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CLT UPDATE
Friday, May 17, 2013
Focus, despite 'overwhelming' distractions
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Five months later, and on the heels of House and
Senate passage of major tax increases, tax collections have
rebounded and the Democrat-controlled Legislature and Patrick are on
the verge of passing major tax increases to deliver the biggest
infusion of new transportation revenues in recent memory.
Tax receipts in April, historically the biggest
month of the year for collections, surged 14.3 percent, or $359
million over April 2012. The big haul put collections for fiscal
2013 up 5.5 percent over fiscal 2012 with two months remaining in
the fiscal year, and $510 million above budget benchmarks....
Patrick and the Legislature have added about $158
million to this year’s budget by passing a pair of mid-year spending
bills, and the governor last Friday quietly filed another
supplemental budget, this time asking for $119 million to address
unpaid winter road-clearing bills, special election costs, summer
jobs for teens, and costs associated with legal representation of
indigent defendants facing criminal charges....
Rep. Elizabeth Poirier, a North Attleboro
Republican, said the tax revenue windfall this year bolstered the
argument behind a GOP-sponsored transportation financing plan, which
relied in part on dedicating a portion of tax revenue growth to
transportation accounts.
A major sales tax hike approved in 2009 is also
helping to keep revenues up, with an expected further push from
increases in gas, tobacco and business taxes nearing Gov. Patrick’s
desk.
Poirier said the tax hikes come at a price. She
said, "How many people are we going to push out of our state? How
many more people are we going to put in dire straits because of what
we've done? So we've made money, but what do our citizens do?"
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Tax dollars flow well above estimates months after budget was opened
up
State Senate leaders unveiled a $33.92 billion
annual budget Wednesday that boosts spending on services for the
elderly and special education, but falls well short of Governor
Deval Patrick’s plan to provide universal access to child care and
broadly expand the state’s aging transportation network.
Overall, the Senate plan would increase spending
by 4.4 percent. Patrick’s plan would hike spending by 6.9 percent.
Compared with the House proposal, the Senate
provides more money for K-12 education, but not as much for higher
education, while rejecting a crackdown on welfare fraud.
Senators will debate the blueprint next week and
reconcile differences with the House, which approved its version of
the budget last month. Patrick must act on the Legislature’s
agreement by July 1, when the new budget year begins.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
State Senate unveils $33.9b budget
Budget tempers Patrick’s transportation and education push
The Senate’s budget chief on Wednesday described
differences between the House and Senate spending plans for fiscal
2014 as “incremental,” but a quick review of the bill shows the
branches taking different paths on education and welfare issues.
The $33.9 billion Senate budget proposal scrapped
several significant policy proposals touted by House leaders
intended to improve oversight and accountability over early
education and the public welfare system....
All of the issues are likely to come into play
next week when the Senate opens debate on the fiscal 2014 budget
plan Wednesday. Senators must file proposed amendments to the budget
by Friday afternoon.
“I’m not saying that anybody ignored any of those
things, but the Senate president has got a comprehensive welfare
reform piece that she is drafting, working on, that will be all
encompassing,” Senate Ways and Means Chairman Stephen Brewer
said....
The Senate Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday
endorsed a $33.9 billion budget proposal for the fiscal year that
begins July 1, relying on $430 million in new taxes, $800 million in
revenue growth and $627 million in reserves and one-time funding to
support a $1.4 billion increase in year-to-year spending.
Like the House, the Senate plans falls well short
of making the investments sought by Gov. Deval Patrick in
transportation and education through his $1.9 billion tax proposal.
Secretary of Administration and Finance Glen Shor said the
administration was reviewing the budget, with the governor’s
priorities in mind....
The House last month endorsed the creation of a
new Bureau of Program Integrity to work on reducing fraud, improving
oversight and standardizing eligibility determination processes for
welfare benefits across agencies. The bill also required that
electronic benefit transfer cards come with photo IDs....
“All of us are opposed to waste, fraud and abuse.
It sullies the atmosphere for those that deservedly need to get
those benefits and we’re all committed to making that happen,”
Brewer said.
Acknowledging that amendments could be filed by
Friday’s 3 p.m. deadline to add some welfare reforms to the budget
bill, Brewer would not say whether Senate leaders will seek to
divorce the welfare reform debate from the general discussion of the
budget.
“I want to see substantive changes that are
meaningful and I believe the Senate president’s issues that she will
come out with will be comprehensive,” he said....
Brewer said the budget plan increases spending on
MassHealth by $1.26 billion to about $12 billion total, an increase
driven by 36 percent growth in Medicaid enrollment from the expanded
eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. Ways and Means estimates
that 200,000 new enrollees will fall under MassHealth starting in
January at a cost of $460 million, but increased federal
reimbursements will end up saving the state $156 million....
[Sen. Michael Knapik, a Westfield Republican and
ranking minority member on the Ways and Means Committee] also
predicted efforts to amend the budget bill next week to incorporate
some of the House-backed welfare system reforms, and said he wished
the transportation financing bill could be finalized before the
Senate debate begins next week.
“I know we’re going to hear it costs too much
money, but I think the public would be well served if we put folks’
pictures on the IDs and talk about some restrictions on the cashless
ability. I think we need to have a further understanding of what
stores can and cannot block in terms of modern technology,” Knapik
said....
Noah Berger, president of the Massachusetts
Budget and Policy Center, said new investments in early education,
public health and local aid still fall below levels from 1998
through 2002 when income tax rates were cut, reducing revenue by $3
billion.
“We know that investing in our people is
essential to building a strong economy, and that public health
investments and oversight can save both money and lives. We see in
this budget, as we saw in the House budget, that without restoring
more of the revenue lost to income tax cuts it is nearly impossible
to make major investments to improve the long-term economic
prospects of our state,” Berger said.
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Senate budget tack leaves room to negotiate key issues with House
The best news, of course, about the Senate budget
released yesterday is that it puts a stake in the heart of Gov.
Deval Patrick’s plan to tax us all back to the Stone Age.
Yes, like the House budget it assumes nearly $500
million in new revenues to finance the state’s transportation
system. But the Senate’s $33.9 billion fiscal 2014 budget increases
spending by a mere 4.4 percent (or $1.4 billion), rather than
the nearly 7 percent hike the governor was demanding....
Most disappointing, however, is that the Senate
budget fails to make the common sense reforms to the state’s
troubled EBT system that the House recommended. Gone is the $300,000
for a much-needed Bureau of Program Integrity and the requirement
for photos on those Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, a move aimed
at stopping trafficking in the cards. Is it too much ask to reform a
system that the Patrick administration is either unwilling or unable
to reform itself?
The House was on the right track there. And as
this budget battle goes into its next round such reforms surely
ought to be on lawmakers’ list of good ideas in need of saving.
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, May 16, 2013
EBT reforms ditched
House Democrats yesterday slammed a proposed
Senate spending plan that gutted House-approved welfare reforms,
calling it a “disgrace” and vowing to fight to restore them in the
final state budget.
“The House is not going to take a nosedive on
this,” state Rep. James Miceli, a Wilmington Democrat, said of
measures to put photos on EBT cards and launch a Bureau of Program
Integrity designed to stop welfare fraud before it starts — both of
which were removed in Senate budget plans unveiled this week.
“I think it’s a disgrace none of these reforms
stayed in the budget. Absolutely a disgrace,” Miceli said. “The
changes we had were minimal.”
Other House lawmakers said they expect to restore
the reforms in an amendment to be filed before today’s 3 p.m.
deadline or hash it out in conference committee.
The chairman of the Senate Ways and Means
Committee sought to explain the gutting, saying Senate President
Therese Murray prefers to address welfare reform in a separate bill,
not in “piecemeal” as she described it Wednesday.
But Miceli wasn’t buying that. “What that means,”
he said, “is see you next year.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 17, 2013
House Dems blast welfare reform cuts
Instead, three bills have come to define the
early months of the 2013 legislative agenda and resolutions on tax
hikes, local road funding and the annual state budget continue to be
elusive and dependent on one another....
The Senate Ways and Means Committee this week
released its version of the fiscal 2014 state budget, a $33.9
billion spending plan that bore a striking resemblance to the House
blueprint that roundly rebuffed Patrick’s calls for massive new
investments in transportation and early education.
Unlike the House, the Senate leadership’s budget
provides $15 million to expand access to pre-school, a step toward
the governor’s preferences. The budget proposal, however,
backtracked from the House and governor’s commitment to boost higher
education funding to avoid tuition hikes next year at UMass and
other public universities. All of that is to say, Senate leaders
created ample room to maneuver for eventual conference committee
negotiations with the House.
Of course, the divergence from Patrick was not
unexpected given how House and Senate leaders already recycled the
governor’s expansive tax package that he proposed to finance the new
investments, instead moving forward with a more limited, but still
quite large $500 million tax increase on gas, tobacco and business.
"I find it interesting to put it mildly that the
budget includes tax revenue apparently from a bill that hasn't
passed yet. And not only hasn't it passed, my understanding is
there's only been one conference committee meeting,” Senate Minority
Leader Bruce Tarr lamented....
Conveniently timed to coincide with a House PAC
fundraiser in the evening, [House Speaker Robert] DeLeo also
convened a brief mid-week session to take the final vote on a $300
million Chapter 90 bill already behind schedule and anxiously
awaited by municipal officials with local roads project in queue.
The Senate must still take one more vote on the
road funding bill before it arrives on Gov. Deval Patrick’s desk,
and Lt. Gov. Murray eased, but did not totally bury, local concerns
that the road funding could remain tied up and fall hostage to tax
and budget negotiations.
State House News Service
Friday, May 17, 2013
Weekly Roundup
Senate leader’s release a fiscal 2014 budget as reliant on new taxes
as the one passed by the House
On Wednesday morning, following what could be
a long Democratic caucus on Tuesday, the Senate will launch
proceedings on a $33.9 billion fiscal 2014 budget and 725
amendments filed before Friday’s 3 p.m. deadline. While senators
are free to debate any amendments they offer, the fate of most
amendments is pre-determined during meetings that occur before
deliberations and many of the amendments are merely called in
the affirmative or negative based on those private talks.
Senate Republicans typically try to force
debate on their amendments, which usually fail to pass, or
pressure Democrats to at least explain proposals favored by the
majority party before they are gaveled through.
This year’s Senate Ways and Means Committee
budget spends tax revenues that are dependent on the Legislature
and Gov. Deval Patrick agreeing on a menu of new taxes. Bills
raising taxes by about $500 million and dedicating new revenues
to transportation are pending before a six-member conference
committee that has shuttered its deliberations to outsiders.
The push for higher taxes comes as existing
tax revenue sources are rebounding, running more than half a
billion dollars above estimates. That situation prompted some
lawmakers to call for a halt to the tax hikes and others to call
on Patrick to restore spending he cut back in December - the
governor on Friday acquiesced to adding about $21 million back
to the budget.
The trend on tax collections may embolden
Senate Democrats to add spending to the bottom line through
budget amendments.
State House News Service
Friday, May 17, 2013
Advances – Week of May 19, 2013
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
We're all being overwhelmed with news out of
Washington, the mounting and growing Obama Administration scandals:
Benghazi, IRS abuses, snooping on reporters, lame denials and
insulting obfuscations. Drip, drip, drip, more revelations are being exposed
daily.
For instance, today we learned that Sarah Hall
Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division that
targeted Tea Party, conservative, and religious organizations
seeking tax-exempt status, has been promoted laterally within the
agency. She's been appointed director of the tax agency's Obamacare
program office, a position that puts her in charge of the vast
expansion of the IRS' regulatory power over the federal health care
mandate. Oh wonderful, how comforting. While in her previous position
— for which we taxpayers paid her a
salary of $177,000 a year — in
addition she received $103,390 in "bonuses" during this period.
You can't make this stuff up. Keeping up
with it is near impossible. Make sure you read
Barbara's
latest column, "'Overwhelmed' by the week's news," when I send it
out on Monday. She sums it up well.
The federal government off its constitutional
leash, out-of-control and running amok, is unavoidably distracting.
But we can't afford to take our eye of state government running amok
either.
The state Senate Ways and Means Committee
released its proposed state budget on Wednesday, close to the
spending
adopted by the House — about $34
Billion. That's again another billion-dollar increase over
this current fiscal year's spending.
But the Senate budget scraps any attempt at
reform of the state's welfare system and the scandalous EBT Card
abuses. The latest dodge is that Senate President Therese Murray
"prefers to address welfare reform in a separate bill"
— someday, down the road.
Even House Democrats are rebelling. State Rep.
Jim Miceli (D-Wilmington) summed it up well: “What that means
is see you next year.”
The $500 million tax hike for the separate
transportation bond bill is still working its way through the
conference committee, yet both the House and Senate budgets are
based upon its passage. The tax hike is still being pushed, despite
the Department of Revenue pulling in $510 million above what was
anticipated last year, the "benchmark." The state took in over half
a billion of our dollars more than it expected
— but still Bacon Hill needs to hike our taxes by an
additional half a billion dollars?
State Rep. Rep. Elizabeth Poirier (R-North
Attleboro) responded best: "How many people are we going to
push out of our state? How many more people are we going to put in
dire straits because of what we've done? So we've made money, but
what do our citizens do?"
So far, she and other taxpayer-friendly
legislators are getting the usual Beacon Hill Middle-Finger Salute.
More Is Never Enough (MINE) and never will be.
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Chip Ford |
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State House News Service
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Tax dollars flow well above estimates months after budget was opened
up
By Michael Norton
What a difference a season can make for the state budget.
In December, with tax revenues running $235 million behind
projections only five months into fiscal 2013, Gov. Deval Patrick
took a scalpel to the $32.5 billion state budget, unilaterally
cutting spending by $225 million, lowering the state’s tax revenue
estimate by $515 million and asking lawmakers for authority, which
was granted, to pull $200 million from the state’s reserves to
support spending.
The budget picture had suddenly grown so dim that Patrick asked for
permission to cut popular local aid accounts.
Five months later, and on the heels of House and Senate passage of
major tax increases, tax collections have rebounded and the
Democrat-controlled Legislature and Patrick are on the verge of
passing major tax increases to deliver the biggest infusion of new
transportation revenues in recent memory.
Tax receipts in April, historically the biggest month of the year
for collections, surged 14.3 percent, or $359 million over April
2012. The big haul put collections for fiscal 2013 up 5.5 percent
over fiscal 2012 with two months remaining in the fiscal year, and
$510 million above budget benchmarks.
While collections could produce a significant surplus, Treasurer
Steven Grossman said he’s not ready to count on that before learning
how receipts look during May and June and getting a better handle on
additional spending that Patrick and the Legislature may approve
before closing the fiscal 2013 books.
Patrick and the Legislature have added about $158 million to this
year’s budget by passing a pair of mid-year spending bills, and the
governor last Friday quietly filed another supplemental budget, this
time asking for $119 million to address unpaid winter road-clearing
bills, special election costs, summer jobs for teens, and costs
associated with legal representation of indigent defendants facing
criminal charges.
During an interview from New York Monday, where he was meeting with
credit rating agency officials in advance of a state bond sale,
Grossman said he was “thrilled” that revenues are running so far
above benchmarks, but said it’s too soon to have a “real sense” of
the size of a potential surplus.
However, should one materialize, Grossman said, “My natural
inclination is to want to put as much as we possibly can back into
the rainy day fund.” He said he hoped the keep the fund balance
above $1 billion.
Grossman said the performance of the stock market and the impact of
a federal payroll tax hike and federal spending cuts have
contributed to fluctuations in the state’s revenue picture.
“From the beginning of the fiscal year until now we’ve been in a
volatile, unpredictable environment,” he said. “It just points out
that no matter how thoughtful or how analytical you are or you think
you are the behavior of consumers, taxpayers and business is
sometimes quite unpredictable.”
Gov. Patrick’s budget chief, Administration and Finance Secretary
Glen Shor, said in a statement to the News Service that “spending
pressures” are still affecting this year’s budget, suggesting
unanticipated spending needs may exceed those already formally
requested by the administration.
Shor called revenue performance “strong” over the past four months,
but cautioned that it’s been “largely due to one-time or volatile
revenue sources, and not those most closely tied to current,
underlying economic trends.”
A task force assembled by Shor to examine cuts in federal defense
and medical research spending from the “sequester” met in March and
April and plans to meet next on May 14. The meetings are not open to
the public.
Rep. Elizabeth Poirier, a North Attleboro Republican, said the tax
revenue windfall this year bolstered the argument behind a
GOP-sponsored transportation financing plan, which relied in part on
dedicating a portion of tax revenue growth to transportation
accounts.
A major sales tax hike approved in 2009 is also helping to keep
revenues up, with an expected further push from increases in gas,
tobacco and business taxes nearing Gov. Patrick’s desk.
Poirier said the tax hikes come at a price. She said, "How many
people are we going to push out of our state? How many more people
are we going to put in dire straits because of what we've done? So
we've made money, but what do our citizens do?"
Senate budget chief Stephen Brewer (D-Barre) is scheduled to release
the Ways and Means Committee’s fiscal 2014 budget a week from today.
Brewer suggested this week he’d prefer decision-making based on
surplus revenues to debates over how to address budget shortfalls.
“Would I rather have that challenge to deal with? The answer is: of
course,” Brewer said.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer
estimates more than half of the $510 million in above-benchmark
revenues are one-time receipts associated with holiday season
bonuses and capital gains taxes stemming from investment decisions
made before new federal tax laws took effect this year.
“Some of it is probably underlying improvement overall but I would
say the lion’s share of that $500 million is probably one-time,”
Widmer told the News Service.
Widmer recommended that lawmakers and Patrick use the money to
lessen their long reliance on one-time revenues to cover spending
priorities.
“Unlike earlier in the year, it’s a positive problem to deal with,”
Widmer said. “There’s clearly some more breathing room for this
fiscal year in terms of dealing with shortfalls without going into
the rainy day fund and potentially ending the year with a surplus.”
Andy Metzger contributed reporting
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
State Senate unveils $33.9b budget
Budget tempers Patrick’s transportation and education push
By Michael Levenson
State Senate leaders unveiled a $33.92 billion annual budget
Wednesday that boosts spending on services for the elderly and
special education, but falls well short of Governor Deval Patrick’s
plan to provide universal access to child care and broadly expand
the state’s aging transportation network.
Overall, the Senate plan would increase spending by 4.4 percent.
Patrick’s plan would hike spending by 6.9 percent.
Compared with the House proposal, the Senate provides more money for
K-12 education, but not as much for higher education, while
rejecting a crackdown on welfare fraud.
Senators will debate the blueprint next week and reconcile
differences with the House, which approved its version of the budget
last month. Patrick must act on the Legislature’s agreement by July
1, when the new budget year begins.
The Senate budget is, in some respects, a setback for Patrick’s
ambitious education and transportation agenda. Patrick has pushed
for an additional $131 million for subsidized day care for children
from birth to age 5, a plan he says would eliminate the list of
30,000 children waiting for child-care slots.
The House budget provided no increase for child-care services, with
leaders arguing that the state agency that oversees child care has
not managed money efficiently.
The Senate plan provides a $20 million increase for child care, but
not on the order of what Patrick wants.
Senate leaders would provide a $35 million increase in higher
education funding, far less than the $110 million boost Patrick
wanted and the House approved. The House and the governor have said
that anything less than a $110 million increase could cause tuition
and fees to rise at the University of Massachusetts.
The university president, Robert L. Caret, said he would push
senators to provide more money for UMass. “The stakes are simply too
high to do otherwise,” he said in a statement.
The Senate budget, like that of the House, cuts down the governor’s
transportation agenda. Patrick has been pushing for a $1.9 billion
tax hike, $1 billion for transportation and $900 million for
education.
But both the House and Senate jettisoned that $1.9 billion increase
in favor of $500 million in higher taxes on tobacco and gasoline,
aimed at paying for a smaller expansion of transit projects.
The Senate tries to move closer to Patrick’s plan by providing more
revenue for transportation. It would raise another $40 million by
requiring utility companies to pay for infrastructure, such as light
poles, on state highways, and take $80 million for transportation
from an underground storage tank cleanup fund.
“Our differences with the governor are not in the direction, but in
the extent,” said Stephen M. Brewer, a Barre Democrat and the
chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee....
The Senate budget would not provide more money for unrestricted
local aid, the key account that helps cities and towns pay for
teachers, firefighters, and police officers.
The Senate also provides no additional money for public health
inspectors despite complaints from Patrick officials that the state
lacks sufficient staff to conduct inspections of everything from
summer camps to food manufacturers.
The Senate rejected a House plan to set up a $300,000 Bureau of
Program Integrity to root out welfare fraud and to require photos on
Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, to prevent trafficking of the
cards.
Brewer, who recently spent five hours at a welfare office in
Holyoke, said the Senate is interested in overhauling the welfare
system but not in ideas he called “just soundbites.”
Joshua Miller of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Senate budget tack leaves room to negotiate key issues with House
By Matt Murphy
The Senate’s budget chief on Wednesday described differences between
the House and Senate spending plans for fiscal 2014 as
“incremental,” but a quick review of the bill shows the branches
taking different paths on education and welfare issues.
The $33.9 billion Senate budget proposal scrapped several
significant policy proposals touted by House leaders intended to
improve oversight and accountability over early education and the
public welfare system.
And while making significant new investments in public education,
elder home care and transitional housing assistance, the Senate Ways
and Means Committee’s budget proposal also took a less aggressive
approach than the House toward increasing funding for the University
of Massachusetts and other higher education institutions,
potentially putting tuition and fees hikes for the next school year
back on the table.
All of the issues are likely to come into play next week when the
Senate opens debate on the fiscal 2014 budget plan Wednesday.
Senators must file proposed amendments to the budget by Friday
afternoon.
“I’m not saying that anybody ignored any of those things, but the
Senate president has got a comprehensive welfare reform piece that
she is drafting, working on, that will be all encompassing,” Senate
Ways and Means Chairman Stephen Brewer said.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday endorsed a $33.9
billion budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1,
relying on $430 million in new taxes, $800 million in revenue growth
and $627 million in reserves and one-time funding to support a $1.4
billion increase in year-to-year spending.
Like the House, the Senate plans falls well short of making the
investments sought by Gov. Deval Patrick in transportation and
education through his $1.9 billion tax proposal. Secretary of
Administration and Finance Glen Shor said the administration was
reviewing the budget, with the governor’s priorities in mind.
UMass officials are also likely to seek more than the $15 million
increase in funding proposed by Senate Ways and Means, which they
says falls short of what is necessary to freeze tuition and fees
hikes next year.
The House proposed boosting funding for higher education to reach a
50-50 split with UMass over two years, and with state universities
and community colleges over three years. At Senate spending levels,
it would take four years to reach that goal.
Senate Majority Leader Stanley Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, said
he supports ramping up state support for education funding, but
would not offer an amendment next week out of deference to the work
done by Ways and Means on the budget and the negotiations that will
take place with the House after the Senate vote.
“Obviously as an advocate for public higher education, I want it
much faster than that but I also know this is a process. I’m feeling
hopeful that by the end of the process we can have a strong budget
for public higher education on the governor’s desk,” Rosenberg said.
The House last month endorsed the creation of a new Bureau of
Program Integrity to work on reducing fraud, improving oversight and
standardizing eligibility determination processes for welfare
benefits across agencies. The bill also required that electronic
benefit transfer cards come with photo IDs.
Brewer said Department of Transitional Assistance officials have met
with Senate leaders to outline their 100-day plan for reforming the
agency after questions were raised about benefits going to
recipients no longer eligible, or who no longer lived in
Massachusetts.
“All of us are opposed to waste, fraud and abuse. It sullies the
atmosphere for those that deservedly need to get those benefits and
we’re all committed to making that happen,” Brewer said.
Acknowledging that amendments could be filed by Friday’s 3 p.m.
deadline to add some welfare reforms to the budget bill, Brewer
would not say whether Senate leaders will seek to divorce the
welfare reform debate from the general discussion of the budget.
“I want to see substantive changes that are meaningful and I believe
the Senate president’s issues that she will come out with will be
comprehensive,” he said.
The Senate Ways and Means budget also rejected a new $200,000 Early
Education and Care Compliance Office approved by the House to
improve oversight of licensed child care facilities, and called for
an independent research study into the management of the pre-school
waiting list rather than a review by the state auditor.
The Senate Ways and Means budget does require Level II sex offenders
to be listed online, and follows House Speaker Robert DeLeo’s
initiative to make $100,000 in death benefits available to the
family of murdered MIT police officer Sean Collier. The proposal
does not include House-backed pay raises for judges after eight
years without judicial salary increases, another topic that may end
up being settled by an eventual conference committee.
Sen. Michael Knapik, a Westfield Republican and ranking minority
member on the Ways and Means Committee, withheld his support for the
budget coming out of committee on Wednesday, but said there was “a
lot that’s good” in the bill.
“For one thing, it rejects the governor’s $1.9 billion tax package
that I think would have hobbled and crippled this fledgling recovery
in our state,” Knapik said, calling the $500 million tax package for
transportation currently being negotiated in conference committee a
“much more modest” proposal.
Agreeing with some Congressional Democrats that the Affordable Care
Act is a “train wreck,” Knapik said Senate Republicans are trying to
understand the health care reform law’s looming impact on the state
budget and the health care industry.
“We just don’t know how it’s going to play out with employment, with
layoffs, with strikes. You’re seeing those actions already out there
in the field,” Knapik said.
Brewer said the budget plan increases spending on MassHealth by
$1.26 billion to about $12 billion total, an increase driven by 36
percent growth in Medicaid enrollment from the expanded eligibility
under the Affordable Care Act. Ways and Means estimates that 200,000
new enrollees will fall under MassHealth starting in January at a
cost of $460 million, but increased federal reimbursements will end
up saving the state $156 million.
Knapik also predicted efforts to amend the budget bill next week to
incorporate some of the House-backed welfare system reforms, and
said he wished the transportation financing bill could be finalized
before the Senate debate begins next week.
“I know we’re going to hear it costs too much money, but I think the
public would be well served if we put folks’ pictures on the IDs and
talk about some restrictions on the cashless ability. I think we
need to have a further understanding of what stores can and cannot
block in terms of modern technology,” Knapik said.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer called
the 4.4 percent increase in spending a “reasonable increase given
the state’s economic and fiscal environment,” but said he would like
to see a further reduction in the reliance on one-time revenue and
reserves to balance the budget.
“We’re still depending too heavily, the state is, on one-time
revenues given an economic recovery. In the end it would be better
if we could wean ourselves more quickly from this one-time money,
but I would say that’s a small critique in an otherwise positive
reaction,” Widmer said.
Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal
Association, said the Senate’s approach to local aid could result in
an “uneven impact” from town to town, with some benefitting from the
welcomed increase in education aid, but others suffering by the
decision to level fund unrestricted municipal aid. The House boosted
unrestricted local aid by $21 million.
“This would be the first time in a long while, actually in memory,
where the Senate budget would not reflect the same level of
municipal aid coming out of the House budget so we hope there’s an
opportunity for progress to be made in the Senate budget debate,”
Beckwith said.
Though the Senate Ways and Means proposal spends $3 million more
than House on youth summer jobs, advocates intend to press the
Senate to add an addition $1 million to reach level funding of $9
million from fiscal 2013.
Noah Berger, president of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy
Center, said new investments in early education, public health and
local aid still fall below levels from 1998 through 2002 when income
tax rates were cut, reducing revenue by $3 billion.
“We know that investing in our people is essential to building a
strong economy, and that public health investments and oversight can
save both money and lives. We see in this budget, as we saw in the
House budget, that without restoring more of the revenue lost to
income tax cuts it is nearly impossible to make major investments to
improve the long-term economic prospects of our state,” Berger said.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 16, 2013
A Boston Herald editorial
EBT reforms ditched
The best news, of course, about the Senate budget released yesterday
is that it puts a stake in the heart of Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to
tax us all back to the Stone Age.
Yes, like the House budget it assumes nearly $500 million in new
revenues to finance the state’s transportation system. But the
Senate’s $33.9 billion fiscal 2014 budget increases spending by a
mere 4.4 percent (or $1.4 billion), rather than the nearly 7
percent hike the governor was demanding.
“We can’t be all things to all people,” Senate Ways and Means
Chairman Stephen Brewer (D-Barre) said yesterday — a notion that has
managed to elude the governor. In fact, before leaving for a trade
mission to Ireland Patrick was still threatening a possible veto of
a transportation bill that didn’t meet his $1 billion spending
“needs.”
The Senate, of course, has its own priorities — more for early
education and special education than the House, less for higher
education; more for home care services for the elderly and rental
assistance for the poor — both of which make long-range economic
sense. It provides more money for mental health services, but then
wastes some of that new money by keeping Taunton State Hospital open
(largely to make its unionized workers happy).
Most disappointing, however, is that the Senate budget fails to make
the common sense reforms to the state’s troubled EBT system that the
House recommended. Gone is the $300,000 for a much-needed Bureau of
Program Integrity and the requirement for photos on those Electronic
Benefit Transfer cards, a move aimed at stopping trafficking in the
cards. Is it too much ask to reform a system that the Patrick
administration is either unwilling or unable to reform itself?
The House was on the right track there. And as this budget battle
goes into its next round such reforms surely ought to be on
lawmakers’ list of good ideas in need of saving.
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 17, 2013
House Dems blast welfare reform cuts
By Matt Stout
House Democrats yesterday slammed a proposed Senate spending plan
that gutted House-approved welfare reforms, calling it a “disgrace”
and vowing to fight to restore them in the final state budget.
“The House is not going to take a nosedive on this,” state Rep.
James Miceli, a Wilmington Democrat, said of measures to put photos
on EBT cards and launch a Bureau of Program Integrity designed to
stop welfare fraud before it starts — both of which were removed in
Senate budget plans unveiled this week.
“I think it’s a disgrace none of these reforms stayed in the budget.
Absolutely a disgrace,” Miceli said. “The changes we had were
minimal.”
Other House lawmakers said they expect to restore the reforms in an
amendment to be filed before today’s 3 p.m. deadline or hash it out
in conference committee.
The chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee sought to
explain the gutting, saying Senate President Therese Murray prefers
to address welfare reform in a separate bill, not in “piecemeal” as
she described it Wednesday.
But Miceli wasn’t buying that. “What that means,” he said, “is see
you next year.”
Meanwhile, the state Department of Transitional Assistance said this
week it is hiring 10 new investigators to handle a hike in fraud
complaints.
The current seven-member Administrative Disqualification Unit, which
investigates fraud and food stamp trafficking, will more than
double, agency officials said.
The move comes after a series of Herald stories exposing welfare
department waste and mismanagement, and a blistering Inspector
General report that found $25 million in EBT money went to
recipients who may not have been eligible.
One Herald review showed that DTA couldn’t locate thousands of EBT
recipients, and the department has copped to overpaying food stamps
recipients by $27 million and then shelling out $3.4 million in
overtime pay to fix the glitch.
The acting head of the welfare department was forced to step down
earlier this year over the scandals.
Through the end of March, the DTA handled more than 5,700 complaints
of welfare fraud, about the same number as it did all of last fiscal
year. Another 5,000 complaints were referred to the state Auditor’s
Bureau of Special Investigation, which probes criminal fraud. BSI
was sent 3,500 in fiscal 2012, identifying what it called a record
$5.5 million in fraud.
The department also has plans to hire more than 130 new caseworkers.
State House News Service
Friday, May 17, 2013
Weekly Roundup
Senate leader’s release a fiscal 2014 budget as reliant on new taxes
as the one passed by the House
By Matt Murphy
Like pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit together yet, the Big
Three may have been separated at birth, but with each incremental
step their destinies seem to grow more intertwined.
No, we’re not talking about those Big Three – Gov. Deval Patrick,
Senate President Therese Murray and Speaker Robert DeLeo - though
they play major character roles in this thickening plot.
Instead, three bills have come to define the early months of the
2013 legislative agenda and resolutions on tax hikes, local road
funding and the annual state budget continue to be elusive and
dependent on one another.
Patrick spent the early part of his week welcoming British Prime
Minister David Cameron to Boston for a few quick meetings and a
visit to the Copley memorial for the victims of the Boston Marathon
bombings before hopping a plane to Ireland for a rendezvous with
Murray, already several days into her cross-Atlantic trade mission.
If legislative leaders detect a slight accent creeping in when
Patrick returns to work at the State House next week they shouldn’t
be alarmed or confused. Then again, they haven’t exactly been
speaking the same language lately anyway.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee this week released its version
of the fiscal 2014 state budget, a $33.9 billion spending plan that
bore a striking resemblance to the House blueprint that roundly
rebuffed Patrick’s calls for massive new investments in
transportation and early education.
Unlike the House, the Senate leadership’s budget provides $15
million to expand access to pre-school, a step toward the governor’s
preferences. The budget proposal, however, backtracked from the
House and governor’s commitment to boost higher education funding to
avoid tuition hikes next year at UMass and other public
universities. All of that is to say, Senate leaders created ample
room to maneuver for eventual conference committee negotiations with
the House.
Of course, the divergence from Patrick was not unexpected given how
House and Senate leaders already recycled the governor’s expansive
tax package that he proposed to finance the new investments, instead
moving forward with a more limited, but still quite large $500
million tax increase on gas, tobacco and business.
"I find it interesting to put it mildly that the budget includes tax
revenue apparently from a bill that hasn't passed yet. And not only
hasn't it passed, my understanding is there's only been one
conference committee meeting,” Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr
lamented.
Democratic leaders don’t seem to care much that $430 million in the
Senate budget is contingent on passage of the transportation
financing tax bill. Ways and Means Chairman Stephen Brewer, who sits
on the conference committee negotiating the tax bill, said he’s
confident the House and Senate are in enough agreement on that front
to bank on it in the budget.
Meanwhile, DeLeo was left at home this week to mind the State House
with Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray. The most action was on the first
floor. There, court officers spent much of the week guarding a
conference room where the House Ethics Committee held three days of
inquiries into allegations of misconduct against a House member.
The 11 committee members, sworn to secrecy, have been too skittish
to comment on even their break schedule, let alone the subject of
the inquiry, but Worcester Rep. John Fresolo’s daily presence with
Beacon Hill favorite defense attorney Tom Kiley left little doubt of
the subject. The nature of the allegations remains in question.
Conveniently timed to coincide with a House PAC fundraiser in the
evening, DeLeo also convened a brief mid-week session to take the
final vote on a $300 million Chapter 90 bill already behind schedule
and anxiously awaited by municipal officials with local roads
project in queue.
The Senate must still take one more vote on the road funding bill
before it arrives on Gov. Deval Patrick’s desk, and Lt. Gov. Murray
eased, but did not totally bury, local concerns that the road
funding could remain tied up and fall hostage to tax and budget
negotiations.
The fact remains that the House, the Senate and the governor all
support the $300 million funding level for Chapter 90. But the
administration continues to waiver on whether it thinks the tax bill
before the conference committee will generate enough new money to
support the $100 million increase in the local infrastructure
program.
"I can tell you unequivocally (the governor is) not going to kick
the can down the road and spend money he doesn't think we have the
ability to pay," Murray told local officials at a meeting of the
Local Government Advisory Council.
Even if the governor signs the bill, he must still file a separate
authorization bill to borrow the funds before cities and towns see a
penny, and local leaders said they worry the governor could try to
use that step as leverage against lawmakers in revenue debate.
Murray said he thinks Patrick might be open to releasing some
funding on a “pro-rated, tentative basis.”
If might have been a good week for Patrick to be out of the country
given his penchant for peevishness toward questions about his
political future.
With the White House in turmoil over the IRS targeting Tea Party
groups, new questions about Benghazi and agitation over a Justice
Department seizure of Associated Press phone records, the Chicago
Sun Times reported on Friday, citing an anonymous “top White House
source,” that Obama will look to replace Attorney General Eric
Holder when the furor in Washington dies down.
And the president has an eye on Gov. Patrick or Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano, the paper reported.
Patrick has steadfastly denied any interest in moving on before his
second term expires after 2014, but he will likely field another
volley of questions about his possible future in the Obama
administration when he returns stateside.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Senate leader’s release a fiscal 2014 budget as
reliant on new taxes as the one passed by the House.
State House News Service
Friday, May 17, 2013
Advances – Week of May 19, 2013
Annual budget deliberations in the state Senate have turned into a
virtual speed reading contest in recent years, with members
appearing to value the speed of finishing debate over all else.
On Wednesday morning, following what could be a long Democratic
caucus on Tuesday, the Senate will launch proceedings on a $33.9
billion fiscal 2014 budget and 725 amendments filed before Friday’s
3 p.m. deadline. While senators are free to debate any amendments
they offer, the fate of most amendments is pre-determined during
meetings that occur before deliberations and many of the amendments
are merely called in the affirmative or negative based on those
private talks.
Senate Republicans typically try to force debate on their
amendments, which usually fail to pass, or pressure Democrats to at
least explain proposals favored by the majority party before they
are gaveled through.
This year’s Senate Ways and Means Committee budget spends tax
revenues that are dependent on the Legislature and Gov. Deval
Patrick agreeing on a menu of new taxes. Bills raising taxes by
about $500 million and dedicating new revenues to transportation are
pending before a six-member conference committee that has shuttered
its deliberations to outsiders.
The push for higher taxes comes as existing tax revenue sources are
rebounding, running more than half a billion dollars above
estimates. That situation prompted some lawmakers to call for a halt
to the tax hikes and others to call on Patrick to restore spending
he cut back in December - the governor on Friday acquiesced to
adding about $21 million back to the budget.
The trend on tax collections may embolden Senate Democrats to add
spending to the bottom line through budget amendments. The Senate
may also give final approval next week to a $300 million local road
funding bill, although those funds will remain hung up on Beacon
Hill until a borrowing terms bill is filed and approved by Patrick
and the Legislature.
Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker
Robert DeLeo have opted for a limited agenda over the first five
months of the session, focusing on budget deliberations and the
legislation raising taxes and making transportation investments.
House leaders have opted against rushing to pass a tribal gaming
compact negotiated between Patrick and the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe,
although a hearing on the compact this week means it could move out
of committee at any time. One piece of Patrick’s voluminous package
of borrowing bills, a $1.4 billion housing bond, also is on the
move, having cleared a committee this week.
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