CLT
UPDATE
Saturday, May 15, 2004
On bandits, blowhards and bullies
The good news at the end of this tale of woe is that state revenues appear to be recovering. Helped by a large spike in income tax withholding last month, revenues are running $517 million over projections for the year.
The bad news is that Gov. Mitt Romney has seized on the one-month spike to call for more tax cuts. The Legislature had wisely halted the voter-approved reduction in income tax rates at 5.3 percent. Romney wants to cut it to 5 percent....
We trust the Legislature will protect Massachusetts, from another tax-cut mistake.
A MetroWest Daily News editorial
Sunday, May 9, 2004
No time for a tax cut
We can support reform now, by limiting easy money, or learn what suffering really is come the next economic downturn.
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Letter to the editor
Eliminate the easy money, by Barbara Anderson
In 2000, out of frustration over the Legislature's failure to live up to its promises, the voters passed by a 60 to 40 percent majority a referendum to reduce the tax rate to 5 percent. The Legislature thwarted again the public's will by halting the reduction to 5.3 percent, where it remains now.
Why is it that the Legislature can oppose the voters' will and get away with it?
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Letter to the editor
Restore the 5 percent tax rate, by Jack Prindiville, CLT activist
Is there a business group in this state with a backbone? It's a question that's needed asking for a long time now. Three business organizations' decision to undermine Gov. Mitt Romney's reform agenda makes the question the proverbial elephant in the room.
A report authored by the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and Artery Business Committee is the latest evidence of business backing away from a fight ...
Where were the state's business groups when Romney was trying to refund $275 million in wrongly collected capital gains taxes? Where are they now on his move to cut the state income tax to 5 percent? Probably just where they were in 2000, when a fierce ballot question fight was waged and won to cut the rate - nowhere to be found.
No, they're not all wimps. The Massachusetts High Technology Council and National Federation of Independent Business are two organizations we'd want in the foxhole. (It's not a coincidence that they represent entrepreneurial risk-takers as members.)
When the state's business community doesn't have a friend to take for granted in the Corner Office someday, they shouldn't be surprised to find their other "friends" not returning phone calls, except when the fund-raising letters go out.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, May 10, 2004
With friends like these ...
The first signs of life appear in the Massachusetts economy and the governor calls for a $225 million tax cut....
A tax cut is not what Massachusetts needs right now. Says Michael J.
Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation...
But Romney's call for a tax cut is his most callow and callous pronouncement to date. For two years he argued that Massachusetts should make cuts to balance the budget....
His election promise that he would not cut core government services was empty. Reform is not the real Romney agenda. The goal is to shrink government, no matter who is hurt by the shrinking.
Is that what most Massachusetts voters want? It might be. But the governor should be honest about the agenda rather than posturing and pontificating about reforming government waste and inefficiency.
Last January the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which provides independent research analysis of state budget and tax policies, put out a report entitled "Cuts that Hurt: An Examination of Painful Cuts in the FY2004 State Budget." ... Legislators are inclined to restore some funding, but there is Romney making headlines with irresponsible calls for tax cuts.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Romney's real agenda is national
By Joan Vennochi
Senate budget leaders on Wednesday offered a $22.5 billion annual spending plan that draws on $563 million in reserves to help boost spending in health care, mental retardation services, and public safety while also legalizing stem cell research.
Billing it as a "fiscally-sound, balanced budget," Senate budget chief Therese Murray said that while there are some cuts proposed, the plan, representing a 4.5 percent increase in spending from this fiscal year, does not make "significant" reductions and relies on level funding to maintain current services.
"We've had three years of very steep reductions," said Murray, a Plymouth Democrat, at a press conference in the Senate Reading Room. "In some areas we weren't able to increase as much as we'd like."
Building off similar proposals by the House and Gov. Mitt Romney, Murray said the Senate's spending plan is predicated on the leaders' consensus revenue forecast of $15.8 billion for next year, although she said they are considering revisiting the estimate in early June to possibly increase spending.
Approximately $1.2 billion in pension costs and $395 million in school building assistance payments to cities and towns are moved "off-budget," Murray said. The changes reduce the budget's bottom line....
And while hospital officials lauded the Senate's rejection of Romney's $70 million in cuts to health care providers, health insurers were skeptical of what they called a "health insurance tax" included in the budget. The language would require health insurers to contribute a total of $10.5 million into a Department of Public Health fund, without an earmarked purpose.
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Senate budget combines reforms
with series of targeted investments
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan business-backed watchdog organization that analyzes budget plans, applauded the Senate for "the wide array of policy proposals that they came up with this year."
"They are serious and important initiatives, and they deserve credit for that," said Michael J.
Widmer, the foundation's chief.
A preliminary analysis of the Senate plan conducted by Widmer's organization yesterday found that the budget blueprint differs in few ways from the ones proposed by the governor and the House, which passed its plan earlier this spring. The House budget calls for about $24.25 billion in spending, the governor's laid out spending totalling $24.79 billion, and the Senate's came to $24.39 billion, according to the analysis.
Spending may loosen up considerably in the near future, however, because it appears as though state tax revenues are beginning to far outpace estimates agreed upon by the Senate, House, and governor's office in January....
While such initiatives will no doubt play well with voters, Bay State health insurance providers were incensed that they
were targeted for a $10.5 million fee hike, making them one of only a handful of industries to be hit in the Senate budget plan.
"This is a tax on health insurers, and we think it's the wrong prescription for health care, said Dr. Marylou
Buyse, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, a trade group.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Senate eyes law enforcement hike
Spending boost part of budget proposal
The Budget proposed by the Senate Ways and Means Committee is a straitened document. Like the House version and Governor Romney's, it reflects a tepid economy and an insufficient tax base. The Senate budget is stronger when it proposes solutions to pension, health, transportation, and housing problems. The last two initiatives will serve the state well as the economy improves. Unexpected stability in Medicaid enrollment has reduced the program's revenue needs....
The revenue figures in the budget are based on projections that may prove too low.
If more money becomes available, the governor and Legislature need to revisit the budget to increase spending on education and other important services. Programmatic reform is no substitute for adequate revenues.
A Boston Globe editorial
Thursday, May 13, 2004
A start in the senate
A sneak tax attack. That's the only way to describe an add-on to the Senate budget hitting health plans up for $10.5 million.
The stated purpose is for "preventive medicine," but it's really just a backdoor way to get health plans to pay for the universal childhood immunization program, now fully funded with public money.
It's a bad precedent to target specific industry groups with a broad assessment to support a universal mandate, not to mention a government department, simply because it's related to their line of business. What's next, taxing accountants to pay for operations of the Department of Revenue, or taxing auto repair shops to pay for the Registry of Motor Vehicles? ...
If preventive health care, including the much-lauded immunization program, remains the priority of the Public Health Department, as it has long been, then it ought to be able to manage its own resources, amply provided by the taxpayers, to get the job done.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, May 14, 2004
Senate sneaks in an underhanded tax
Schoolyard bully has a new name: teacher.
This is no exaggeration in Framingham. Just ask Susan Tsantes.
She's one of those very active, very caring, very concerned PTO mothers who, by the way, absolutely adores teachers, especially those who have worked with her two children.
But recently Tsantes, the newly elected co-president of the Walsh Middle School PTO for the fall, was quoted in the newspaper on the subject of Framingham teachers and their protests over the lack of a contract....
Tsantes said of the tactic: "I support the teachers but I don't support what the teachers union is doing." The work-to-rule, she said, "is highlighting how little they have to do under the contract."
And finally: "If I want a raise, I work really hard. I don't cut back." ...
Tsantes is a Realtor who sells houses. At her request, I am not using the name of her real estate company.
But the teacher in question knew the name and took the time to locate the regional supervisor.
The teacher said to the supervisor: No Framingham teacher will ever buy a house listed by your company, ever.
Tsantes' offending quotes were also photocopied and distributed in the middle school with her employer, the real estate company, scrawled in the margins....
And to think, one teacher had the nerve to call the place of business of a mother who spoke out.
The word "bully" may be too kind.
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, May 6, 2004
Teachers' bullying is going too far
By Tom Moroney
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
It's been a busy week again on Bacon Hill, and here
at CLT.
Besides monitoring the budget shenanigans, we've been
putting together the next issue of The
Activist News, the spring edition of the CLT newsletter which
will be going to the printer then out to the membership next week. I
think it's done then I hear "Stop the presses -- something just
came up we need to include!" We're holding back now until the
Senate takes up the budget on Wednesday so we can include the debate and
vote on the Senate Republicans' effort to thaw out our
"frozen" tax rollback.
An amendment to the Senate budget was filed on Friday
by Sens. Lees, Hedlund, Sprague, Knapik and Brown that will return the
state income tax rate to its historic 5 percent, as proposed by Governor
Romney. It should come up for a roll call vote on Wednesday.
On Thursday Barbara and I drove to Weymouth to speak at a slightly belated Tax Freedom Day celebration
(earlier this year than everyone expected, thanks to
the Bush tax cuts) with the Weymouth Republican Town Committee and its guests from other nearby town committees. We enjoyed seeing old friends, but have cut back on speaking engagements in the past few years because, living as we do in
the northeast corner of the state, it just takes too much travel time
out of our day, in this case seven hours total. We hope everyone we have to turn down
understands.
*
*
*
On Bacon Hill this week, the Senate Ways and Means
Committee released it's FY'05 budget proposal. Its version comes
in at $24.39 billion, in the ballpark with the Governor's ($24.79
billion) and the House's ($24.25 billion). But some are catching on to
the latest shell game of moving accounts "off-budget," as we
explained in "Truth
in Budgeting." In the Senate's budget, as reported by the State
House News Service: "Approximately $1.2 billion in pension costs and $395 million in school building assistance payments to cities and towns are moved
'off-budget.'"
Does this make the Senate's proposed budget actually
$25.845 billion after moving a couple major expenditures
"off-budget" this year. Is nobody going to be paying these
costs?
*
*
*
Boston Globe columnist Joan Venocchi's column, "Romney's real agenda is national,"
condemns Gov. Romney's call to respect the voters' mandate and roll back
the income tax rate. She reaches for "legitimate" sources to
back her position up. "Michael J. Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation ..." and "Last January the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which provides independent research analysis of state budget and tax
policies ..." sound good as independent sources when said fast, but
we know better.
The so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation may
be "nonpartisan" in the party affiliation definition, but it
certainly has a clear agenda, and continues to run interference for the
Tax-and-Spend Caucus to the benefit of the Boston Big Business Fat Cats,
as CLT
has been exposing for years.
And the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center? Give
me a break! That's TEAM with a facelift, the Tax Equity Alliance of
Massachusetts, better known by taxpayers as Tax Everything And More,
that was compelled to change it's name after decades of raiding
taxpayers' wallets -- its deeds having become too well known. If anyone needs
evidence, go to the defunct old TEAM's website -- http://www.massteam.org/
-- and see where it automatically takes you: to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy
Center website!
"Independent research analysis"? Not by a
long shot ... but it sounds credible if you say -- or write -- it fast.
*
*
*
According to a Boston Globe report: "Spending may loosen up considerably in the near future, however, because it appears as though state tax revenues are beginning to far outpace estimates agreed upon by the Senate, House, and governor's office in January...."
And in its editorial on the same day it advocates: "If more money becomes available, the governor and Legislature need to revisit the budget to increase spending on education and other important services. Programmatic reform is no substitute for adequate revenues."
While "state tax revenues are beginning to far outpace estimates,"
apparently nonetheless, "reform is no substitute for adequate
revenues" -- meaning that the Globe still believes we're not paying
enough for its idea of government.
*
*
*
And here come the "fees" again in the
Senate budget, this time a "fee" on health insurance! But when
you think about it, why not? They've put $9.50-a-day fees on those who pay
their own way in nursing homes to subsidize those who don't; they've put
fees on those who pay for their own prescription drugs to subsidize
those who don't (which the courts have thrown out); why not charge
a "fee" to those who pay for their own health insurance, to
pay for those who don't as well? How's that for incentive to
maintain or procure you own health insurance policy! (Oh sure, it's not
a direct fee on the insured, but the insurer sure isn't going to
swallow it and stay in business; it'll be passed down as a cost of doing
business.)
We've been researching some of the "fees"
with an attorney and will be challenging some of them (eg., the most
egregious "Granny Tax" -- the "fee" on nursing home
beds) in court soon. Stay tuned.
*
*
*
Ah, some extremist teachers and the teachers union,
what more do I need say? Now some teachers are directly attacking any
critic, going after their income directly. Is this surprising to anyone?
I suppose I should be careful these days using the term, but isn't this
a form of ... terrorism, under its legitimate definition -- or at least
intimidation with intent.
The National Education Association and its state
affiliate, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, are strong-arming
their membership to increase contributions to its political action
arm. "NEA will be asking delegates to approve an increase to the
ballot initiative/legislative crisis fund," the Education
Intelligence Agency reported in its Communiqué of March 1st. Already NEA’s national membership dues alone will rise $3 to $137 in 2004-05.
We know More Is Never Enough (MINE) for the teachers
unions and never will be. The teachers unions have mountains of cash to advocate
for and advance their insatiable greed in the name of "the
children," to grease the skids of friendly politicians or cower
them. Thug teachers and their unions that resort to overkill force and intimidation of the little guy or gal who
dares to speak up are beneath contempt ... a vile threat to democracy
that needs to be eradicated.
|
|
|
Chip
Ford |
The MetroWest Daily News
Sunday, May 9, 2004
A MetroWest Daily News editorial
No time for a tax cut
State revenues began falling in 2001, just after Massachusetts voters, encouraged by then-Gov. Paul Cellucci's promise that no services would be hurt, voted to dramatically cut the state income tax rate.
The years since have been brutal for those crafting budgets at the state and municipal level -- and those who depend on them. In three years, the Legislature cut $3 billion from its budget, breaking Cellucci's promise over and over again.
From preschool to graduate school, education has suffered. On a per-pupil basis, Massachusetts cut aid to local school districts more than any other state. Communities ready to build new schools were frozen out of the state School Building Assistance program.
After years of ratcheting down tuition at state colleges and universities, tuition and fees shot up. Public higher education has always been Beacon Hill's poor stepchild, and as revenues declined, UMass and state colleges saw deep cuts in state aid. The Legislature figured the colleges could always raise fees to make up the difference, and they did: It costs thousands of dollars more per year to attend UMass than it did three years ago.
Also hurt were the state's human service programs, and the families that depend on them. A survey by MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation found that social service providers in the region faced $2 million in budget cuts in 2002, followed by $3 million the next year. Hardest hit were substance abuse programs, school health services, home-care for frail elders, programs for at-risk youth and women's health services.
Joblessness and homelessness grew as money for social services shrank. Local taxes rose as cities and towns did what they had to do to survive deep cuts in state aid. To avoid raising taxes, the state raised fees on everything from drivers license renewals to certificates of blindness.
The good news at the end of this tale of woe is that state revenues appear to be recovering. Helped by a large spike in income tax withholding last month, revenues are running $517 million over projections for the year.
The bad news is that Gov. Mitt Romney has seized on the one-month spike to call for more tax cuts. The Legislature had wisely halted the voter-approved reduction in income tax rates at 5.3 percent. Romney wants to cut it to 5 percent.
It's hard to take this seriously from a governor who just a few weeks ago was warning of a structural deficit of over $1 billion. Since then, there have been no sweeping reforms to close the deficit, no new infusions of federal aid. If anything, a new dark cloud has appeared on the state's fiscal horizon, in the form of Judge Margaret Botsford's ruling in a landmark education case, which may well force the state to give additional billions to poor school districts.
A prudent -- we might say conservative -- governor would use the newfound cash to replenish the state's depleted rainy day accounts. A wise governor would let the revenue picture stabilize, understanding that the surpluses of the '90s were driven not by income tax receipts, but by capital gains receipts from the dot-com boom, unlikely ever to be repeated. A thoughtful governor would repair the safety net, reinvest in public higher education and help cities and towns avoid the property tax increases that have become a far greater hardship than state income taxes.
Romney advocates some of this, but not enough. And by rolling out the tax-cut bandwagon so prematurely, he comes across as an opportunistic politician, pushing a familiar Republican button, instead of the responsible leader of a Commonwealth still a long way from fiscal health. We trust the Legislature will protect Massachusetts, from another tax-cut mistake.
Return to
top
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Letter to the editor
Eliminate the easy money
The MetroWest Daily News states in its May 9 editorial that this is "no time for a tax cut" because "education has suffered" and "there have been no sweeping reforms to close the (structural) deficit."
We would point out that Massachusetts per-pupil spending is fourth highest in the nation, 35 percent above the national average, and our total tax burden is the third highest per
capita. Massachusetts is not suffering from lack of taxpayer dollars, but it still suffers from lack of reform.
It's clear to us that Gov. Romney is not only keeping his promise to continue our rollback of the income tax rate to five percent, as voters mandated in 2000, but is trying to force the structural reforms which are the only way we are ever going to deal with a structural deficit. Now that revenues are recovering, we can blithely return to business as usual -- or begin the essential job of restructuring a government that will someday have to deal with not only an unreasonable court requirement for even more school funding, but the coming Medicaid crisis.
We can support reform now, by limiting easy money, or learn what suffering really is come the next economic downturn.
BARBARA ANDERSON
Executive Director
Citizens for Limited Taxation
Return to
top
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Letter to the editor
Restore the 5 percent tax rate
"No time for a tax cut" is the title of Sunday's MWDN editorial referring to the state's income tax. Well, if not now, please give us a date.
In the late '80s, Gov. Dukakis passed what we were told was a "temporary" tax increase from five to more than six percent in response to a fiscal crisis. We were promised once this situation was brought under control that the tax rate would revert back to five percent. Some time later as a result of a substantial increase in state tax revenues due to the stock market boom, the Legislature agreed reluctantly to modestly reduce the income tax to 5.9 percent, where it remained throughout the '90s.
In 2000, out of frustration over the Legislature's failure to live up to its promises, the voters passed by a 60 to 40 percent majority a referendum to reduce the tax rate to 5 percent. The Legislature thwarted again the public's will by halting the reduction to 5.3 percent, where it remains now.
Why is it that the Legislature can oppose the voters' will and get away with it? Simple: most Democrat legislators have no Republican opponents and are re-elected by default. This is what has been happening in Framingham. Gov. Romney in 2002, running on a reform platform and a pledge to return to the five percent rate, carried in Framingham by more than 1,600 votes. Our Democrat legislators, Sen. Magnani and Reps. Blumer and
Spilka, were re-elected by default and have done everything they can to undermine Romney's reform efforts. Rep. Blumer has gone so far as to vote recently to hike the income tax rate from 5.3 to 5.95 percent.
The only way to get the Legislature to vote to restore the tax rate to 5 percent is to vote in Republican legislators. For the first time in recent memory, Framingham will have this year a full slate of highly qualified Republican legislative candidates. Now we were have an opportunity to send a message to Beacon Hill that we want the rate restored to 5 percent, which was promised to us years ago.
JACK PRINDIVILLE
Framingham
Return to
top
The Boston Herald
Monday, May 10, 2004
A Boston Herald editorial
With friends like these ...
Is there a business group in this state with a backbone? It's a question that's needed asking for a long time now. Three business organizations' decision to undermine Gov. Mitt Romney's reform agenda makes the question the proverbial elephant in the room.
A report authored by the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and Artery Business Committee is the latest evidence of business backing away from a fight (unemployment insurance reform, property tax classification and higher education reform are a few others).
It's hard to swallow the report's arguments against merging the Turnpike with the state Highway Department. How many successful businesses support two legal departments, two human resources departments, two public relations operations, two CEOs? And making do with one of each won't save money? Apparently these business groups don't trust Romney to figure out how to run tunnels and a roadway system without an entirely separate bureaucracy, either.
OK, so the governor isn't the best at putting hat in hand and asking for support. He probably has spent no more time wooing the business community than he has wooing Democratic legislators.
But some things you shouldn't have to ask for. And Romney's assumption that the business community is going to be behind efforts to streamline state government shouldn't be a reach.
Where were the state's business groups when Romney was trying to refund $275 million in wrongly collected capital gains taxes? Where are they now on his move to cut the state income tax to 5 percent? Probably just where they were in 2000, when a fierce ballot question fight was waged and won to cut the rate - nowhere to be found.
No, they're not all wimps. The Massachusetts High Technology Council and National Federation of Independent Business are two organizations we'd want in the foxhole. (It's not a coincidence that they represent entrepreneurial risk-takers as members.)
When the state's business community doesn't have a friend to take for granted in the Corner Office someday, they shouldn't be surprised to find their other "friends" not returning phone calls, except when the fund-raising letters go out.
Return to
top
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Romney's real agenda is national
By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist
The governor of Massachusetts is leading the charges against gay marriage, promoting the death penalty, and advocating a new tax cut. That is not the agenda of a governor who is putting the common good of the Commonwealth ahead of his own political ambition. No, Mitt Romney's true agenda has little to do with the people of Massachusetts. It is one large, irresponsible pander to a national Republican audience.
How obvious can he get? The first signs of life appear in the Massachusetts economy and the governor calls for a $225 million tax cut. The state budget is still getting sliced, health care costs continue to rise, and a court suit revealing disparities in education across the Commonwealth is likely to result in a court order for more state spending on schools. Instead of showing true statesmanship and a willingness to invest in the state he has moved back to in order to run for governor, Romney once again plays to a partisan national crowd.
A tax cut is not what Massachusetts needs right now. Says Michael J.
Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation: "We're a long way from being out of the fiscal woods. We still face a structural deficit of several hundred million dollars in 2005, and we have major obligations in health care and education that we must meet before considering a tax cut."
Romney is trafficking in national self-promotion at the expense of local progress. His grand fight against gay marriage has been reduced to an embarrassing effort to apply a 1913 law designed to stop interracial marriages to same-sex couples. That is especially sad for the son of George Romney, a progressive governor of Michigan who marched with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and helped create the Michigan Civil Rights Commission.
Then there is the plan for the infallible Romney death penalty, guaranteed to kill only guilty people. If only Romney's passion for infallible policy extended to all the law-abiding living.
But Romney's call for a tax cut is his most callow and callous pronouncement to date. For two years he argued that Massachusetts should make cuts to balance the budget. So the state cut spending. For two years Massachusetts led the nation in cutting funding for K-12 education. Massachusetts was a national leader in cutting higher education. During the fiscal crisis, Massachusetts also cut public health by more than 25 percent.
Now state revenue is picking up.
Does Romney propose to reverse any cuts in education, health care, and basic human services? Of course not. That might be good for some Massachusetts residents, but not so good for Romney.
His election promise that he would not cut core government services was empty. Reform is not the real Romney agenda. The goal is to shrink government, no matter who is hurt by the shrinking.
Is that what most Massachusetts voters want? It might be. But the governor should be honest about the agenda rather than posturing and pontificating about reforming government waste and inefficiency.
Last January the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which provides independent research analysis of state budget and tax policies, put out a report entitled "Cuts that Hurt: An Examination of Painful Cuts in the FY2004 State Budget." Among those listed: funding for early childhood education, funding to monitor compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act, and funding for public health, housing, and income support programs. On April 30 the House of Representatives passed a budget that would increase spending for human services. Legislators are inclined to restore some funding, but there is Romney making headlines with irresponsible calls for tax cuts.
Mitt Romney's ideology is not the problem. It's his lack of commitment to Massachusetts. He is looking far beyond the Bay State, no matter how often or how loudly he denies it.
Return to
top
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Senate budget combines reforms
with series of targeted investments
By Amy Lambiaso
Senate budget leaders on Wednesday offered a $22.5 billion annual spending plan that draws on $563 million in reserves to help boost spending in health care, mental retardation services, and public safety while also legalizing stem cell research.
Billing it as a "fiscally-sound, balanced budget," Senate budget chief Therese Murray said that while there are some cuts proposed, the plan, representing a 4.5 percent increase in spending from this fiscal year, does not make "significant" reductions and relies on level funding to maintain current services.
"We've had three years of very steep reductions," said Murray, a Plymouth Democrat, at a press conference in the Senate Reading Room. "In some areas we weren't able to increase as much as we'd like."
Building off similar proposals by the House and Gov. Mitt Romney, Murray said the Senate's spending plan is predicated on the leaders' consensus revenue forecast of $15.8 billion for next year, although she said they are considering revisiting the estimate in early June to possibly increase spending.
Approximately $1.2 billion in pension costs and $395 million in school building assistance payments to cities and towns are moved "off-budget," Murray said. The changes reduce the budget's bottom line.
Whereas House leaders predicted their budget would yield "hundreds" of layoffs, Murray said staff reductions would be "up to the administration." Budget aides said roughly $28 million was saved through administrative reforms recommended by the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee.
The budget bill - which received unanimous support from the Ways and Means Committee, including two Republican members - was hailed as a "breath of fresh air" from the fiscal crisis, said Sen. Stephen Brewer
(D-Barre). Floor debate on the budget amendments begins next Wednesday. The House and Senate hope to have a consensus budget to Romney's desk by their self-imposed deadline of June 21.
"I couldn't be more excited to be making lemonade out of lemons," said Sen. Steven Tolman (D-Brighton).
Murray said the Senate budget "protected core services" and made ambitious policy strides aimed at overhauling the state's transportation bureaucracy, building an early childhood education and care system, jumpstarting housing construction, breaking the backlog of school construction projects.
"This is an impressive array of reform initiatives," said Michael Widmer, president of business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "The Senate deserves credit for that."
In one of its 326 outside sections, the Senate budget also looks to legalize stem cell research - a long-held priority of Senate President Robert Travaglini. The bill would "foster research and therapies in regenerative medicine," but prohibit human cloning. The Senate attempted to legalize such research in an economic stimulus package last year, but the measure did not survive negotiations with House members.
The Senate also looks to head off a possible court decision by making the mid-2002 capital gains tax change retroactive to Jan. 1, 2002 with an amnesty for taxpayers who were required to pay more when the state changed its law. The House approved the same provision during its budget debate two weeks ago, hoping to satisfy a Supreme Judicial Court decision that said the mid-year change was unconstitutional.
Leaders say the budget draws on $563 million in so-called one-time revenue, including $340 million from the state's Stabilization Fund, $170 million in one-time federal aid, $25 million expected from the sale of state land, and $17 million from the Renewable Energy Trust Fund. In addition, the Senate uses $100 million in federal monies for the uncompensated care pool, which reimburses health care providers who treat the uninsured, and carries over $50 million in leftover Medicaid spending from this year.
Murray highlighted the Senate's "beefed up" public safety spending initiative, which includes $11 million for two new State Police classes, expected to bring in 300 new troopers by 2005 and elevate police forces back to pre-Sept. 11, 2001 levels. The plan also includes $2.3 million in direct payments to high-crime areas such as Boston, Lawrence, Chelsea, Brockton, and Springfield, and $750,000 to fight gang-related crime in urban areas, Murray said.
In its budget, the Senate creates a new undersecretary of forensic sciences to oversee the Chief Medical Examiner's Office and the State Police Crime Lab, and coordinate all forensic science operations and resources. The bill also pumps $2.2 million more into the medical examiner's office for forensic pathologists - a 60 percent increase; includes $1 million for a global positioning system to track Level 3 sex offenders, and $20.3 million to fully fund community policing grants.
Overall, spending for the Executive Office of Public Safety is nearly $20 million less than this year, with increase offset by a $36 million reduction in proposed spending on county corrections.
In rare pre-budget accords, House and Senate budget leaders this year agreed early on identical funding levels for Chapter 70 education aid, Lottery reimbursements, regional school transportation, and funding for the senior prescription drug insurance program known as Prescription Advantage, which is increased to $110 million from $96 million.
Under the plan, lawmakers level-fund local aid while raising local education aid by $75 million to $3.18 billion - keeping all cities and towns at "foundation level," leaders said. The Senate does not include the House-approved moratorium on new charter schools, but Murray said they slightly change the reimbursement formula. Senate leaders have forecast an intense debate over charter schools. State and community colleges receive level funding in the Senate budget as well, Murray said.
Payments to hospitals who serve the uninsured would increase by nearly $200 million to $891 million: $56 million for so-called "free care" at community health centers; $5 million for a disease management program; $160 million for Mass Health Essential, based on a projected 7 percent growth in enrollment, and $2.6 million for administrative costs to administer a screening program for all free care candidates.
"Overall, I think we've done really well," Murray said. "Given what we were dealt in past years."
Lobbyists and Beacon Hill observers agreed with the overall assessment. Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said the Senate's budget helps to stop the "freefall" cities and towns experienced during the last several years. In an outside section, the Senate agreed with a House provision to lift the cap on Lottery payments beginning in fiscal year 2008 - "far too long a time to wait," Beckwith said.
John Thomas, deputy director of ARC Massachusetts, a group that advocates for the mentally retarded, said he was "extremely pleased" with the near doubling of funding for the Department of Mental Retardation, up by $48.3 million to $1.07 billion. The budget also fully funded the Turning 22 program at $20 million, increased funding for Community Residential Services by more than $26 million, and provided $20 million for direct care workers to receive their first raise in 3 years, Thomas said.
The budget also provides language to set up a separate trust fund for 25 percent of all money earned from the sale or transfer of a state hospital or state school. The money would be earmarked for DMR expenses, as opposed to past years where the funds were spent on other areas, Thomas said.
"Every time the administration proposes closing a state school it becomes a feeding frenzy where you have local officials up in arms and you have local legislators who get into the mix and become very protective of their districts," Thomas said. "This recognizes that we're living in the 21st century and these places need to close down and we need to know how to do it. This is a huge issue."
And while hospital officials lauded the Senate's rejection of Romney's $70 million in cuts to health care providers, health insurers were skeptical of what they called a "health insurance tax" included in the budget. The language would require health insurers to contribute a total of $10.5 million into a Department of Public Health fund, without an earmarked purpose.
Dr. Marylou Buyse, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, said the provision was the "wrong prescription" and would result in higher health insurance costs and employers having to drop coverage.
Gov. Mitt Romney said through a spokeswoman that the administration was still reviewing the full budget with department heads.
"Over the next several weeks we'll be working closely with the conference committee members to encourage as much reform as possible," said Romney's spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman.
Return to
top
The Boston Globe
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Senate eyes law enforcement hike
Spending boost part of budget proposal
By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff
Massachusetts Senate leaders yesterday proposed higher spending for popular law-and-order programs in the coming fiscal year, calling for a new undersecretary of forensic sciences to oversee criminal evidence research, a new State Police counterterrorism unit, and more money for the beleaguered State Police crime lab.
The proposal for increased law enforcement spending -- about $32 million more than this year's spending -- formed part of a $24.4 billion Senate budget plan released yesterday that would freeze last year's funding levels for cities and towns to avoid any broad-based tax hikes or major fee increases.
The plan also calls for a $10.5 million fee for the state's health insurance providers and another $3.8 million fee for tobacco retailers and wholesalers, as well as about $70 million derived from the closing of a corporate tax loophole. Some business leaders complained that the closure of the loophole was a stealth tax hike.
Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Therese Murray, a Plymouth Democrat, touted the Senate spending plan as a rational response to the heightened threat of terrorism, and to the public's outrage over reduced funding for law enforcement since the recession took hold after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It comes as Democrats gear up to fight Republicans in this year's legislative elections.
At a State House press conference, Murray singled out the Senate's determination to fund two new classes of State Police recruits -- an $11 million line item the House did not offer in its spending plan -- and read off a litany of programs the Senate hopes to pass to improve crime-fighting efforts.
"We completely change the way that public safety will work," Murray said, " ... and we think that we stepped up to the plate with the State Police classes and how we're looking at the public safety issues in the Commonwealth."
The plan, which calls for nearly $150 million more in state spending than the proposal put forth by the House of Representatives, seeks to create millions of dollars in savings through an initiative announced earlier this week to consolidate many aspects of the state's rail, road, and air agencies. That plan has the thumbs-up from Governor Mitt Romney, who has failed thus far to persuade the Legislature to pass his own idea of merging the Turnpike Authority with the Highway Department.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan business-backed watchdog organization that analyzes budget plans, applauded the Senate for "the wide array of policy proposals that they came up with this year."
"They are serious and important initiatives, and they deserve credit for that," said Michael J.
Widmer, the foundation's chief.
A preliminary analysis of the Senate plan conducted by Widmer's organization yesterday found that the budget blueprint differs in few ways from the ones proposed by the governor and the House, which passed its plan earlier this spring. The House budget calls for about $24.25 billion in spending, the governor's laid out spending totalling $24.79 billion, and the Senate's came to $24.39 billion, according to the analysis.
Spending may loosen up considerably in the near future, however, because it appears as though state tax revenues are beginning to far outpace estimates agreed upon by the Senate, House, and governor's office in January.
Murray said yesterday that the three parties will meet in June to decide whether they should revise that estimate.
But because 2004 is an election year, it's clear that Senate Democrats appear set upon providing voters with popular crime-fighting spending boosts.
According to the taxpayers' group, the Senate budget calls for a 4.2 percent increase in funding for the State Police, a 3.8 percent increase for district attorneys, and an overall 1 percent increase for criminal justice and law enforcement spending.
In specific, Murray said, the Senate bill would establish a counterterrorism unit within the State Police that would leverage federal matching funds to "maximize its resources." In his new book, former US antiterrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote that terror suspects had slipped into the United State via liquefied natural gas tankers docking in Boston Harbor.
Also, the Senate plan would redesignate an undersecretary of public safety as an undersecretary for homeland security "to ensure a coordinated response to threats to the Commonwealth's security."
The Senate would additionally target about $3 million for patrols in high-crime neighborhoods and for combatting gang-related crime and violence; $1.5 million to reduce the State Police crime lab's case backlog; and would increase funding by $2.2 million for the chief medical examiner's office, a 60 percent boost.
Romney, a Republican, has made crime fighting and punishment a central piece of his agenda, and is now proposing the reinstituting of the death penalty through cutting-edge science. However, several Massachusetts district attorneys recently said such plans are foolhardy unless the state beefs up spending on its forensics and evidence research technology.
In addition to forensics spending, the Senate calls for drastically upping the penalty for failing to report child abuse, from a $1,000 fine to a maximum $25,000 fine or 2.5 years in prison.
"The committee felt it was imperative that there be significant punishment for those that do not report child abuse," said Senate Ways and Means spokesman Rick
Musiol. He said the punishments would apply to all citizens, including members of the clergy.
While such initiatives will no doubt play well with voters, Bay State health insurance providers were incensed that they were targeted for a $10.5 million fee hike, making them one of only a handful of industries to be hit in the Senate budget plan.
"This is a tax on health insurers, and we think it's the wrong prescription for health care, said Dr. Marylou
Buyse, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, a trade group.
Unlike House lawmakers, who predicted several hundred layoffs among state workers as a result of the plan they passed, Senate Democrats said their budget does not necessitate job cuts, but rather leaves broad discretion with the Romney administration to root out redundancies.
The Senate this year also took a second whack at trying to pass a measure that would encourage the research of human embryonic stem cells in the Bay State, something the Catholic Church and House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran have strongly opposed. Last year, the Senate attempted to pass such a measure in the budget, but it died in the conference committee in which House and Senate leaders meet to hash out a compromise spending plan. Romney has said he would sign such a measure if he had the chance.
The Senate will debate the budget plan next week.
Return to
top
The Boston Globe
Thursday, May 13, 2004
A Boston Globe editorial
A start in the senate
The Budget proposed by the Senate Ways and Means Committee is a straitened document. Like the House version and Governor Romney's, it reflects a tepid economy and an insufficient tax base. The Senate budget is stronger when it proposes solutions to pension, health, transportation, and housing problems. The last two initiatives will serve the state well as the economy improves. Unexpected stability in Medicaid enrollment has reduced the program's revenue needs. So the Senate committee has added a welcome $200 million to help pay for the cost to hospitals in caring for the uninsured.
Beyond a nuisance tax increase or two, the committee relies on existing revenue sources. It is hard to see the value of assessing health plans a $10.5 million "Preventive Medicine Contribution Requirement" -- a levy proposed by the governor -- when the plans already encourage healthy lifestyles. Outside sections of the budget are not the place to make policy. Still, the committee has performed a service by including language to limit the ability of longtime state employees to collect scandalously high pensions. No future state retiree would be able to count more than $150,000 of annual income in the calculation of benefits.
Another outside section would add the secretary of transportation to the boards of the Turnpike and Port authorities. This would improve coordination in transportation policy. The governor and the Legislature need to figure out a way to pay for the projects that would result from better planning.
The outside section on housing offers the promise of ending the escalation in housing prices that is a drag on the economy. The committee wants to provide incentives to cities and towns for housing production, and these must be adequately funded.
The revenue figures in the budget are based on projections that may prove too low. If more money becomes available, the governor and Legislature need to revisit the budget to increase spending on education and other important services. Programmatic reform is no substitute for adequate revenues.
Return to
top
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 14, 2004
A Boston Herald editorial
Senate sneaks in an underhanded tax
A sneak tax attack. That's the only way to describe an add-on to the Senate budget hitting health plans up for $10.5 million.
The stated purpose is for "preventive medicine," but it's really just a backdoor way to get health plans to pay for the universal childhood immunization program, now fully funded with public money.
It's a bad precedent to target specific industry groups with a broad assessment to support a universal mandate, not to mention a government department, simply because it's related to their line of business. What's next, taxing accountants to pay for operations of the Department of Revenue, or taxing auto repair shops to pay for the Registry of Motor Vehicles?
This bad idea didn't originate with the Senate. It was the brainchild of the Romney administration. Gov. Mitt Romney [related, bio] included the tax in his budget, but it got shot down by the Centers for Disease Control, which ensures the state gets bottom-rate prices for vaccines. The CDC couldn't guarantee the same discount if the program was funded privately.
The Senate gets around this problem by leaving it up to DPH to decide where the money generated by the new tax gets spent.
Money is fungible, you see, and the CDC will be none the wiser if it's not clear that the health plan assessment is paying for the immunizations. Clever. And underhanded.
This is nothing but a cost-shift to insurers, which will inevitably be passed on to employers in the form of rate increases.
If preventive health care, including the much-lauded immunization program, remains the priority of the Public Health Department, as it has long been, then it ought to be able to manage its own resources, amply provided by the taxpayers, to get the job done.
Return to
top
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, May 6, 2004
Teachers' bullying is going too far
By Tom Moroney
Schoolyard bully has a new name: teacher.
This is no exaggeration in Framingham. Just ask Susan Tsantes.
She's one of those very active, very caring, very concerned PTO mothers who, by the way, absolutely adores teachers, especially those who have worked with her two children.
But recently Tsantes, the newly elected co-president of the Walsh Middle School PTO for the fall, was quoted in the newspaper on the subject of Framingham teachers and their protests over the lack of a contract.
Negotiations have been under way for a year with no resolution. As a result, late last month the 750-member teachers' union decided to add to its protest by voting a work-to-rule initiative.
This means they now show up for school when it starts and leave right when it's over. Gone is any before-school and after-school help for the students.
Tsantes said of the tactic: "I support the teachers but I don't support what the teachers union is doing." The work-to-rule, she said, "is highlighting how little they have to do under the contract."
And finally: "If I want a raise, I work really hard. I don't cut back."
By the anger she generated, you might have figured Tsantes had just said Osama isn't such a bad guy.
The calls and e-mails were ugly enough. But one teacher -- and here's the new schoolyard bully at work -- called
Tsantes' employer.
Tsantes is a Realtor who sells houses. At her request, I am not using the name of her real estate company.
But the teacher in question knew the name and took the time to locate the regional supervisor.
The teacher said to the supervisor: No Framingham teacher will ever buy a house listed by your company, ever.
Tsantes' offending quotes were also photocopied and distributed in the middle school with her employer, the real estate company, scrawled in the margins.
Was this over the line? I'd say. It's one thing to engage in heated debate on the issues. It's quite another to go after someone's livelihood.
It is, in a word, shameful.
Tsantes was shocked. For the record, I should also say she did not contact me. I called her.
I also remember her being quite careful so as not to offend all the teachers she respects when she was finding the words to express her reaction.
She finally said of the call placed to her boss: "I would expect a professional teacher would be able to keep their emotions in check."
I did call the teacher I was told had done the deed. But as of last night I received no call back.
Lisa Merloni, a Framingham teacher who heads up the negotiating team, said she was aware that the phone call had been made but did not know the teacher's name. Merloni also said she talked to Tsantes about it.
"I told her that she had to understand our teachers were really upset by the comments, that they were quite insulting," Merloni said.
But wasn't it over the line to call someone's employer?
"That's a hard question to answer," she said. "I can't say I would do it."
Neither would I, especially now that I have a little more information about the negotiations.
School Superintendent Chris Martes confirmed that his side is offering teachers a 1/2 percent increase in salary in the first year, and 2½ percent in each of the second and third years of a proposed three-year deal.
Talks did begin with the administration offering no increases at all. The new numbers I quoted from Martes were a compromise. And a generous one, I'd say.
While no one would go on the record with what the teachers are asking, sources told me they are looking for a 1 percent increase in the first year, 3½ percent in the second year and 4 percent in the third year.
It seems to me the administration has gone more than halfway.
Not only that, about 45 percent of Framingham's 750 teachers get what are known as "step increases," yearly boosts in pay above and beyond the contract. And those step increases are 5 percent of the base pay.
That means, if the teachers took what's on the table right now, a good portion of them would see a 7½
percent boost in pay in each of the last two years of the deal.
Who else is getting that kind of a bump in this economy?
And to think, one teacher had the nerve to call the place of business of a mother who spoke out.
The word "bully" may be too kind.
Return to
top
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or
payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this
information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For
more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
|