CLT
UPDATE
Saturday, May 10, 2003
House passes budget; supports
business-as-usual
At 11:15 pm Thursday, the House voted 128-29 to approve an approximately $22.5 billion budget that cuts a wide swath through government services but does not hike taxes to close a projected $3 billion deficit for fiscal year 2004.
Most Republican lawmakers voted against the bill, protesting what their leader said was a lawmaking process that saw Democrats accept many of their budget ideas but also use procedural tactics to block consideration of some of Gov. Romney’s initiatives – particularly closing the UMass president’s office.
House Democrats said the budget reflected the tough fiscal situation, and would help the state survive but not yet surmount its worst crunch since World War II. “We are in these stormy waters for a couple of years,” Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers said in a closing encomium to his colleagues. “It’s not going away. We will be tested."
State House News Service
Friday, May 9, 2003
News Brief
House officials were uncertain late last night of the final tally on costly add-ons peppered throughout the six-day debate but vowed to send a balanced, $22.5 billion budget on to the Senate.
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 9, 2003
Rx help for seniors survives
The new revenues raised on the House floor through budget amendments were immediately spent via other amendments....
The week after the budget passes brings numerous surprises, pleasant and otherwise. Legislators, reporters, and advocates will spend the week scouring its
details.
State House News Service
Friday, May 9, 2003
Advances - Week of May 12, 2003
UMass President William M. Bulger last night emerged victorious in his long, bitter battle to keep Gov. Mitt Romney from eliminating his job, as House leaders used a surprise maneuver to block a vote on the issue.
Speaker Thomas M. Finneran reneged on his promise to allow a vote, and instead stopped House Republicans from bringing Bulger's fate to an up-or-down vote on the floor - and spared lawmakers from taking a public stand.
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 9, 2003
Last laugh: Reps save UMass job for Bulger
It is a measure of the level of public disdain for William Bulger - and House Speaker Tom Finneran's awareness of it - that there was no straight up or down vote on the future of the University of Massachusetts president.
Finneran is masterful at protecting his House members from the political embarrassment of such controversial votes. And once again he managed to do that - well, sort of.
In fact, even the procedural sleight of hand used Thursday in the House wasn't quite sufficient to cover the tracks of legislators who ought to know better....
Could it be that other so-called liberal Democrats ... when faced with the choice of more scholarships vs. protecting Bulger's patronage hires, opt for patronage over educating poor kids? Even a "procedural vote" can't cover their tracks completely.
A Boston Herald editorial
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Bulger wins battle, reform war goes on
In this year of dire financial actions, when politicians have slashed spending across the board and proposed increasing fees on the mentally retarded, the blind and the poor, there is one program that has proven impervious to the budget scalpel.
While health care, higher education and local aid have been cut deeply, the state's police bonus program long criticized as a wasteful concession to powerful law enforcement unions has emerged unscathed from the first two rounds of the budget debate....
"It does show how big this sacred cow is," said Steve Adams, president of the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank that has agreed with Romney on most every other issue. "We've said from the beginning that the Quinn Bill is a no-brainer reform. The Quinn Bill has been roundly criticized for wasting taxpayer money and offers a real opportunity to save some money in this budget."
...
"It's certainly an enormous disappointment that in the midst of this fiscal crisis we can't even take a modest step to hold down future cost increases," said Michael
Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation. "The House proposal wasn't much of a step and even that was undone."
Associated Press
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Quinn Bill proves resilient even in a year of reforms
Wednesday is the deadline for lawmakers to gavel in a joint session of the House and Senate if they are to act this year on a dozen proposed constitutional amendments awaiting action. The law requires that a Constitutional Convention must be convened by the second Wednesday in May of any year or there can be no such conclave that year.
It was unclear as last week ended whether there would be a joint session this year....
There are ... amendments to ... alter the budget process and the system by which voter initiatives get on the ballot....
It is up to individual legislators to call up those amendments that will be placed on the 2003 calendar, if a convention is ordered Wednesday.
State House News Service
Friday, May 9, 2003
[Excerpt] Advances - Week of May 12, 2003
A day after the Democrat-dominated Legislature dealt a damaging blow to his reform plan, Governor Mitt Romney vowed yesterday to continue his campaign to remake state government, using the setback as a rallying cry for change.
As Romney appeared with a House candidate, his advisers explored options for forcing lawmakers to deal more directly with his agenda.
On Thursday, House leaders used a procedural maneuver to avoid a vote on whether to eliminate the office of University of Massachusetts president William M.
Bulger. The proposal was central to Romney's reorganization plan, and a key element of a wholesale restructuring of the state university system....
Though legislators rejected tax increases now, there is talk in State House hallways of possibly introducing some tax hikes in the fall, after the impact of current budget cuts is felt by the public, who may then be more willing to bear those tax increases to save their services.
To head off that possibility, the Massachusetts High Technology Council is launching a radio advertising campaign Monday to encourage the Legislature to continue to avoid new taxes.
The Boston Globe
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Romney presses on for change
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
The House completed and adopted its FY'04 budget late
Thursday night and it now goes to the Senate, which has its own ideas of
how to best spend our money. "House officials were uncertain late last night of the final tally on costly add-ons peppered throughout the six-day debate but vowed to send a balanced, $22.5 billion budget on to the
Senate," according to the Boston Herald, which seems an oxymoron.
They passed it, but they don't really know how much it'll cost?
The State House News Service observed: "The week after the budget passes brings numerous surprises, pleasant and
otherwise." With the ignorance, indifference or evasiveness
reported by the Herald, I'm sure this year will be no different.
Except for a few token half-steps (if that) to
gain "reform" cover, it's business-as-usual on Bacon Hill.
Despite the "devastation" and "blood in the streets"
rhetoric, fully-funded in the House budget is the "Quinn
Bill," the notorious $100 million boondoggle backed by the
intimidating police lobby but opposed by virtually everyone else ...
except Finneran's Flock.
All that stands in the way of Mr. Speaker's power
grab to create a larger cadre of loyal "leaders" with fat pay
raises is just one vote in the House and Senate ... and nothing's going
to stop it now except perhaps for a Romney veto. What Finneran wants,
Finneran gets; witness his broken promise Billy Bulger scam vote.
There are no new broad-based tax increases included
in the House budget (though there are some $700 million in fee
increases) ... though the strategy of some apparently is to come back in
the fall and revisit "revenue enhancement" after sufficient
"pain" is inflicted and realized. The Senate too claims that
it will hold the line on tax increases, for now.
Our allies in the Mass. High Tech Council aren't too
confident either that taxes are dead for this year. MHTC will begin
running an advertising campaign to keep the pressure on the Legislature.
We appreciate all the help we can get, because it's not over until it's
over and a long and busy year is likely ahead.
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Chip
Ford |
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 9, 2003
Rx help for seniors survives
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley and Elizabeth W. Crowley
The House last night offered a year's worth of life support for the popular but pricey Prescription Advantage program, ending their annual budget debate with a feel-good flourish.
Prescription Advantage pays for medications for about 80,000 seniors and disabled people and is slated to end in June because of its $85 million price tag.
The House plan would leverage $120 million in state spending on reimbursements to hospitals to get $59 million from the federal government. The federal money would be diverted into a scaled-back version of the prescription program, one that would freeze enrollments, boost fees and co-payments for seniors and tighten up eligibility requirements for disabled people younger than 65.
While House members hailed the plan as a creative way to stave off the program's demise, senior advocates were far less impressed.
"Frankly, it's quite inadequate," said Phil Mamber, president of Massachusetts Senior Action Council.
Also yesterday, the House rolled back voter-approved restrictions on bilingual education by carving out an exemption for so-called "two-way immersion" programs. The changes would also allow parents of kindergarten students who don't speak English to place their children in regular classes rather than English immersion.
And the House boosted the health-care costs of state workers while giving them a new early retirement option. The plan would force state employees to pay 20 percent of their health care premiums, up from the current 15 percent. The amendment replaces a proposal in the House budget that created a sliding scale, under which higher-paid employees would pay more for their health care, while low-wage workers paid less.
The House plan spares retirees who would continue to pay from 10 to 15 percent of their premiums depending on when they retired. But new hires who join the state workforce after Jan. 1, 2004, would have to pay 25 percent of their health-care costs.
Public employee unions opposed the House plan, saying workers have already "surrendered" to higher co-payments and drug costs.
The House plan would also offer early retirement - the latest in a series of such policies - to up to 5,000 state workers, saying it would save as much as $136 million in payroll costs.
Also yesterday, the House restored roughly $16.5 million to programs in public health, mental health, mental retardation and housing.
Lawmakers also quietly restored $6 million in proposed cuts to the controversial Quinn Bill benefit program for police officers who get certain college degrees. The money will come from expected savings from the latest early retirement program for state workers, House Democrats said.
House officials were uncertain late last night of the final tally on costly add-ons peppered throughout the six-day debate but vowed to send a balanced, $22.5 billion budget on to the Senate.
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State House News Service
Friday, May 9, 2003
Advances - Week of May 12, 2003
The new revenues raised on the House floor through budget amendments were immediately spent via other amendments.
The House wants to use $59 million in newly anticipated federal funds to continue a revised Prescription Advantage program for seniors, which would be operated by a non-profit pharmacy benefits manager.
Floor amendments added $118 million for higher Medicaid rates, $19.5 million for colleges and community colleges, $17 million for school construction projects, $6 million for the Quinn Bill, $1.1 million for domestic abuse shelters and crisis centers, $4.3 million for mental health programs, $3.1 million for family services, $2.1 million for tobacco control programs, $1.7 million for programs that serve the disabled, and $500,000 for breast cancer programs. Adopted floor amendments cut $25 million in additional assistance for higher education, a $12.7 million special fund for communities, $13.2 million in turnpike authority assistance, and $1.6 million from school health services programs.
The House also amended the voter-approved English immersion law Thursday night, preserving limited forms of bilingual education.
The week after the budget passes brings numerous surprises, pleasant and otherwise. Legislators, reporters, and advocates will spend the week scouring its details....
One final vote is all that's needed in each branch before Gov. Romney gets a bill handing over to House and Senate leaders the power to set the bonus pay of those serving on their leadership teams and heading the committees that process bills. Romney has been noncommittal about signing the bill that eliminates the need for any governor to approve such pay hikes. But past governors have traditionally left such internal matters to the
Legislature.
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The Boston Herald
Friday, May 9, 2003
Last laugh: Reps save UMass job for Bulger
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley and David R. Guarino
UMass President William M. Bulger last night emerged victorious in his long, bitter battle to keep Gov. Mitt Romney from eliminating his job, as House leaders used a surprise maneuver to block a vote on the issue.
Speaker Thomas M. Finneran reneged on his promise to allow a vote, and instead stopped House Republicans from bringing Bulger's fate to an up-or-down vote on the floor - and spared lawmakers from taking a public stand.
"It is a mistake that we will regret as an institution," said House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones (R-North Reading).
The House plan relegates the issue of the UMass' governance structure to a "study" - a common legislative graveyard.
Romney said he was "disappointed" and that citizens "deserve to know where their elected representatives stand."
"No one should be afraid of an honest, up-or-down vote on this or any other issues," Romney said.
Bulger, who personally and heavily lobbied lawmakers, told the Herald last night he was "very encouraged" by the House vote.
"(The university) could not deal with the sort of uncertainty that would come with the election of every governor if, in fact, he could reconfigure the university willy-nilly and without too much thought," Bulger said, prior to a speech at Bridgewater State College.
Lawmakers were able to evade the lightning-rod vote on Bulger's job after Finneran's leadership team introduced a "substitute amendment" preventing other amendments from being taken up.
The House leadership plan, adopted on a 109-46 vote, nicks $1 million from Bulger's office budget and plows the money into a UMass scholarship fund.
But while House leaders claimed they were cutting 20 percent of Bulger's $5.6 million Boston-based office budget, detractors pointed out that Bulger also runs a $10.5 million office in Hadley.
Finneran was conspicuously absent from the House floor during the 35-minute debate, but reappeared at the rostrum immediately afterward.
The speaker refused to talk with reporters after the Bulger vote, instead dispatching his lieutenants to field questions.
House Ways and Means Assistant Vice Chairman Peter J. Larkin said Finneran believes he upheld his promise to Romney to allow a vote on
Bulger, despite scuttling the GOP amendment to yank all of Bulger's funding.
"He said we had the vote," Larkin (D-Pittsfield) said. "The vote was to cut it by a million dollars and to vote to support it."
Despite the Republican squawking, the GOP floor effort was lukewarm, at best - with Jones alone offering a brief protest that paled in comparison to a storm of criticism from liberal lawmakers, who warned Democrats that their amendments could be the next to die.
Rep. Byron Rushing, a frequent Finneran critic, called the leadership tactics an "abuse" of the House budget rules.
"The leadership thinks we're children and they're going to have these children behave," Rushing (D-Boston) said. "The way you have children behave is you decide what you're going to serve for dinner."
But Bulger supporters accused Romney of "attacking" Bulger, the former Senate president, for political gain. "The governor's office has made a political football out of this," said Rep. David L. Flynn (D-Bridgewater), who described himself as a friend and colleague of Bulger's for the past 40 years.
Elizabeth W. Crowley contributed to this report.
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The Boston Herald
Saturday, May 10, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
Bulger wins battle, reform war goes on
It is a measure of the level of public disdain for William Bulger - and House Speaker Tom Finneran's awareness of it - that there was no straight up or down vote on the future of the University of Massachusetts president.
Finneran is masterful at protecting his House members from the political embarrassment of such controversial votes. And once again he managed to do that - well, sort of.
In fact, even the procedural sleight of hand used Thursday in the House wasn't quite sufficient to cover the tracks of legislators who ought to know better. The vote actually came on a budget amendment to divert $1 million from the bloated $14 million budget for the UMass president's office to a scholarship program and to "study" a possible restructuring of the office. That measure passed 109 to 46 - the 46 being most of the House's Republicans and a sprinkling of maverick liberal Democrats. In the latter category were folks like Reps. Cory Atkins (Concord), Ruth Balser (Newton), James Eldridge (Acton), Patricia Jehlen (Somerville), Jay Kaufman (Lexington), and Byron Rushing (Boston) among others.
The astonishing thing is they didn't have more company. Could it be that other so-called liberal Democrats like Alice Wolf (Cambridge), Alice Peisch (Wellesley), Gloria Fox (Boston), Jeffrey Sanchez (Boston) or Michael Rush (Boston), when faced with the choice of more scholarships vs. protecting Bulger's patronage hires, opt for patronage over educating poor kids? Even a "procedural vote" can't cover their tracks completely.
So this battle to reform public higher education - to make it work not for the scores of highly-paid bureaucrats Bulger has hired but for the thousands of youngsters who should be its prime concern - has failed.
And it has failed in part because Bulger has chosen to personalize the battle - to make it not about the $14 million he and his operation cost but about him. It's a failing not uncommon among ex-politicians. It's always about them, don't you know.
Well, then so be it. If Gov. Mitt Romney means what he says about reforming the system, then Bulger has to go. Sooner or later - depending on how much pressure Romney wants to put on current members of the UMass Board of Trustees - he can change the leadership. That should be his next mission.
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Associated Press
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Quinn Bill proves resilient even in a year of reforms
By Jennifer Peter
In this year of dire financial actions, when politicians have slashed spending across the board and proposed increasing fees on the mentally retarded, the blind and the poor, there is one program that has proven impervious to the budget scalpel.
While health care, higher education and local aid have been cut deeply, the state's police bonus program long criticized as a wasteful concession to powerful law enforcement unions has emerged unscathed from the first two rounds of the budget debate.
Gov. Mitt Romney, a self-proclaimed reformer who tackled the politically connected president of the state's flagship university, the entrenched bureaucracy at the Metropolitan District Commission, and state employee benefits, proposed no changes to the "Quinn Bill" in his budget.
And the House, while initially proposing a 15 percent cut in funding for the $45 million program, approved a budget late Thursday that restored the full amount doled out to police officers who earn criminal justice degrees.
"It does show how big this sacred cow is," said Steve Adams, president of the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank that has agreed with Romney on most every other issue. "We've said from the beginning that the Quinn Bill is a no-brainer reform. The Quinn Bill has been roundly criticized for wasting taxpayer money and offers a real opportunity to save some money in this budget."
Senate leaders, who take up the budget next, have been silent on the Quinn Bill, but have said repeatedly that everything is on the table as they seek a way to close the $3 billion budget deficit without raising taxes or slicing too deeply into social services.
The program was created 30 years ago to increase the educational level of police officers, who at that time frequently joined the force without a college degree. It provides officers with a 10 percent pay raise for an associate degree in criminal justice, 20 percent for a bachelor's degree and 25 percent for a graduate degree.
A recent report issued by the Board of Higher education called the Quinn Bill a "cash cow." It found that many of the schools participating in the program had become diploma factories, issuing nearly one-fourth of the nation's master's degrees in criminal justice. Many also awarded officers "lifetime experience" credits for attending the police academy, taking CPR courses, and undertaking other required officer training.
Police leaders defend the program as a necessary component of public safety in Massachusetts at a time when officers have become even more critical to the national security.
"I think it was important for the House to make a statement on the Quinn Bill that they support education and educated police officers," said Ray McGrath of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. "In the end, the House saw the value of the program."
That, lawmakers say, or they were worried that the reduction in the state portion of the Quinn Bill payment would just add another burden to cities and towns that have already seen deep cuts in local aid this year.
Observers say lawmakers were worried about the political sway of the police unions, who came up by the hundreds last month to lobby against changes in the program. Romney's budget and the House version would both increase the state's Quinn Bill payment next year by 8 percent.
"It's certainly an enormous disappointment that in the midst of this fiscal crisis we can't even take a modest step to hold down future cost increases," said Michael
Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation. "The House proposal wasn't much of a step and even that was undone."
Romney's reluctance to touch the program was even more surprising to political observers, causing speculation that he was bowing to the police groups that endorsed his campaign.
"It's one of the low-hanging fruits in terms of waste and abuse," said Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause. "I was surprised that the governor didn't tackle that issue when he didn't seem to shy away from tackling so many other political constituencies."
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State House News Service
Friday, May 9, 2003
Advances - Week of May 12, 2003
Constitutional Amendments
Wednesday is the deadline for lawmakers to gavel in a joint session of the House and Senate if they are to act this year on a dozen proposed constitutional amendments awaiting action. The law requires that a Constitutional Convention must be convened by the second Wednesday in May of any year or there can be no such conclave that year.
It was unclear as last week ended whether there would be a joint session this year. In order to change the Constitution, two consecutive legislatures must endorse an amendment in exactly the same form before it is remanded to the voters at a statewide election.
If the two branches do not call a "Con Con" this week, they will still have the option of ordering one for next year - as long as they order it by mid-May of 2004. Any proposal acted upon favorably in 2003 or 2004 must also be approved by lawmakers for the session of 2005/2006.
There are 12 proposed amendments eligible to be "called up" or placed on the convention agenda if each branch adopts an order to actually meet on Wednesday. Legislators need not act on any amendments that day and they traditionally recess the convention to another time and meet sporadically throughout the year. But no amendments can be added after Wednesday and not all 12 in the mix will automatically be placed on the calendar if there is a convention.
There are duplicate amendments to abolish the Governor's Council and elect judges, extend from two to four years the terms of House and Senate members and alter the budget process and the system by which voter initiatives get on the ballot. There's also an amendment to ban gay marriages.
It is up to individual legislators to call up those amendments that will be placed on the 2003 calendar, if a convention is ordered Wednesday.
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The Boston Globe
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Romney presses on for change
Staff considers ways to sway Legislature
By Yvonne Abraham and Cynthia Roy
A day after the Democrat-dominated Legislature dealt a damaging blow to his reform plan, Governor Mitt Romney vowed yesterday to continue his campaign to remake state government, using the setback as a rallying cry for change.
As Romney appeared with a House candidate, his advisers explored options for forcing lawmakers to deal more directly with his agenda.
On Thursday, House leaders used a procedural maneuver to avoid a vote on whether to eliminate the office of University of Massachusetts president William M.
Bulger. The proposal was central to Romney's reorganization plan, and a key element of a wholesale restructuring of the state university system.
In recent weeks, the issue had become something of a personal battle between the two men. The House voted 109 to 46 to further study the issue, effectively killing the bill.
"It's pretty clear that the vote in regards to President Bulger is going to be something protected by the House of Representatives," Romney said. "They are going to protect President Bulger's job, and that obviously has to be calculated into our thinking about legislative strategy from this point forward."
It is not immediately clear what the governor's next step will be, and his aides would not detail any discussions about strategy.
The debate over the budget now moves to the Senate, and some senators expect their Republican colleagues there will try - at Romney's request - to force a vote on the controversial UMass president.
Another more aggressive option would be for Romney to file the elimination of Bulger's job as a single piece of legislation under Article 87 of the state Constitution, which would force the Legislature to take an up-or-down vote on the measure within 60 days.
Such a high-stakes move would bring the governor into a direct confrontation with lawmakers, who clearly want to avoid taking a public position on the fate of
Bulger, who is still influential on Beacon Hill, but widely unpopular in the Senate.
"Our legislative strategy is something which we will reveal piece by piece as we feel it is appropriate, and I don't want to surprise anybody with that until I've had a chance to talk with leadership and express our views," Romney said yesterday. "We have a very full reform agenda. Some of those reforms we bring forth right now; others we'll hold in abeyance until we think we have a strong level of support for them."
Originally, Romney vowed to introduce his entire package of reforms on May 1 under Article 87. Among those reforms are proposals to revamp his Cabinet, streamline health and human services, create a centralized solicitor general's office to reduce the number of government lawyers, remake the University of Massachusetts system, and eliminate Bulger's job.
He held off on filing the package when it was clear it would not prevail in the Legislature. But though he delayed the direct battle in the House chamber, the governor has been waging war against legislators outside the State House, with strong public criticisms of them as practitioners of politics as usual, and uncommitted to reform. And legislative leaders have been returning his salvos with some gusto.
Romney expressed some optimism yesterday, despite Thursday night's action.
"We've made really good progress on the reform agenda," he said." ... The winds of change, the spring of change, has arrived."
A spokesman for Romney, Eric Fehrnstrom, ticked off several elements of the budget he counted as victories: the consolidation of the state's Health and Human Services bureaucracy; the introduction of higher copayments for Medicaid recipients; the increase in state workers' health insurance premium contributions from 15 percent to 20 percent; and the loosening of some restrictions on the Pacheco Law, which sets down strict guidelines for privatizing state government services.
Fehrnstrom also said he saw another achievement in the House budget: the absence of new taxes.
"There are no new taxes in the House budget, and this is a huge victory for the people of Massachusetts," he said.
Though legislators rejected tax increases now, there is talk in State House hallways of possibly introducing some tax hikes in the fall, after the impact of current budget cuts is felt by the public, who may then be more willing to bear those tax increases to save their services.
To head off that possibility, the Massachusetts High Technology Council is launching a radio advertising campaign Monday to encourage the Legislature to continue to avoid new taxes.
Christopher Anderson, the council's president, said lawmakers must realize the importance of attracting businesses by keeping taxes low - a position Romney has trumpeted. The ads ask listeners to contact their elected representatives to "encourage their continued support" for holding taxes down.
"The fact that the Legislature and the governor were committed early on to not include new or higher taxes as part of this year's solution has been important," Anderson said. "We need a commitment toward a predictable, competitive, and stable tax environment."
Continuing his rhetorical battle with legislators yesterday , Romney used Thursday night's defeat as a rallying cry to encourage more Republican representation in the State House. Currently, only 23 of the 160 members of the House, and six of the 40 Senators, are Republicans.
"Now and then there are some key reforms that don't get done, and why not? Because we don't have enough voices on Beacon Hill," Romney said at a rally for Matt Sisk, the GOP candidate in a special election for the Fifth Norfolk District House of Representatives seat, which covers parts of Braintree, Randolph, and Holbrook.
Rick Klein of the Globe Staff contributed to this story.
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