of New England."
Property taxes already go up regularly, but
fortunately cannot rise more than 2.5 percent a year plus
new growth. CLT and the voters have already protected themselves
from that false threat with Proposition 2½, so this is just another
silly doomsday warning: "Repent, repent, the end is near!"
Property taxes go up even in the best of times
through reevaluation -- and when local taxpayers are in a tax-me-and-my-neighbors-more
mood, through Prop 2½ overrides and debt exclusions, School Building
Assistance and Community Preservation Act boondoggles.
The above quotes are real, actually made by allegedly
responsible people, but people with an agenda. That agenda is More Is
Never Enough, and never will be ... until they have every cent in our
pockets.
For once, a Boston Globe editorial is asking the
right question: "Is that the kind of state Massachusetts wants to be? The answer needs to come from every resident."
Every taxpayer -- but for the 800 or so who chose the
higher tax rate through our voluntary tax check-off on their income tax
returns -- already has unambiguously answered that stale
question.
The Globe editorial elite have yet to recognize that
resounding, near-unanimous decision.
I doubt they can and ever will.
|
|
|
Chip
Ford |
The Lowell Sun
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Editorial
Out of touch teachers
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state's largest teachers' union, has launched a $2 million radio and television ad campaign calling for higher taxes to solve the state's $3 billion budget crisis.
The union ads claim "Armageddon" is at hand for state public schools if lawmakers don't approve another
billion-dollar tax increase, to go along with the unprecedented $1.2 billion tax package approved last July.
The union is saying schools and teachers can't live with the same amount of money they received two years ago, or else it's "Armageddon."
According to Webster's, "Armageddon" is "the place where the last, decisive battle between the forces of good and evil is to be fought before Judgment Day." Mountains will explode, earthquakes will consume cities and towns, great fires will erupt.
Don't think so.
It appears the MTA will stoop to any level to squeeze more money from overburdened taxpayers. This is the same group that's reaped higher salaries for the past 10 years, and refuses to make concessions to help municipalities struggling with fiscal problems.
The budget is not Armageddon for teachers, but it will be for taxpayers if the Legislature and the public buy this outrageous pitch.
Here are the facts.
Since 1992, the state and federal government have provided Massachusetts schools with $25 billion, most of it going to improve teachers' salaries.
Massachusetts now ranks fifth in the nation for state tax burden per capita. When federal taxes are included, Massachusetts ranks second.
Massachusetts ranks fourth in the nation in per pupil spending, based on local and state taxes per capita.
Tax Freedom Day, the day all local, state and federal tax obligations are paid off by the average worker, arrives this year in Massachusetts on May 2, the second-worst ranking in the country. Bay State residents now work 41 days to pay taxes.
Massachusetts doesn't need a tax increase to meet educational obligations. What residents need is for the MTA and the Legislature to give them a break, so they can catch up and provide for their families. The thousands of residents who are out of work need relief from higher taxes and their own personal "Armageddon."
Another huge tax increase could cause major damage to the state's business community.
Today, the Massachusetts House delivers its own version of the 2004 state budget. It includes a mix of spending cuts and government reforms but no new taxes to close the budget gap. We urge lawmakers to stick to the plan and work with Gov. Mitt Romney to give residents what they really want: a less expensive, more efficient government.
If the teachers union is so concerned about public education and the looming Armageddon, it should put its money where its mouth is. It should encourage its 100,000 members to check off the higher, 5.85 percent income tax rate that appears as an option on the state tax return form.
As of April 15, only 738 Massachusetts residents had opted to pay the higher tax rate. We venture to guess not many were teachers.
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The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Editorial
MTA barking up wrong tree
A group of workers that will receive some of the largest salary increases in the state next year is using some of its cash to launch a television advertising campaign calling for state tax hikes.
The tin-eared Massachusetts Teachers Association -- a statewide union funded by hundreds of dollars in dues from each of its thousands of members -- has begun airing television commercials after several weeks of radio ads.
"This is the first step," MTA president Catherine A. Boudreau told the Globe, "and when people realize the extent and depth of the cuts, the public will revisit their belief that you don't have to raise revenues."
There will be rallies on the State House steps calling for tax hikes, but the majority of the signs will be held by those whose jobs depend on public spending.
The "Stop Cuts -- Raise Taxes" rally planned for next Wednesday will draw hundreds of teachers and other government and quasi-government employees.
The rest of Massachusetts will be at work -- or looking for work.
The $2 million MTA advertising campaign is designed to soften up the public as the Legislature and Gov. Mitt Romney bring the state budget in line with the economic reality faced by most Massachusetts families: It's time to spend less -- or at least slow the pace of spending increases.
The free-spending 1990s are over, and the House budget released yesterday acknowledges that fact, cutting even deeper than the budget proposed by Romney.
The House's $22.5 billion plan includes $2.3 billion in cuts and $730 million in new revenue -- mostly in higher fees.
About 15 percent -- $9 million -- will be cut from the police salary-padding Quinn Bill.
About $170 million would be cut from higher education.
House Speaker Thomas Finneran wants to add a package aimed at attracting high-tech companies and jobs. And the Speaker wants to reauthorize the investment tax credit to spur new businesses.
"The only way to find a cure for our current situation is to get the economy back on track," said Finneran.
The House plan accepts some of the reforms Romney has proposed, but rejects others, including the governor's plan to close the offices of University Massachusetts President William
Bulger.
The House also would can Romney's plan to merge the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with the state highway system.
Romney will now begin negotiations to salvage more of his cost-saving reforms, but the governor and House leaders are unlikely to be swayed by the MTA campaign for higher taxes, fewer cuts.
It is further unlikely that Massachusetts voters who overwhelmingly put Romney into office will now push in any great numbers for tax hikes, even as the impact of the cuts is felt in the coming months.
Towns have already absorbed state cuts and are planning for more.
The cuts are painful -- no one wants to see people, particularly young teachers, lose their jobs -- but tax hikes are off the table this year.
The House would cut $150 million from local aid -- about 4.6 percent. This is a good chunk, but not the "Armageddon" forecast by budget fear-mongers.
Town workers -- including teachers -- will be out of work.
At least one school -- Juniper Hill in Framingham -- will be closed.
These moves will come even as teachers and other municipal workers who will keep their jobs receive contract-mandated salary increases.
Given the futility of the effort, the MTA's $2 million would have been better spent keeping another 20 or 30 teachers in the classroom.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Pink slips loom:
House budget cuts could costs jobs, health care
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Thousands of teachers, cops and firefighters statewide are facing the prospect of pink slips under a stripped-down House spending plan that yesterday sparked a pro-tax clamor among critics who called it the "budget from hell."
As mayors painted a bleak future of shuttered fire stations and ballooning class sizes, advocates for the poor, sick and elderly said steep health-care cuts could literally kill.
"We will lose life," said AIDS Action Committee Executive Director Rebecca Haag, of a $1.1 million Medicaid cut that would yank health care from several hundred HIV-positive citizens.
"They won't get health care, they won't get drugs to keep the virus in check. It's serious and can lead to death."
The $22.5 billion House spending plan, formally unveiled yesterday, raises $800 million in fees and one-time revenues. But it closes the vast majority of a $3 billion budget with steep cuts to health care for the poor, education and local aid, while ending a popular prescription drug program for 80,000 seniors.
"(Seniors) will have to start cutting out some of their food or maybe not pay their rent, or do what the Legislature and the governor want - to die younger," said Massachusetts Senior Action Council President Phil
Mamber. "They've created a budget from hell."
First detailed in yesterday's Herald, the House budget for the next fiscal year slashes school aid by $150 million, and other local aid by $180 million.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer predicted "thousands" of teachers, cops and firefighters would be laid off as a result of the budget. While House leaders gave no official estimate, aides said the budget could result in as many as 5,000 layoffs.
The pain of the local aid cuts varied widely, with most communities absorbing 20 percent reductions in their school aid while others - notably, Boston - escaped relatively unscathed.
The capital city lost only 2.4 percent of its school money under the House budget - a $5 million hit on a $205 million account.
Overall, the House clipped only $19.6 million from Boston's total local aid package of $438.3 million, a 4.5 percent cut.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino's budget director, Lisa Signori, said she's "cautiously optimistic" about the House's local aid proposal for the Hub.
"Some of the cuts don't look as big as we anticipated," she said.
Others weren't so lucky.
Medford lost $2.5 million of its school aid, a 20 percent cut. And the House budget slashes another $900,000, or 6.7 percent, from the city's other local aid accounts.
Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn, president of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, bluntly predicted tax-averse lawmakers will soften up once the impact of the cuts begins to sink in.
"My faith is in (House Speaker Thomas M.) Finneran and (Senate President Robert E.) Travaglini," McGlynn said. "In the end, I think their membership is going to come forward with some type of (tax hike) package."
Finneran has so-far declared taxes dead on arrival, but Travaglini has raised the specter. Even House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers (D-Norwood) said he personally supports tax hikes.
Thousands of activists are expected to descend on the State House next Wednesday as House lawmakers debate the budget - and an array of tax-hiking plans.
But top aides to Gov. Mitt Romney denounced the tax talk. They said voters issued a "mandate" for major reforms - and no new taxes - when they elected the Republican Romney.
Romney Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss said the tax-hike option is tapped out, after last year's $1.2 billion tax package.
"How many times can you go back to the same well?" Kriss asked. "That's wholly irresponsible."
While House leaders said they're not pursuing tax hikes, they sprinkled $390 million worth of fee increases through the budget - hitting up everyone from cops and criminals to the blind.
About $40 million of the fee increases would fall on court transactions, and new levies are included on birth certificates and marriage licenses.
Despite the tax condemnation, Kriss called the House budget an "excellent first step."
While House leaders claimed their budget was $360 million less than Romney's, Kriss said the bottom lines are nearly identical since the House, for accounting purposes, pulled several spending items outside the traditional operating budget.
Kriss criticized the House for slashing $170 million from higher education while ignoring Romney's proposed reforms to that sector as well as transportation and workforce management.
"There's a long road ahead and much work to be done," Kriss said.
Rogers defended the budget as "honest and transparent and balanced."
"If we start to sugarcoat the fiscal reality, then we do no service to ourselves, and more importantly, to the people we serve," Rogers said.
The House budget slashes virtually every government program and obliterates some completely - including the $127 million Prescription Advantage program that provides drug coverage to 80,000 seniors.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 24, 2003
School aid, drugs top list of cuts
House budget would curtail care programs, boost Medicaid
By Rick Klein and Alice Dembner, Globe Staff
Trying to dig their way out of a $3 billion budget hole without raising taxes, House leaders yesterday proposed a bleak spending plan for the next fiscal year, slashing school funding for the first time in a decade and eliminating the first-in-the-nation prescription drug program for senior citizens, among many other cuts.
The $22.5 billion budget proposal was met with a huge outcry from advocates for the poor and disabled, cities and towns, and educators, who said the House should raise taxes instead of slashing so deeply.
The House plan would severely cut a number of health care programs, eliminating methadone treatment and the state's anti-smoking program, and imposing
copayments, eligibility restrictions, and limits on prescription drug spending for Medicaid recipients.
Despite those changes, the Medicaid budget would grow by $400 million.
The House move to end the prescription drug program, which served 80,000 people in the state, touched off immediate opposition.
"It's a very dark day for seniors in the Commonwealth," said Deborah Banda, state director of the AARP. "The governor has abandoned them and now the House has as well."
Local officials were also unhappy. The House plan would cut education funding by 5 percent, or $150 million, and other local aid by 6 percent, or $76 million.
Several mayors predicted that property taxes would skyrocket and cities and towns would have to lay off huge numbers of teachers, police officers, and firefighters if the state doesn't find additional revenue.
Advocates for the poor and disabled said the House budget highlights the need for tax increases this year.
"This would just disintegrate an incredibly fragile health care system," said Allison
Staton, a spokeswoman for Health Care for All. "We would implore the House to reconsider its position on revenues. Too many lives are at stake."
But House Ways and Means Committee chairman John H. Rogers said the state's dismal fiscal situation must be met with an aggressive mix of budget cuts and efficiency-driven reforms. He said legislative leaders can no longer avoid reining in politically favored programs.
"This $3 billion structural deficit that the Commonwealth faces is like a 300-pound fullback at the line of scrimmage," said Rogers, a Norwood Democrat. "We must take it on and hit it hard, or we will as a Commonwealth be hit by it."
The proposal raises no broad-based taxes, but it includes $730 million in new revenues through the closing of tax loopholes and increased fees and fines. Liberal Democrats are expected to propose tax increases when the debate on the budget begins on the House floor next week, though Rogers said he expects rank-and-file members to reject those measures.
The plan also calls for refinancing the state's debt to free up $600 million in cash for discretionary accounts.
House budget analysts said their spending plan would probably eliminate between 3,000 and 5,000 state jobs, though they said job losses would depend on how cuts are implemented by individual agency managers.
The Ways and Means proposal would drop overall state spending by several hundred million dollars in fiscal 2004, which begins July 1. Spending has increased every year since 1992, the end of the last fiscal crisis.
Rogers said his plan would have the state spend $360 million less than the Romney administration has proposed, but the governor's aides disputed that contention. They said the House is not counting revenue from proposed new nursing home and pharmacy fees, and that the two documents would actually spend almost exactly the same amount.
State Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss applauded the House for following the governor's lead on restructuring health and human services, the courts, and environmental agencies. But he said legislators were cutting spending elsewhere without restructuring government, especially in the areas of local aid and higher education. He said the governor would still fight for his ideas.
"It's a good first step, but there's a long road ahead, and much work to be done," Kriss said. "The mandate was for substantial, fundamental change. It was for reform."
Many of the underpinnings of Governor Mitt Romney's budget proposal were rejected by House leaders, who accused him of making unrealistic savings assumptions. They also ignored several of his key government reform initiatives, including his bid to merge the Turnpike Authority with the Highway Department, revamp the higher education system in part by abolishing the office of University of Massachusetts president William M.
Bulger, and remove thousands of supervisory workers from public-employee unions.
Aside from a few other areas such as public safety, where State Police overtime and other costs are driving up spending by $11.5 million, most agencies in state government would be level-funded or cut by 5 to 10 percent in the House Ways and Means budget.
Generally speaking, the House is proposing deeper cuts than Romney, primarily because its leaders are relying less on one-time revenues and are assuming less savings through restructuring.
But Kriss said he was struck by how similar the governor's budget and the Ways and Means proposal appear.
The education cuts, in particular, could set up a conflict with the Senate, where members have been fiercely protective of K-12 funding in recent years. Senate Ways and Means chairwoman Therese Murray said yesterday that it's too soon to tell how the Senate version of the budget would differ, but said it will not be able to avoid a "devastating" impact on vulnerable residents.
"All of us have the same bottom line, but how we come to that may be different," said Murray, a Plymouth Democrat.
Among other moves, the House budget would also:
Launch a pilot program to make it easier to privatize some transportation and higher education administration services.
Prop up state spending by $90 million by emptying dozens of small trust funds.
After the House completes work on the budget early next month, the Senate will work to finalize its version, and the two sides are aiming to work out their differences in time for the July 1 start of the next fiscal year. Romney will then review the budget and has the power to veto individual line-items of state spending if he finds them objectionable.
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The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, April 24, 2003
House budget proposes cuts of $2.3 billion,
doesn't raise taxes
By Michael Kunzelman
Leaders of the House of Representatives released a bare-bones blueprint for the state budget yesterday, a plan that would slash $150 million in aid to local schools, cut funding for colleges by 20 percent and eliminate a broad array of programs and social services.
The $22.49 billion House budget proposal calls for about $2.3 billion in cuts and raises fees by $390 million, but doesn't propose any tax increases.
The House plan eliminates funding for methadone treatment, prescription drug coverage and MCAS tutoring.
Education bonuses to police officers, offered through the controversial Quinn bill, would be reduced by about 15 percent under the House plan.
Cities and towns would have to absorb deep cuts in state aid, including a $150 million reduction in Chapter 70 funding for local schools. Some communities could lose up to 20 percent of their Chapter 70 funding.
Higher education also is on the House chopping block. All state colleges, including Framingham State, would face a 20 percent cut in funding.
Although House leaders have said tax increases aren't a viable option this year, some rank-and-file lawmakers plan to file amendments that would hike taxes to avoid deep budget cuts.
House lawmakers have until Friday afternoon to file amendments. Debate on the House floor is expected to begin next Wednesday.
House Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers, a Norwood Democrat, said the House budget is an "honest, transparent and balanced" way of closing the state's $3 billion deficit.
For months, House leaders have repeatedly warned local officials that the budget deficit would require painful cuts.
"It's as bad as we expected," said state Rep. Deborah Blumer, D-Framingham. "It's going to hurt real people, real children and senior citizens, across the board."
House leaders said their plan reduces state spending by about $360 million more than Gov. Mitt Romney has proposed.
Romney's budget chief, Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss, offered a slightly different assessment. He said the House plan spends roughly $15 million more than Romney's.
"It's a good first step, but there's a long road ahead," Kriss said.
According to Rogers, no city or town would lose more than 20 percent of its Chapter 70 school funding. And no community would have its Lottery aid or additional assistance cut by more than 15 percent, he added.
In Framingham, town officials had crafted a budget based on a 10 percent cut in local aid. Town Manager George King said Framingham's share of the House local-aid cut is about $3 million deeper than the 10 percent they anticipated.
"It's bad, really of a historical proportion, as far as I'm concerned," King said.
King said layoffs of town employees, including police officers and firefighters, are "almost a foregone conclusion" if the House cuts are implemented.
Framingham already has closed an elementary school, but Superintendent Mark Smith said a 20 percent cut in Chapter 70 funding could force the town to consider closing a second school.
"Overall, the House budget may be less positive for us than the governor's, but I also don't believe the governor's budget was based on a sound analysis," Smith added.
Natick Town Administrator Phil Lemnios said the town prepared for a 15 percent cut in local aid. Natick would receive about $10 million in local aid under the House budget, about $400,000 less than planned.
"The attitude we're taking is that we're not going to wring our hands over this. We're going to get the job done," Lemnios said.
House leaders ignored many of Romney's plans for restructuring state government, including his plan to merge the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with the state Highway Department and his proposal to eliminate UMass President William Bulger's office.
Both budgets, however, would eliminate the popular Prescription Advantage drug program.
"That was a surprise to me," said state Rep. Stephen LeDuc, D-Marlborough. "I thought we were going to be able to keep it intact....The program really has been beneficial to a large segment of the population."
The House budget eliminates funding for methadone treatment programs and reduces funding for group homes for the mentally ill and residential programs for recovering addicts.
"The sky is falling," said Elizabeth Funk of the Natick-based Mental Health and Substance Abuse Corporations of Massachusetts. "It's worse than I thought it was going to be."
Advocates Inc. in Framingham provides housing and support services to approximately 250 people suffering from severe mental illnesses. The House cuts could force many of those people to move into hospitals, said Advocates President and CEO Bill Taylor.
The House budget also:
l Fully funds the special education "circuit-breaker" that reimburses school districts for the cost of placing students in residential programs.
"That's one of the few areas of the budget I'm proud of," said state Rep. David
Linsky, D-Natick.
l Eliminates funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs, summer jobs for at-risk youths, local and regional tourism grants and domestic violence prevention.
l Reduces funding for MCAS tutoring by 80 percent.
l Eliminates transportation reimbursements for non-regional public schools.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Fiscal talks coincide with key fund-raisers
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff
Just hours before the House begins its budget debate, Representative John Rogers, the Ways and Means Committee chairman who holds great sway over the plan, will host a fund-raising event filled with Beacon Hill's most influential lobbyists.
Rogers, who raised $75,000 for his political committee last year during the legislative budget process, has blanketed State House lobbyists with invitations to his fund-raiser Tuesday night at the restaurant that for decades has been the favorite of the political establishment, Anthony's Pier 4.
Rogers, a six-term incumbent who has not had an opponent in eight years, is one of a number of influential members of House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's leadership throwing fund-raisers this spring, tapping special interests most affected by legislation before them.
Critics call the events unseemly and a blatant reminder of the nexus of money and political power on Beacon Hill.
The night before Rogers's event, Finneran's top lieutenant, majority leader Salvatore F.
DiMasi, a Boston Democrat, is holding a fund-raiser at Tecce's Ballroom in the North End.
On May 1, state Representative Paul C. Casey, a Winchester Democrat who cochairs the Taxation Committee that is considering several bills to repeal corporate tax breaks, is holding a fund-raising event at Anthony's Pier 4. The chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, James E.
Vallee, a Franklin Democrat, hosts an event at a private office near the State House on Tuesday morning.
"It is incredible that while these important issues are being discussed, these leaders who have important positions in determining certain issues are soliciting from lobbyists who are involved in the issues," said Colin
Durrant, assistant director of Common Cause of Massachusetts, a public interest group that monitors ethics and campaign fund-raising at the State House.
Rogers's aides said he was not available for comment yesterday. His campaign chairman, Thomas H.
Drummy, said the timing was a "bad coincidence" and that the lawmaker was not involved in the scheduling.
"He blasted me for that," Drummy said, noting he booked the restaurant and printed the invitations weeks ago. "I wasn't following the budget. He was not particularly happy, but by the time he found out I had everything printed."
A year ago, Finneran created an uproar when he slipped away from the House budget debate to greet guests who came to pay him tribute -- and write out checks to his already bulging campaign committee account -- at Pier 4. As is the case each year, Finneran's fund-raiser was flooded with lobbyists and others with business before the state.
Rogers's fund-raising just before his committee released the annual state budget was heavily dominated by lobbyists, their clients, and others who have business before the state -- a typical list for those in positions of power in the House or Senate. Running unopposed, Rogers raised more than $75,000 in 2002.
This year, he has hired a professional fund-raising outfit, Mass Strategy Group. A partner at the group, Colleen Burgess, who headed up former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Shannon O'Brien's fund-raising effort, is organizing Rogers's Tuesday event.
"It is a longstanding tradition for the top legislative leaders to hold fund-raisers at the height of the budget debate and committee hearings," said George Pillsbury, director of Money and Politics Project, a nonprofit research group that studies the role of money in campaigns. "John Rogers is not alone in this tradition of trying to leverage contributions from lobbyists and special interest donors who depend on his decisions."
Indeed, lobbyists, none of whom wanted to be quoted by name, said yesterday they have been inundated with invitations to events this spring, ranging from those for the most influential lawmakers to back-benchers. Until recently, only top legislative leaders would hold fund-raisers in Boston, but more and more rank-and-file legislators or those who chair minor committees are finding they, too, can tap into the special interests and lobbyists.
"I have a pile of them from people who couldn't get me a cup of coffee," one veteran lobbyist said of the invitations to fund-raisers. "It's silly season."
The flurry of fund-raising activity also comes as the House releases a budget that contains no funding for Clean Elections, the voter-approved law that provides public funding for candidates. The sweeping reform rattled Beacon Hill where legislators, most of whom face nominal opposition each year or none at all, feared that they would be seriously challenged for reelection.
Clean Elections was aimed at reducing the influence of special interests in state politics by providing qualified candidates allowing them to run without depending on private donations. As Finneran blocked any funding for the law last year, the Supreme Judicial Court stepped in and ordered the state to sell property to raise money for Clean Elections qualified candidates. One gubernatorial candidate, Warren
Tolman, qualified and received $3.7 million but lost in the Democratic primary.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 24, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
House budget best at cutting spending
Gov. Mitt Romney gets it half right when he says that the fiscal crisis offers an unprecedented opportunity to restructure and reform state government. It also offers an unprecedented opportunity to cut spending to sustainable levels - a feat that is politically impossible in boom times. On that score, the House budget trumps Romney's.
The House budget proposal actually reduces year to year spending by $300 million, while Romney's plan boosts it slightly by $124 million. Granted, that's a tiny increase compared to years past, but Romney now finds himself in the rather odd position of siding with the special interests who criticize the House budget for cutting too deeply. It's the wrong side to be on.
State spending in the booming 1990s increased almost $3 billion above the rate of inflation. Even with 45 tax cuts and generous deposits into the rainy day fund, spending grew too much, too fast. Programs were adopted and expanded without much heed paid to their long-term affordability. The turtle of fiscal prudence has finally caught up with the exuberant hare.
The cynic in us fears the House cuts are a feint to build pressure for tax increases. But House Speaker Tom Finneran is emphatic that new taxes are off the table.
Also, Finneran did accede to a decent chunk of Romney's reform measures. Gone are the Metropolitan District Commission and the unwieldy human services bureaucracy. Romney gets his superstructure cabinet and a weakened Pacheco law.
Eligibility is tightened for the runaway Medicaid program. State employees pay more for their health care. And the House, in a not so subtle jab at reformer Romney, begins to pare back the Quinn bill.
Finneran was wrong to largely take a pass on the higher education system, leaving UMass President William Bulger's post untouched. And the time to overhaul the inefficient court system is clearly now.
But by rejecting tax increases, Finneran demonstrates (albeit belatedly) an innate understanding that the path out of the state's fiscal woods is through economic revival. Job-killing tax hikes will only make matters worse.
So let's give Finneran and House Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers their due. They understood their task. Cutting ain't the easy way, but when it comes to balancing budgets, it's the right way.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 24, 2003
A Boston Globe editorial
A state of denial
House budget leaders threw away the rose-colored glasses yesterday and began a conversation on what kind of state Massachusetts wants to be. It is already tough talk. The House Ways and Means Committee budget closes a $3 billion projected gap between revenues and spending with no apparent gimmicks and little grace. It slices state aid to local communities, including $150 million in school assistance. It shuts down the $127 million senior pharmacy prescription program, which provides drugs for 80,000 people who are disabled or elderly. It eliminates the $11 million Division of Family Health Services, which provides outreach and direct care to thousands of poor children and their parents.
"This budget makes a case for how bad things are," said John Rogers, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. "If we start to sugarcoat the fiscal reality, we do no service to the people of Massachusetts."
A close look at the item-by-item adjustments in the House plan is a bracing reminder of how much state government actually does for its citizens. There are reductions in day programs for the blind and mentally disabled and deep cuts in AIDS, hepatitis C, smoking cessation, and substance abuse programs. There is a significant reduction in the number of beds for the homeless mentally ill. There will be less money for hazardous waste cleanup, clean air and toxic materials inspections, and recreation and water conservation. The budget eliminates funding for methadone treatment for drug addicts. Waiting lists will grow for people seeking literacy classes, day care slots, and mental health services.
Rogers said the House budget tries to maintain an emphasis on prevention, so it level-funds breast cancer screening, home care for the elderly, and full day kindergarten. But it eliminates programs in teen pregnancy prevention, transitional housing subsidies for homeless individuals, domestic violence prevention, and a $5 million home parenting program for new families. It eliminates an $18 million program to reduce class size in kindergarten through Grade 3 in low income communities, a prevention program if ever there was one.
Rogers called the budget "transparent," and on one point it is crystal clear: These are the costs of not raising taxes. With historic reductions in revenue -- because of a soft economy, yes, but also because of 42 separate tax cuts over the last 12 years that have reduced the state's wallet by billions -- Massachusetts faces permanently reduced circumstances.
Without new revenues, Massachusetts residents will have to become resigned to living in a state that is less progressive, less innovative, and less compassionate than the state their parents lived in. Is that the kind of state Massachusetts wants to be? The answer needs to come from every resident.
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Massachusetts Teachers Association
Statement of MTA President Catherine A. Boudreau
in reaction to House Ways & Means budget
April 23, 2003
Our students' future - and perhaps the very future competitiveness of our state - are the potential victims of the House Ways & Means budget as it is currently crafted. The committee members had other choices. Taxes should be raised and loopholes eliminated before the state makes cuts in public education that will reverse a decade of progress.
Having a quality system of public education is the most powerful antipoverty program, the most effective crime-fighting strategy, and the most successful economic development initiative for Massachusetts.
Providing adequate state resources for public education is not just good economics, it is the law. The 1993 Education Reform Act made an unambiguous promise to public school students in the Commonwealth - that it would provide "a consistent commitment of resources sufficient to provide a high quality public education to every child." It is clear that this budget proposal does not meet that obligation.
From kindergarten right through our system of public colleges and the University, education is what drives our state's knowledge-based economy. Cutting state costs is one thing. But by cutting investments in education, you are taking away the very fuel of an economic recovery - an educated workforce. Polling data shows that the public recognizes the value of investing in public education, and that strong investments in public education are a key strategy in maintaining our state's competitiveness in the global economy.
Drastic cuts to local aid would derail the progress we have made in the last decade of education reform. They would result in layoffs, larger class sizes, fewer students being able to afford college and the elimination of many programs and course offerings - all things that we know beyond any doubt will have long-term negative effects on the quality of our system of public education.
When the choice is between raising revenues and dramatically cutting funding for public schools the public has consistently favored protecting education. Taxes should be raised and loopholes eliminated before the state cuts investments in public education, which would reverse years of progress.
There are no easy decisions when trying to close a deficit, but the House Ways & Means Committee strategy would be a bad choice for Massachusetts with significant, long-term negative results. To avoid those consequences, educators, parents and others who value our system of public education will mount a vigorous effort to persuade lawmakers to raise the revenues required to avoid devastating the quality of public education in Massachusetts.
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Massachusetts Municipal Association
MMA statement on the House Ways & Means Committee's
Fiscal Year 2004 budget proposal
April 23, 2003
House Budget Would Cut $292 Million From Cities and Towns
Municipal Services and Education Aid Cut - Property Tax Burden Increases
BOSTON - The House Ways and Means Committee budget proposal for fiscal year 2004 would slash direct Cherry Sheet local aid to cities and towns by $292 million. Chapter 70 education aid would be cut by $151 million, direct general government local aid funded through the Lottery and Additional Assistance would go down by $69 million, and millions more would be cut from other key local aid accounts. These cuts come on the heels of $114 million in unilateral mid-year local aid cuts already enacted by Gov. Mitt Romney.
"This is a bad news budget for our communities, our schoolchildren, and everyone who cares about police and fire protection, fiscal stability and a good quality of life here in Massachusetts," said Geoffrey C. Beckwith, the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "If these massive local aid cuts go through, people across the state will see their local services decline and their property taxes go up."
The House budget committee plan takes a very different approach to local aid than was proposed by Gov. Romney in House One, but the cuts would still force the layoffs of thousands of municipal and school employees statewide, cause dramatic cuts in essential local services, and big property tax increases. If enacted, 181 school districts across Massachusetts would face extraordinary 20% cuts in Chapter 70 school aid, cuts that would turn back the clock on many important local education reform initiatives.
Cities and towns rely on local aid accounts to pay for core essential services that are delivered directly to the citizens of Massachusetts. These services include educating our children, policing the streets, fighting fires, responding to emergencies, collecting the trash, maintaining safe roads, operating public libraries, providing health and safety inspections of businesses, providing safe drinking water and sewer services, and much more.
This dramatic reduction in local aid would force sweeping reductions in municipal services and public education and cause fiscal uncertainty throughout the state. Unless the cuts are reversed, the MMA predicts that there will be thousands of layoffs of police, fire, school, public works and general government personnel.
The property tax currently pays for 48% of all local budgets statewide. The local aid cuts proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee, and by the Governor, would force many cities and towns to further increase their reliance on regressive property taxes in order to pay for local services. "The state budget debate does put taxes on the table - unfortunately, it's the property tax that state leaders seem to support the most," said Beckwith. "We believe that the state should consider fairer and less regressive taxes as a part of comprehensive solution to the budget crisis."
The MMA supports a multi-year solution to the fiscal crisis that relies on a prudent balance of reserves, reductions, reforms and new state tax revenues. A copy of that plan is available online at www.mmaplan.org.
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