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CLT UPDATE
Friday, June 15, 2012
$118 million more for illegals acknowledged by Patrick
administration
No wonder they say we
need more taxes!
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Illegal aliens, out-of-staters and others who
failed to produce proof of Massachusetts residency drained $118
million from the pool of cash the state uses to reimburse hospitals
and clinics that care for the poor in the latest year on record,
state officials say.
The report, a letter from Health and Human
Services Commissioner Aron Boros last week to an Andover lawmaker
who has been dogging the state for health cost data, says people
without documents racked up $118 million in medical bills from
October 2010 through September 2011, paid for through the state’s
Health Safety Net program — funded by taxpayers, insurance
ratepayers and hospitals and intended for the state’s indigent
residents.
Boros’ letter also says that program coughed up
$60 million for people whose claims paperwork did not include
certain data — such as residency status — because of the
confidential nature of their medical problem. That group includes
victims of domestic violence and minors seeking birth control.
Total safety-net spending for the year: $412
million.
“That’s a lot of money. A lot of money that is
going basically to individuals without any documentation. It’s time
to level the playing field,” said Rep. James J. Lyons (R-Andover),
who wants the state to tighten regulations to weed out free riders.
“If you open a business in the commonwealth,
you’ve got to provide documentation of where you live and what the
business is,” Lyons said.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, June 14, 2012
$118M dip into health pool ripped
Illegals, others use funds
Despite near universal health insurance coverage
in Massachusetts, the state last fiscal year spent $412 million in
reimbursements to hospitals for treatment of patients who lacked
coverage or could not pay their medical bills, including $178
million for patients who failed to prove legal residency.
Though spending on uninsured patients has
declined since passage of the 2006 insurance access law, one
Republican lawmaker who requested the information from the Patrick
administration said he was troubled to learn how much the state
spent for the treatment of patients who never provided documentation
of their legal status.
“One of my primary concerns about the budget
process is knowing where our tax dollars are going and it appears
from this we are providing services to the tune of $178 million
without any documentation and I find that to be troubling,” said
Rep. James Lyons, an Andover Republican.
More than 40 percent of the $412 million spent in
fiscal 2011 on hospital claims for treatment of uninsured or
low-income residents went toward patients who did not produce proof
of legal residency before seeking care, according to Patrick
administration figures....
Lyons met with Health and Human Services
Secretary JudyAnn Bigby in February to request the data concerning
funding and payments from the Health Safety Net program. Division of
Health Care Finance and Policy Director Aron Boros responded to
Lyons with a three-page letter last Friday....
Lyons last year held up the passage of a $169
million spending bill that included $65 million in local aid and a
$350 million deposit in the “rainy day” account, in protest of plans
by legislative leaders to scrap a provision that would have required
the Patrick administration to release a detailed breakdown of
benefit spending for citizens, legal residents and "others" -
including undocumented residents and those whose residential status
cannot be verified.
The Republican relented when Bigby called him and
promised to provide the data he sought, and eventually produced a
report showing that about 1 percent of state Medicaid spending, or
$93 million, covered services for immigrants who couldn't prove
their legal status.
Though this latest report came about two months
later than promised, for which Boros apologized in his letter, Lyons
said he has had success with more tailored data requests to the
administration. He said he may seek next a breakdown of spending on
electronic welfare benefits.
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
State payments included $178 Mil
for patients who failed to prove residency
Welfare cheats have ripped off taxpayers to
the tune of nearly $2.8 million this fiscal year, including a
Boston man charged with using a fake name to scam food stamps
and an Athol woman who hauled in $58,000 in bogus EBT card
benefits, officials said.
In just the first three months of the year,
state investigators found $1.8 million in fraud in more than 400
separate cases, according to a new report from state Auditor
Suzanne Bump. More than $1.2 million of the fraudulently
obtained public benefits involved welfare cheats, while roughly
$500,000 involved Medicaid scams, the report states. All told,
welfare fraud has cost taxpayers $2.736 million since July 1,
2011, the report states.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Report: Welfare cheats cost taxpayers $2.8M
The House passed an MBTA budget bailout bill
Wednesday after some controversy along the way that led most
Republicans to vote against the bill.
House Minority Leader Bradley Jones (R-North
Reading) voted against the bill, along with several other
Republican leaders. The bill passed 130 to 25.
The legislation (H 4161), which now heads to
the Senate, helps the T resolve its budget crisis by sweeping
the state’s motor vehicle inspection trust fund of $51 million
in surplus fee revenues to close the deficit remaining in the
MBTA’s $1.7 billion budget....
Another amendment that would have lowered the
motor vehicle inspection fee from $29 to $25 also failed. Rep.
Richard Bastien (R-Gardner), who sponsored the amendment, said
there was no reason the motor vehicle inspection fund should
have such a surplus and said the ballooning account indicated
fees were too high. He said they should have been rolled back
long ago according to state statute. He called the motor vehicle
inspection trust fund a “slush fund” that was now being used to
bail out the T.
Straus objected to calling it a “slush fund”
and said the account was created to meet federal Clean Air Act
standards with a portion of the money going to the Department of
Environmental Protection. Using the money to pay for
mass-transit aligned with the original goal because people who
use public transportation provide clean air benefits to the
environment, Straus argued.
The amendment was rejected with 33 voting in
favor and 119 against it.
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
House sends bulk of auto inspection fee surplus
to bail out MBTA budget
You know the adage about the First Rule of
Holes is that when you’re in one, stop digging.
Well, the MBTA is and remains in one giant
hole. The House moved just this week to come up with nearly $50
million to tide the debt-ridden system over for the year. Riders
already face a fare increase and some service cutbacks.
But still the Patrick administration is
barreling ahead with plans for a $1.3 billion (already up from
an earlier estimate of $700 million) Green Line extension
through Somerville and Medford. And in a proposal to the Federal
Transit Administration it is proposing to fund the state’s share
— currently pegged at $778 million — with a penny per mile tax
for every vehicle mile traveled.
Yes, a “travel tax” — now if only they could
maybe pass a breathing tax to go along with it....
The federal letter to Transportation
Secretary Richard Davey alludes to “large new, uncommitted
funding sources” identified by the state — which amount to a
parade of horribles the likes of which state taxpayers have
never seen.
First the Patrick administration proposes to
consolidate all that T debt into a $1.6 billion pot for which
the state would assume responsibility. The penny per mile
“travel tax” would go into a new Commonwealth Transportation
Fund. The T would also get a share of gaming revenues. Plan B
calls for increasing MBTA fares and parking fees, raising the
motor vehicle registration renewal fee and the motor vehicle
sales tax.
But wait, folks, there’s more. Plan C would
include a “commercial parking tax” or indexing the gasoline tax
to inflation.
An extension of the Green Line is a nice
idea, one that would increase property values along the route.
But right now the state just can’t afford it — certainly not if
it means taxing everything that moves from the Berkshires to
Barnstable County to pay for it.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Beware a ‘travel tax’
The bad news is that sometime over the next
five years, the state will once again face an escalating
structural deficit in that the projected growth in revenues at
current tax rates will be insufficient to maintain existing
state programs. This is the result of two trends: health care
cost inflation plus state tax cuts implemented during past
administrations. By next year, health care spending by the
Commonwealth will account for 41 percent of state budgetary
spending, up from 23 percent in 2000....
What the report does not mention is what this
all means for tax policy. We will likely need more tax revenue
unless everything goes exactly right on economic growth and
health care cost containment.
As a society, we also need to decide whether
the current level of investments in transportation and education
are consistent with our long-term aspirations for the
Commonwealth.
Fortunately, we have the capacity to raise
tax rates without once again becoming Taxachusetts....
No one wants to pay more taxes, but it will
soon be time that to think about how to raise some additional
revenue in an equitable manner just in case all of our fiscal
efforts and hopes for the economy do not come true.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
A fiscal forecast for Massachusetts
By Barry Bluestone
Time is running out on this legislative
session and the push is on to jam as many major policy changes
and spending add-ons into state law as is humanly possible. The
latest example — a $212 mini-budget that is packed with policy
changes and appropriations that lack any explanation.
This, dear taxpayers, is
government-by-supplemental-budget — a truly tiresome bit of
business that deprives the public of any chance to evaluate
important decisions being made in their name.
Of course, that’s a growing problem on Beacon
Hill, where nearly every major decision is made behind closed
doors and taxpayers are given a pat on the head and an assurance
that all will be well.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Budget business as usual
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Greetings activists and supporters:
In the CLT Update on last November 2 [$93M
for illegals' health care — "the tip of the iceberg"] I wrote:
Thanks to state Rep. James Lyons (R-Andover)
we now know that taxpayers are ponying up at least $93 million a
year to fund free health care services for 54,732 known illegal
aliens, or as state Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn
Bigby prefers, "immigrants who have not provided documentation."
"In addition . . . $380 million covered services for 69,301
'qualified immigrants' and $95 million covered services for
33,215 legal immigrants who don't yet meet the residency
requirements to qualify for federal matching funds."
That allegedly covers taxpayer-funded health care costs for the
state's immigrant population. What about the plethora of other
"social services" — housing (e.g., President Obama's aunt
Zeituni Onyango), EBT cards, etc.?
“This is only the tip of the iceberg," said state Rep. Daniel
Webster, (R-Pembroke). "If $93 million is spent annually on
MassHealth benefits for illegal aliens, one can only imagine how
much money in all other state sponsored benefits is being given
away to those who are in our country unlawfully.”
Yes, "one can only imagine."
This was in reaction to a Boston Herald report a
few days earlier [Oct. 29, 2011 —
Pol gets action! Gets Patrick to admit high cost of illegals' health
care], which in part revealed:
A dogged freshman lawmaker who refused to
budge from the House chambers earlier this month until the
Patrick administration came clean on how much taxpayers coughed
up last year for free health care to illegal aliens finally got
his answer yesterday: a whopping $93 million.
“I didn’t think it would take as much work as it did to answer
such a simple question about how our tax dollars are spent,"
state Rep. James J. Lyons Jr. told the Herald yesterday....
The 58-year-old Andover Republican — who bucked Beacon Hill by
holding a sit-in in the House chambers two weeks ago — pried the
shocking report from state officials. It showed that nearly
55,000 illegal immigrants received more than $93 million in
MassHealth benefits for emergency medical services last year....
State Rep. James Lyons
(R-Andover) was a guest on Howie Carr's WRKO radio
program yesterday to discuss how the state has spent $118 million
providing health care for illegal immigrants, out-of-staters and
others who couldn't provide proof of Massachusetts residency. During
their discussion, Rep. Lyons further clarified the latest spending numbers
he's finally pried loose from the Patrick Administration:
"This $118 million is in addition to
the $93 million ... last year's '$93 million' number that they
gave us is out of a different program...." Rep. Lyons
said, then added, "Include another $60 million under
'status not available'" [Listen
Here]
Since Rep. Lyons began investigating how much we
taxpayers are paying for illegal aliens' free health care, the EBT
card scandal erupted. Now we know in fact that free health
care for illegals truly was and remains "just the tip of the
iceberg."
The Massachusetts Senate passed a $32.4 billion
budget on May 25. That's $1.57 billion higher than the
current year's budget when it was enacted last year. It dodged any
serious reform of the EBT abuses [CLT
Update, May 26 — Senate Dems duck
serious reform, spend more on EBT card fraud].
From what is being exposed, drip by drip, it
seems that we can extrapolate where that $1.57 billion spending
increase will be squandered.
So now we're beginning to discover more about how
much Bacon Hill is spending, and squandering, our money. But how
long can this be sustained?
Apparently, the Legislature and Governor Patrick
believe, forever — so long as they just
keep increasing their spending by hiking our taxes and
fees.
Using $51 million from surplus auto
inspection fees to bail out the MBTA is a new way to comingle
fungible money, funds from fees that allegedly cannot be more than
the cost of providing a specific service (see the SJC's ruling in
Emerson
vs. City of Boston, 1984) and
CLT's 1989-92 fee increases challenge). In 1999 the Legislature
changed the sales tax, dedicating 20 percent (one of every five
cents collected) of sales tax revenue to the MBTA. (Then The Best
Legislature Money Can Buy hiked the sales tax from 5 percent to
6.25 percent in 2009.)
Since there is such a massive surplus from auto
inspection fee revenue, Rep. Richard Bastien (R-Gardner), sponsored
the amendment to reduce the annual fee from $29 to $25. He
asserted that "there was no reason the motor vehicle inspection fund
should have such a surplus and said the ballooning account indicated
fees were too high." He added that "they should have been rolled
back long ago according to state statute." He called the motor
vehicle inspection trust fund a “slush fund” that was now being used
to bail out the T.
He was absolutely, unarguably correct
— both morally and legally.
Nonetheless, his amendment was routinely defeated by a vote of 119
to 33.
More Is Never Enough (MINE) and never will be.
Meanwhile the tax-borrow-and-spend Gimme Lobby
continues flying beneath the radar, doggedly building support for a
massive new income tax increase. The
Campaign for
Our Communities — a collective of
the usual suspects — continues plodding
along building its list of supporters, and municipal government
endorsements for their income tax hike.
It's plan is to hike the income tax rate from where, after
twenty-three years of a broken Legislative promise, CLT has finally
gotten it partially rolled back, to 5.25 percent. We taxpayers have
yet to see the 1989 "temporary" tax hike restored to its historic 5%
but the Gimme Lobby lusts to jack it back up to 5.95 percent.
They've been focused on this jihad on taxpayers for years.
[See: CLT Update: May 10, 2011 -
Tax-hike crowd's vow: "In the end we will be victorious"]
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester)
warned back then:
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be lulled into a false
sense of complacency just because the House passed a budget with
no new taxes. The reality is that some legislators are intent on
pursuing every available avenue to raise taxes.”
The Gimme Lobby and the Takers have only
persisted and are growing stronger. Professor
Barry Bluestone, dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban
Affairs at Northeastern University and another of the usual
suspects, is now paving the way, softening up the target.
More Is Never Enough (MINE) and never will be.
For more details of the coming assault
click here.
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Chip Ford |
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, June 14, 2012
$118M dip into health pool ripped
Illegals, others use funds
By John Zaremba
Illegal aliens, out-of-staters and others who failed to produce
proof of Massachusetts residency drained $118 million from the pool
of cash the state uses to reimburse hospitals and clinics that care
for the poor in the latest year on record, state officials say.
The report, a letter from Health and Human Services Commissioner
Aron Boros last week to an Andover lawmaker who has been dogging the
state for health cost data, says people without documents racked up
$118 million in medical bills from October 2010 through September
2011, paid for through the state’s Health Safety Net program —
funded by taxpayers, insurance ratepayers and hospitals and intended
for the state’s indigent residents.
Boros’ letter also says that program coughed up $60 million for
people whose claims paperwork did not include certain data — such as
residency status — because of the confidential nature of their
medical problem. That group includes victims of domestic violence
and minors seeking birth control.
Total safety-net spending for the year: $412 million.
“That’s a lot of money. A lot of money that is going basically to
individuals without any documentation. It’s time to level the
playing field,” said Rep. James J. Lyons (R-Andover), who wants the
state to tighten regulations to weed out free riders.
“If you open a business in the commonwealth, you’ve got to provide
documentation of where you live and what the business is,” Lyons
said. “If we’re providing benefits, all I’m suggesting we do is
level the playing field. Don’t just give benefits out if we’re not
requiring documentation.”
In October, the Patrick administration — under pressure after Lyons
staged a sit-in in the House chambers — disclosed that nearly 55,000
illegal aliens received more than $93 million from the separate
MassHealth benefits for emergency medical services in 2010.
A scathing March 2011 report on the Health Safety Net by the state
Inspector General’s office analyzed the fund’s 2009 spending and
found that $7 million went to medical bills for non-Massachusetts
residents, in addition to $6 million paid for duplicate claims and
$17.8 million for more than 60,000 dubious claims, including foot
X-rays for patients complaining of headaches.
“The purpose of the Health Safety Net Trust Fund is to reimburse
hospitals for care provided to individuals who include victims of
domestic violence, patients in need of emergency treatment and
children,” HHS spokesman Alec Loftus said. “The health safety net
has been supported for decades by multiple administrations in
Massachusetts and health safety net payments are down more than 40
percent since the Romney administration, thanks to the successful
implementation of health care reform in Massachusetts.”
Joshua Archambault, director of health-care policy at Boston’s
conservative Pioneer Institute, said Boros’ letter “points to a
significant hole in accountability when it comes to spending state
resources.”
“It’s just telling us we have a lot more work to do to make sure
we’re spending taxpayer money wisely on health care. ... It shows we
need more of a robust audit of this program, given the amount we’re
spending.”
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
State payments included $178 Mil for patients who failed to prove
residency
By Matt Murphy
Despite near universal health insurance coverage in Massachusetts,
the state last fiscal year spent $412 million in reimbursements to
hospitals for treatment of patients who lacked coverage or could not
pay their medical bills, including $178 million for patients who
failed to prove legal residency.
Though spending on uninsured patients has declined since passage of
the 2006 insurance access law, one Republican lawmaker who requested
the information from the Patrick administration said he was troubled
to learn how much the state spent for the treatment of patients who
never provided documentation of their legal status.
“One of my primary concerns about the budget process is knowing
where our tax dollars are going and it appears from this we are
providing services to the tune of $178 million without any
documentation and I find that to be troubling,” said Rep. James
Lyons, an Andover Republican.
More than 40 percent of the $412 million spent in fiscal 2011 on
hospital claims for treatment of uninsured or low-income residents
went toward patients who did not produce proof of legal residency
before seeking care, according to Patrick administration figures.
That figure includes $60 million spent on cases where patient data
for health safety net claims was unavailable, including for medical
hardship claims, emergency bad debt and confidential applicants such
as battered individuals and minors seeking family planning services.
“Federal law mandates hospitals treat everyone who comes through
their doors, regardless of immigration status. The purpose of the
Health Safety Net Trust Fund is to reimburse hospitals for care
provided to individuals who include victims of domestic violence,
patients in need of emergency treatment and children,” said Alec
Loftus, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Health and Human
Service.
Lyons met with Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby in
February to request the data concerning funding and payments from
the Health Safety Net program. Division of Health Care Finance and
Policy Director Aron Boros responded to Lyons with a three-page
letter last Friday.
According to the administration, the state spent $412 million from
the health safety net between October 2010 and September 2011. Of
that total, $178 million in provider payments went toward citizens,
$22 million for qualified immigrants and $36 million for immigrants
with special status.
Reducing the size of the former uncompensated care pool was a major
thrust of the 2006 reform law expanding access to insurance, which
has resulted in over 98 percent of Massachusetts residents being
insured. Supporters argued that the law would reduce the number of
patients without coverage seeking expensive emergency room care.
The Patrick administration said since 2005 spending from the safety
net has dropped from $676 million in 2005 to $412 in 2011.
“The health safety net has been supported for decades by multiple
administrations in Massachusetts and health safety net payments are
down more than 40 percent since the Romney Administration, thanks to
the successful implementation of health care reform in
Massachusetts,” Loftus said in a statement.
Lyons said he was in “fact-finding mode” and unsure of how he would
use the information.
“Right now, I’m trying to gather as much information as I can. I
have been concerned and continue to be concerned that taxpayer
dollars are being spent without accountability,” Lyons said.
Though illegal immigrants undoubtedly account for some of the
spending on undocumented patients, the Patrick administration said
some of the claims could be for victims of trauma, such as a gunshot
wound, who arrive in the emergency room without identification.
Asked how much of the spending he thought went toward illegal
immigrants, Lyons said, “I don’t know.”
The Health Safety Net, previously known as the uncompensated care
pool, was created to reimburse hospitals and community health
centers for a portion of the cost of services provided to
low-income, uninsured or underinsured residents.
The trust fund has three main sources of revenue, and in fiscal 2011
received $160 million from a surcharge on insurers, $160 million
from an assessment on providers and $30 million from the general
fund. In addition, $70 million was transferred to the safety net
program from the Medical Assistance Trust Fund, which includes $45
million from the general fund and $25 million from a federally
required deposit by the Cambridge Health Alliance.
Though $70 million in direct taxpayer dollars were used from the
health safety net, Boros said in his letter that the division is
unable to calculate the amount of cost shifting to other payers,
agencies or insurers.
Lyons last year held up the passage of a $169 million spending bill
that included $65 million in local aid and a $350 million deposit in
the “rainy day” account, in protest of plans by legislative leaders
to scrap a provision that would have required the Patrick
administration to release a detailed breakdown of benefit spending
for citizens, legal residents and "others" - including undocumented
residents and those whose residential status cannot be verified.
The Republican relented when Bigby called him and promised to
provide the data he sought, and eventually produced a report showing
that about 1 percent of state Medicaid spending, or $93 million,
covered services for immigrants who couldn't prove their legal
status.
Though this latest report came about two months later than promised,
for which Boros apologized in his letter, Lyons said he has had
success with more tailored data requests to the administration. He
said he may seek next a breakdown of spending on electronic welfare
benefits.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Report: Welfare cheats cost taxpayers $2.8M
By Dave Wedge
Welfare cheats have ripped off taxpayers to the tune of nearly $2.8
million this fiscal year, including a Boston man charged with using
a fake name to scam food stamps and an Athol woman who hauled in
$58,000 in bogus EBT card benefits, officials said.
In just the first three months of the year, state investigators
found $1.8 million in fraud in more than 400 separate cases,
according to a new report from state Auditor Suzanne Bump. More than
$1.2 million of the fraudulently obtained public benefits involved
welfare cheats, while roughly $500,000 involved Medicaid scams, the
report states. All told, welfare fraud has cost taxpayers $2.736
million since July 1, 2011, the report states.
“In today’s economic climate, with so many struggling to get by, it
is more important than ever to make sure every dollar given in
benefits goes to those who are actually in need,” Bump said.
Among the cases cited in the report:
• An Athol woman pleaded guilty in Boston Municipal Court to
fraudulently collecting $58,170 in food assistance through the
federally funded Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. She
was put on probation for three years and ordered to pay full
restitution.
• A Boston man pleaded guilty to larceny for illegally selling his
food stamps for cash. He was placed on two years of probation and
ordered to pay restitution.
• A Boston man faces fraud charges for allegedly collecting $21,000
in food assistance over seven years by using another man’s identity.
He’s also facing federal charges for collecting housing vouchers
under the same man’s name.
“It proves that there’s rampant fraud in the welfare system,” state
Rep. Shaunna O’Connell, a Taunton Republican who has been fighting
for welfare reform on Beacon Hill, said of the report.
EBT fraud has been under the microscope on Beacon Hill since a
series of Herald stories revealed rampant abuse, including people
using cards to buy lingerie, booze, lottery tickets and crack
cocaine.
In April, federal, state and local cops raided stores in Chinatown
and Quincy and busted 53 people for EBT fraud, including a Quincy
convenience store owner who allegedly racked up $700,000 in
fraudulent food stamp sales over two years.
A joint committee on Beacon Hill is currently reviewing welfare
reform plans, but O’Connell fears lawmakers won’t go far enough. “If
we don’t address the issue of unrestricted cash access with no
oversight, then any other reforms will just be meaningless,” she
said.
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
House sends bulk of auto inspection fee surplus to bail out MBTA
budget
By Colleen Quinn
The House passed an MBTA budget bailout bill Wednesday after some
controversy along the way that led most Republicans to vote against
the bill.
House Minority Leader Bradley Jones (R-North Reading) voted against
the bill, along with several other Republican leaders. The bill
passed 130 to 25.
The legislation (H 4161), which now heads to the Senate, helps the T
resolve its budget crisis by sweeping the state’s motor vehicle
inspection trust fund of $51 million in surplus fee revenues to
close the deficit remaining in the MBTA’s $1.7 billion budget. T
fare hikes averaging 23 percent and some service cuts are closing
most of the T’s budget gap. The fare increases and service cuts take
effect July 1.
Some lawmakers from communities further outside the Boston area
balked at giving the transit system inspection fee money that is
collected statewide.
As a compromise, regional transit authorities are also in line to
receive $3.5 million, including $2 million from the trust fund and
$1.5 million in surplus snow and ice removal funds. House leaders
say a separate deal has been struck with the Senate for $3.5 million
more to be set aside for RTA's in next year's budget.
During debate on the bill, Republican lawmakers attempted to tie the
release of the $51 million that will be transferred from the state’s
motor vehicle inspection fund to close the T budget gap with Chapter
90 funds promised in the spring that cities and towns are still
waiting for to conduct road and bridge repairs.
Rep. Daniel Winslow (R-Norfolk) filed an amendment to delay
transferring the $51 million to the T until the Legislature and
governor give final approval to legislation giving cities and towns
$200 million for road and bridge projects. The money is tied up in
conference committee after the House and Senate passed differing
versions of a transportation bond bill. The House in March passed a
bill that included only the $200 million in funding for Chapter 90
local infrastructure projects, stripping out the remaining $1.3
billion in spending authorization proposed by the Patrick
administration and passed in the Senate.
The conference committee – four Democrats and two Republicans – has
been unable to strike a deal.
Winslow said the same reasons the state is helping the MBTA,
including job growth, point to why the state needs to quickly get
money to communities for road and bridge projects. Municipal
officials have been unable to start spring and summer construction
projects because the money is still tied up.
“Our towns depend on the Chapter 90 money,” Winslow said. “With
every passing day the price of projects will increase as contractors
have our towns over the barrel.”
Rep. William Straus, co-chair of the Transportation Committee,
argued against the idea saying it was a dangerous precedent to tie
transportation projects together.
Jones said the precedent was already set when the state was mandated
as the result of a court case to fund certain MBTA projects,
including the Green Line extension, as part of the Big Dig project.
“We aren’t establishing the precedent,” Jones said. “This is a
perfect opportunity to send a message to the upper branch, and to
the public that we hear them.”
The amendment failed 34 to 115. Two Democrats voted with the
Republicans, Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox) and Rep.
Stephen DiNatale (D-Fitchburg).
Several lawmakers said it pained them to give money to the MBTA for
a short-term fix to its ongoing budget problems.
Rep. George Peterson, one of the few Republicans who did vote in
favor of the bill, said he did so with “trepidation and concern.”
Peterson said he was among the group of legislators who, several
years ago, forced the MBTA to change the way it operates by
requiring a balanced budget as opposed to handing the Legislature a
bill at the end of the year. Peterson said he was concerned about a
long-term solution.
“We cannot continue to say alright we are going to pay the bill one
more time,” Peterson said before the vote. “We need to look at all
the strategies, whether it is privatizing The Ride or a different
fare collection.”
“I will be supporting this because I understand how badly the T
needs this influx of funds right now,” he added. “We need to come up
with a long-term strategy. Because if we don’t, the next time we
come here to throw some money at the problem, I won’t be that
supportive.”
Another amendment that would have lowered the motor vehicle
inspection fee from $29 to $25 also failed. Rep. Richard Bastien
(R-Gardner), who sponsored the amendment, said there was no reason
the motor vehicle inspection fund should have such a surplus and
said the ballooning account indicated fees were too high. He said
they should have been rolled back long ago according to state
statute. He called the motor vehicle inspection trust fund a “slush
fund” that was now being used to bail out the T.
Straus objected to calling it a “slush fund” and said the account
was created to meet federal Clean Air Act standards with a portion
of the money going to the Department of Environmental Protection.
Using the money to pay for mass-transit aligned with the original
goal because people who use public transportation provide clean air
benefits to the environment, Straus argued.
The amendment was rejected with 33 voting in favor and 119 against
it.
One successful change to the bill would extend the expiration date
for multi-ride tickets for the T. Rep. Jay Barrows (R-Mansfield)
said it was inconsistent to require retailers to have no expiration
dates on their gift cards, yet the T could have tickets expire
within 30 days. His amendment, adopted unanimously, pushed the
expiration date to 90 days.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
A Boston Herald editorial
Beware a ‘travel tax’
You know the adage about the First Rule of Holes is that when you’re
in one, stop digging.
Well, the MBTA is and remains in one giant hole. The House moved
just this week to come up with nearly $50 million to tide the
debt-ridden system over for the year. Riders already face a fare
increase and some service cutbacks.
But still the Patrick administration is barrelling ahead with plans
for a $1.3 billion (already up from an earlier estimate of $700
million) Green Line extension through Somerville and Medford. And in
a proposal to the Federal Transit Administration it is proposing to
fund the state’s share — currently pegged at $778 million — with a
penny per mile tax for every vehicle mile traveled.
Yes, a “travel tax” — now if only they could maybe pass a breathing
tax to go along with it.
The administration has refused to release the plan filed with the
feds, citing “security issues.” (The application includes some
engineering information along with the financing plan.)
But State House News Service did obtain the FTA’s response,
approving the preliminary engineering for the project, but urging a
firmer financial plan.
The federal letter to Transportation Secretary Richard Davey alludes
to “large new, uncommitted funding sources” identified by the state
— which amount to a parade of horribles the likes of which state
taxpayers have never seen.
First the Patrick administration proposes to consolidate all that T
debt into a $1.6 billion pot for which the state would assume
responsibility. The penny per mile “travel tax” would go into a new
Commonwealth Transportation Fund. The T would also get a share of
gaming revenues. Plan B calls for increasing MBTA fares and parking
fees, raising the motor vehicle registration renewal fee and the
motor vehicle sales tax.
But wait, folks, there’s more. Plan C would include a “commercial
parking tax” or indexing the gasoline tax to inflation.
An extension of the Green Line is a nice idea, one that would
increase property values along the route. But right now the state
just can’t afford it — certainly not if it means taxing everything
that moves from the Berkshires to Barnstable County to pay for it.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
A fiscal forecast for Massachusetts
By Barry Bluestone
If 40 pages of statistics, tables, graphs, and economic analysis
could generate any buzz at all, the state’s release of its report on
long-term fiscal policy would have garnered front-page headlines.
Indeed, it should have, for this may be the first time ever a
governor has asked for a five-year budget plan anticipating future
revenues and expenditures. We can be proud of the fact that the
leaders of the state have been excellent fiscal stewards through the
most difficult economic period since the Great Depression,
implementing difficult budget cuts and improving our bond ratings to
their highest levels in history. But we are hardly out of the fiscal
woods.
The good news, according to the report, is that the Great Recession
will be over and the economy will be growing at a healthy clip. This
will mean that the “cyclical” deficits the state has faced due to a
weak national economy will be behind us. The report also makes a
persuasive case that the Commonwealth has successfully eliminated
“structural” budget deficits for the first time since before the
boom years leading up to the recession. A structural deficit occurs
when a government “spends beyond sustainable levels of revenue.”
The bad news is that sometime over the next five years, the state
will once again face an escalating structural deficit in that the
projected growth in revenues at current tax rates will be
insufficient to maintain existing state programs. This is the result
of two trends: health care cost inflation plus state tax cuts
implemented during past administrations. By next year, health care
spending by the Commonwealth will account for 41 percent of state
budgetary spending, up from 23 percent in 2000.
The state has had some success in containing health care cost growth
since reform was implemented: Costs in Massachusetts are now growing
at less than the national average; Medicaid spending is projected to
grow by less than 3 percent this year, and state employee insurance
premiums are projected to grow by less than 2 percent, the lowest
rate of growth in 10 years. But cost containment will not be
sustainable without system reform, something the governor and the
Legislature are currently trying to do.
The state has also wisely generated a stabilization fund, a “rainy
day” piggy bank to be used when bad economic times diminish tax
revenues. Some of these funds were used during the past few years to
cushion what would otherwise have been even more devastating cuts in
state programs and in local aid to cities and towns. The state also
used some revenue to replenish the fund during the recent, albeit
modest, economic recovery. But according to the new report, if
nothing is done to reduce health care spending, the state would have
to make another billion dollars in budget cuts by 2017 to prevent
depleting the rainy day fund — even if the economy continues to
improve.
What is more, if the Commonwealth can come up with reasonable ways
to reduce the expected rise in health care costs, there will still
be only enough money left in state coffers to maintain level
spending of existing state services.
Nothing will be available for needed investments in transportation
infrastructure, education, or the restoration of past budget cuts
including more local aid to reverse the pounding municipal
governments have taken.
Mind you, this all occurs if the economy remains strong. If it
doesn’t, we can expect to pile a cyclical deficit on top of the
structural one. In this case and with no cuts in escalating health
care spending, the state could run a $1.6 billion deficit in 2017
even if we used all of the stabilization fund. That would induce
massive cuts in virtually all public services and a threat to the
state’s stellar bond rating.
What the report does not mention is what this all means for tax
policy. We will likely need more tax revenue unless everything goes
exactly right on economic growth and health care cost containment.
As a society, we also need to decide whether the current level of
investments in transportation and education are consistent with our
long-term aspirations for the Commonwealth.
Fortunately, we have the capacity to raise tax rates without once
again becoming Taxachusetts.
Overall, 32 states pay a higher percentage of their personal income
in state and local taxes. Of the 34 states with a state income tax,
28 have a higher maximum rate. In more than half of all states (28)
motorists pay higher gasoline taxes.
No one wants to pay more taxes, but it will soon be time that to
think about how to raise some additional revenue in an equitable
manner just in case all of our fiscal efforts and hopes for the
economy do not come true.
Barry Bluestone is dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban
Affairs at Northeastern University.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
A Boston Herald editorial
Budget business as usual
Time is running out on this legislative session and the push is on
to jam as many major policy changes and spending add-ons into state
law as is humanly possible. The latest example — a $212 mini-budget
that is packed with policy changes and appropriations that lack any
explanation.
This, dear taxpayers, is government-by-supplemental-budget — a truly
tiresome bit of business that deprives the public of any chance to
evaluate important decisions being made in their name.
Of course, that’s a growing problem on Beacon Hill, where nearly
every major decision is made behind closed doors and taxpayers are
given a pat on the head and an assurance that all will be well.
As the name suggests, “supps” are meant to supplement the annual
state budget. Legislators commonly use them to address unforeseen
expenses.
And yes, since the dawn of the commonwealth there have been policy
changes tucked into these mini-budgets. But it has now become
accepted practice to pack them with complex changes in law that come
with zero context (but millions in extra spending).
This one, for example, contains page after page of health care
changes. It also mandates a new method of construction oversight for
a planned extension of the Green Line. That’s in addition to
millions in spending and, yes, pay raises for some public employees.
As the State House News Service reported, House Ways and Means
Chairman Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill) took all of two minutes to
explain all of that to his fellow reps as they prepared to “debate”
the bill. There was nary a mention of the Green Line, however, nor
the changes to certain MBTA retirement rules, nor the brand-new tax
exemptions for properties that house solar-powered systems.
And yet the bill was happily passed along in the House, and is set
for a vote in the Senate today.
This is business as usual on Beacon Hill, but the taxpayers deserve
better.
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