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CLT UPDATE
Saturday, July 5, 2014
New state budget increases
spending by $2.5 billion
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Over the objections from critics who cited growth
in state spending, the state payroll and in the cost of health
insurance programs, the House and Senate on Monday approved a $36.5
billion fiscal 2015 budget that makes investments in mental health
services, substance abuse treatment, local aid to cities and towns,
and housing programs.
The bill, proposed Sunday night by a conference
committee, cleared the House 144-7 and the Senate 38-1.
Some senators also voiced concerns about the
budget’s dependence on casino licensing revenues, given the
possibility that voters could vote in November to repeal a 2011
casino law allowing up to three resort-style casinos, but Senate
Ways and Means Chairman Stephen Brewer said the $73 million in
gaming revenues in the budget were not so much that lawmakers could
not adjust if the ballot question passes....
Brian Dempsey, a Haverhill Democrat and the
House’s budget chief, said the budget will also take major steps
toward accelerating payments to reduce the state's unfunded pension
liabilities, an action that he said would be well received by Wall
Street bond rating agencies.
Rep. Denise Andrews (D-Orange) acknowledged the
bill was too voluminous to read before voting, but said she trusts
the conference committee and the “due diligence” with which the
spending bill was assembled over the past several months....
But Rep. James Lyons, an Andover Republican who
voted against the budget, said state spending had risen 25 percent
since Gov. Deval Patrick took office in 2007, that the number of
state employees making more than $100,000 is up by 25 percent, and
asserted the state payroll has expanded by 10,000 since 2007.
“The Patrick administration, with the support of
the Legislature, has used this state budget to move our Commonwealth
in a left-wing direction, and I think out of touch . . . with some
of the priorities of the people of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts,” Lyons said.
Joining Lyons in voting against the budget were
Reps. Leah Cole (R-Peabody), Geoff Diehl (R-Whitman), Shawn Dooley
(R-Norfolk), Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton), Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica),
and Leonard Mirra (R-West Newbury).
Rep. Vinny deMacedo of Plymouth, the ranking
Republican on the Ways and Means Committee and a budget negotiator,
voted for the bill but cautioned that the 5.5 percent spending
increase it authorizes, or about $2 billion, is “somewhat
concerning.”
DeMacedo, who is running for the Senate seat
being vacated by Sen. Therese Murray, said Medicaid and the
Affordable Care Act are consuming about $1.4 billion of the $2
billion increase in spending.
State House News Service
Monday, June 30, 2014
Lawmakers approve $36.5 billion budget on eve of fiscal new year
The state’s politically powerful district
attorneys, judges, and sheriffs are set to receive sizable pay
increases starting this month, but lower-paid assistant prosecutors
and child-care workers will receive much smaller raises under the
state budget approved by legislators Monday.
The 11 district attorneys will receive a 15
percent annual increase, or nearly $23,000, jumping from $148,843 to
$171,561 under the new state budget. They will make $20,000 more
than the governor, and $38,000 more than the state’s attorney
general.
The state’s 14 sheriffs will get 23 percent pay
increases, most of them going from $123,209 to $151,709 under the
budget.
Trial court judges will see their salaries rise
from $130,000 to $160,000 Tuesday, the beginning of the new fiscal
year. The 23 percent increase was approved in a prior budget.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Budget boosts pay for sheriffs, district attorneys
Lesser raises for workers on state’s lower rungs
The stopgap program that enrolled tens of
thousands of people in temporary Medicaid coverage after the
failure of the Massachusetts health insurance website is not
going to have a big effect on the state budget, at least not by
the Legislature’s reckoning.
The spending plan approved Monday contains
about the same for Medicaid as Governor Deval Patrick had
proposed in January, before the transitional program started:
$13.6 billion. That’s because legislators expect that a trend
showing lower use of health care services will provide the
leeway to absorb the temporary population.
The budget does, however, require the
administration to calculate and report, by the end of July, the
financial impact of the Massachusetts Health Connector’s
inability to develop a website that meets the terms of the
federal Affordable Care Act....
To keep people from losing health insurance,
the state allowed people who think they might be eligible for
assistance to enroll, temporarily, in Medicaid, or MassHealth,
as the program is known in Massachusetts. Enrollees pay no
premiums, but the federal government has agreed to reimburse the
state for at least half the costs. This temporary program was
recently extended through the end of the 2014 calendar year,
which is halfway through the 2015 budget year.
By mid-June, 227,000 people had enrolled in
temporary coverage, and their claims, by June 5, totaled $90.5
million.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
No money set aside for shift in Medicaid
Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday wouldn’t say
whether he will veto a bipartisan measure calling for a full
accounting of what taxpayers have spent to salvage the state’s
broken Obamacare website, raising questions about whether the
GOP-backed amendment will ever become law.
Spokeswoman Alex Zaroulis said the
administration has plans to release more info “through the end
of this year ... including in the report requested by the
Legislature.” But when asked if that meant Patrick is supporting
lawmakers’ push for a more complete accounting, Zaroulis balked.
“We are still reviewing the conference budget,” she said.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Deval Patrick refuses to commit to Health Connector disclosure
House and Senate lawmakers have agreed to
give Massachusetts shoppers another sales tax holiday this
summer.
They just haven't agreed on when.
Associated Press
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Lawmakers agree on tax holiday, disagree on date
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
In early May the state House of Representatives
passed its $36.3 billion annual budget for the new fiscal year, by a
vote of 148-2. A few weeks later, almost unanimously the state
Senate passed its own FY2015 budget, for $36.4 billion. This week
the House/Senate conference committee "compromised" on the two
versions — recommended spending even
more than initially proposed by either branch: $36.5 billion. It
passed both branches easily.
This new initial state budget spends $2.5 billion
more than the one passed last year, an increase of more than five
percent. Last year's budget (FY2014) increased spending by $1.5
billion over the previous year's (FY2013) budget. (See
my commentary of May 10.) This means that state spending has
increased by at least $4 billion in just the past two years.
The State House News Service reported:
But Rep. James Lyons, an Andover
Republican who voted against the budget, said state
spending had risen 25 percent since Gov. Deval Patrick
took office in 2007, that the number of state employees
making more than $100,000 is up by 25 percent, and
asserted the state payroll has expanded by 10,000 since
2007. . . . Joining Lyons in voting against the budget
were Reps. Leah Cole (R-Peabody), Geoff Diehl
(R-Whitman), Shawn Dooley (R-Norfolk), Ryan Fattman
(R-Sutton), Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica), and Leonard
Mirra (R-West Newbury).
Healthy pay raises were passed out to
district attorneys, judges, and sheriffs in this budget; increases
of 15%-23% all around.
Massachusetts has been and continues paying
about $10 million a month to keep people in temporary healthcare
plans due to the failed state Health Connector website and the
federal Obamacare requirement that they be covered. The state hasn't
determined whether or not they're even eligible for any subsidy.
This screw-up has reportedly cost taxpayers
$90.5 million as of June 5. Gov. Patrick may not want us to know how
much more.
This new $36.5 billion budget depends on $75 million supposedly coming in from
casinos and slot parlors, but that could be a complete pipe dream if voters
repeal the gambling law in November. That anticipated revenue would
then need to be made up somewhere, somehow.
I wonder if government is big enough yet to
satisfy itself? I doubt it'll ever reach that plateau. Not as long
as we taxpayers have anything left that can be taken from us.
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Chip Ford |
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State House News Service
Monday, June 30, 2014
Lawmakers approve $36.5 billion budget on eve of fiscal new year
By Michael Norton, Gintautas Dumcius and Matt Murphy
Over the objections from critics who cited growth in state spending,
the state payroll and in the cost of health insurance programs, the
House and Senate on Monday approved a $36.5 billion fiscal 2015
budget that makes investments in mental health services, substance
abuse treatment, local aid to cities and towns, and housing
programs.
The bill, proposed Sunday night by a conference committee, cleared
the House 144-7 and the Senate 38-1.
Some senators also voiced concerns about the budget’s dependence on
casino licensing revenues, given the possibility that voters could
vote in November to repeal a 2011 casino law allowing up to three
resort-style casinos, but Senate Ways and Means Chairman Stephen
Brewer said the $73 million in gaming revenues in the budget were
not so much that lawmakers could not adjust if the ballot question
passes.
Supporters of the budget touted less reliance on one-time revenues
in the budget, the preservation of a $1.3 billion rainy day fund,
and responsiveness to funding needs in areas like education, local
aid, housing and mental health.
Brian Dempsey, a Haverhill Democrat and the House’s budget chief,
said the budget will also take major steps toward accelerating
payments to reduce the state's unfunded pension liabilities, an
action that he said would be well received by Wall Street bond
rating agencies.
“As we move forward and begin the new fiscal year, I believe we take
a balanced approach, that we recognize that we need to continue to
be cautious in terms of the direction we move in,” Dempsey said.
The final budget’s bottom line is larger than the spending plans
approved in either the House or Senate earlier this year, reflecting
a 5.5 percent growth in spending that surpasses the original revenue
growth estimate used to build the budget. The difference is
accounted for, in part, by relying on $35 million from a tax amnesty
program, additional one-time tax settlements and Medicaid and Group
Insurance Commission revenues from new communities joining the
state-administered health insurance program.
“I think you can see cautious optimism,” Brewer said about the
prospects for future economic growth in Massachusetts, citing the
recent decline in unemployment to 5.6 percent. “The recovery is
there. It is not roaring. I would not purport to say that, and we do
live with a global uncertainty with what is happening in Ukraine,
what happens in Iraq. Those things have a volatile effect on the
energy markets and our economy, but we will govern accordingly. This
is a full-time legislature that can make adjustment midstream.”
A House Republican bid for more time to review the budget was
rejected on a party-line 28-123 vote. Rep. George Peterson (R-
Grafton) said members should spend more time looking over the
lengthy spending proposal.
Rep. Denise Andrews (D-Orange) acknowledged the bill was too
voluminous to read before voting, but said she trusts the conference
committee and the “due diligence” with which the spending bill was
assembled over the past several months.
“So when someone asks me have I read the 500 pages that came out
this morning, I printed them off, I’m glancing through them,” she
said. “But I haven’t read it and I won’t because I believe in the
process that we’re engaged in. I came in three years ago and have
witnessed nothing but excellence and fiscal management from the
chairman of Ways and Means and his team.”
Local aid to cities and towns has gone up in the budget in each of
the past three years, she added.
But Rep. James Lyons, an Andover Republican who voted against the
budget, said state spending had risen 25 percent since Gov. Deval
Patrick took office in 2007, that the number of state employees
making more than $100,000 is up by 25 percent, and asserted the
state payroll has expanded by 10,000 since 2007.
“The Patrick administration, with the support of the Legislature,
has used this state budget to move our Commonwealth in a left-wing
direction, and I think out of touch . . . with some of the
priorities of the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,”
Lyons said.
Joining Lyons in voting against the budget were Reps. Leah Cole
(R-Peabody), Geoff Diehl (R-Whitman), Shawn Dooley (R-Norfolk), Ryan
Fattman (R-Sutton), Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica), and Leonard Mirra
(R-West Newbury).
Rep. Vinny deMacedo of Plymouth, the ranking Republican on the Ways
and Means Committee and a budget negotiator, voted for the bill but
cautioned that the 5.5 percent spending increase it authorizes, or
about $2 billion, is “somewhat concerning.”
DeMacedo, who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen.
Therese Murray, said Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act are
consuming about $1.4 billion of the $2 billion increase in spending.
He called the federal health care law an “incredibly expensive
endeavor” that could eventually affect budget items like funding for
substance abuse and local aid.
“The reality is, 900 million dollars of that, we are getting from
the federal government,” deMacedo said. “But that commitment is not
going to be here forever and ultimately we are going to deal with
the realities of that growth on our own, and that is going to be
difficult.”
Sen. Robert Hedlund, a Weymouth Republican, was the only vote
against the budget in the Senate, though Sen. Richard Ross, who
served on the conference committee, said he worried about the
reliance on casino licensing fees and declining level of local aid
as a percentage of the state budget.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican, also
said it was important as the economy rebounds that lawmakers not
forget to live within their spending means, and urged his colleagues
to continue moving toward a budget that does not rely on one-time
revenue or reserves during positive economic times. On par, however,
Tarr said the budget made forward progress, noting “important
investments” in regional school transportation and special education
for cities and towns.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Budget boosts pay for sheriffs, district attorneys
Lesser raises for workers on state’s lower rungs
By Michael Levenson and Frank Phillips
The state’s politically powerful district attorneys, judges, and
sheriffs are set to receive sizable pay increases starting this
month, but lower-paid assistant prosecutors and child-care workers
will receive much smaller raises under the state budget approved by
legislators Monday.
The 11 district attorneys will receive a 15 percent annual increase,
or nearly $23,000, jumping from $148,843 to $171,561 under the new
state budget. They will make $20,000 more than the governor, and
$38,000 more than the state’s attorney general.
The state’s 14 sheriffs will get 23 percent pay increases, most of
them going from $123,209 to $151,709 under the budget.
Trial court judges will see their salaries rise from $130,000 to
$160,000 Tuesday, the beginning of the new fiscal year. The 23
percent increase was approved in a prior budget.
The pay increases made it through the House and Senate without
opposition, despite growing concern within the criminal justice
community over the low salaries paid to assistant district
attorneys. The position’s starting salary is $37,500. The average
pay for the prosecutors after several years of experience is
generally in the low- to mid-$40,000 range.
Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar
Association, said the low pay for assistant district attorneys and
public defenders has made it difficult to attract and retain top
talent. The bar association recently released a report decrying the
low pay in both jobs.
“We’re pretty much at rock bottom in terms of pay scale,” Healy
said. “We obviously want to see much more attention paid to this.”
Senate President Therese Murray declined to comment on the pay
increases. House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo also declined to comment.
Colleen McGonagle, a spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Committee
chairman Brian Dempsey, said the “budget provides funding for
cost-of-living raises to public safety officials, who have not
received them in a number of years, comparable to those for members
of the judiciary and clerks in prior years.”
Governor Deval Patrick, who would have to sign the spending plan
before it could become law, said he is still reviewing it.
Assistant district attorneys would receive a small bump under a
$500,000 item included in the budget. District attorneys would be
given discretion to dole out those increases, but if they were
spread equally, the state’s 700 assistant district attorneys each
would receive about $715 more a year.
That means assistant district attorneys in Massachusetts would still
earn significantly less than counterparts in other states. In New
Hampshire, entry-level prosecutors earn $52,000; in New York and
Connecticut, they make $60,000.
Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe defended the
hefty increase for district attorneys, saying the elected officials
last received a pay increase in 2007. Averaged over the past seven
years, the increase comes to 2 percent annually, he said.
“We are happy that the Legislature gave us a 2 percent increase
since last time,’’ O’Keefe said. “We are grateful.”
He compared the gap in pay between district attorneys and assistant
district attorneys to a typical workplace. “There is usually
disparity between the leadership and those who start at the
bottom,’’ O’Keefe said.
The budget would also raise from $148,843 to $171,561 the salary of
Anthony J. Benedetti, chief counsel to the Committee for Public
Counsel Services, whose salary is tied to the salaries of district
attorneys.
The committee, which spends $167 million to represent indigent
defenders, declined to comment. An entry-level salary for the
committee’s staff attorney is $40,000.
The average salary for the 500 defense attorneys is in the
mid-$50,000 range. The budget does not provide an increase in their
pay.
Of the state’s 14 sheriffs, two are paid less than the others. The
Nantucket sheriff will see his pay rise from $71,332 to $95,816. The
sheriff’s salary in Dukes County will rise from $97,271 to $119,771.
John Birtwell, spokesman for Plymouth Sheriff Joseph McDonald Jr.,
president of the state sheriffs association, said the increases are
based on a requirement that sheriffs’ salaries be 95 percent of the
pay for District Court associate justices.
The Legislature gave much smaller, one-time increases to lower-paid
human services and early childhood workers.
About 30,000 early childhood educators, who earn $26,000 a year on
average, will get a one-time 2 percent bump, equivalent to $520 a
year or $10 a week, according to Leo Delaney, president of the
Massachusetts Association of Early Education and Care.
“It really does not put a lot of money in their pockets at all, and
that’s the sad part,” said Delaney, whose group had asked lawmakers
for a 5 percent increase. Still, he said, he was grateful for the
bonus.
Lawmakers were able to boost spending in the $36.5 billion budget
after they used rosier revenue projections to find an additional
$120 million, said Andrew Bagley, director of research and public
affairs at the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a private group
that tracks state finances.
Bagley said he had no reason to doubt the honesty of the revision.
But he pointed out that the state is facing potentially costly fixes
to its troubled Health Connector website and is paying about $10
million a month to keep people in temporary health plans while
officials scramble to put them into permanent plans that comply with
the federal health care law.
Given these costs, “it would have been better to hold the money in
reserve,” Bagley said.
Senate budget chief Stephen M. Brewer defended the revision, saying
it was based on the improving economy and a desire to fund favored
programs.
Asked if it was responsible, Brewer said, “Without a doubt.”
But the budget also relies on $75 million in casino and slot parlor
revenue that could evaporate this fall, if voters approve a ballot
question to repeal the state’s gambling law. “That’s yet another
exposure that we may face,” Bagley said.
If the money does not materialize, lawmakers might have to make cuts
or dip deeper into the state’s reserve account, DeLeo said Monday.
The budget already uses $140 million from the rainy day fund.
“Obviously, it’s a concern,” DeLeo said.
To save money, the budget closes a costly Medicaid loophole,
preventing detox centers from sending drug samples to testing
clinics run by the same owner.
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, which pushed the change,
said it would save the state’s Medicaid program $6.6 million.
The budget also includes a cost-saving measure that would change the
rules so that prisoners’ Medicaid coverage would be suspended
instead of terminated after arraignment.
This would allow the state to bill Medicaid if an inmate is
hospitalized, and the federal government would reimburse at least
half the cost.
And inmates would have their coverage immediately restored upon
release, so they would have easier access to health care, especially
substance abuse and mental health treatment.
Middlesex County Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian said in a statement
that the change “will provide greater continuity of care, promote
public safety and, at the same time, save valuable taxpayer
dollars.”
The budget also seeks to reduce over-medicating of the elderly, by
requiring nursing homes to receive written consent from residents
before giving them certain psychotropic drugs.
Backers said some nursing homes use the drugs to calm residents, not
because they are medically necessary.
“This is a simple yet necessary step in informing some of our most
vulnerable citizens, elderly and Alzheimer’s patients,” said state
Senator Kathleen O’Connor Ives, a Newburyport Democrat.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
No money set aside for shift in Medicaid
By Felice J. Freyer
The stopgap program that enrolled tens of thousands of people in
temporary Medicaid coverage after the failure of the Massachusetts
health insurance website is not going to have a big effect on the
state budget, at least not by the Legislature’s reckoning.
The spending plan approved Monday contains about the same for
Medicaid as Governor Deval Patrick had proposed in January, before
the transitional program started: $13.6 billion. That’s because
legislators expect that a trend showing lower use of health care
services will provide the leeway to absorb the temporary population.
The budget does, however, require the administration to calculate
and report, by the end of July, the financial impact of the
Massachusetts Health Connector’s inability to develop a website that
meets the terms of the federal Affordable Care Act.
The Connector’s new website, which was supposed to be ready by last
Oct. 1, never worked properly and is currently being rebuilt. One of
the key functions it could not perform was determining whether
individuals are eligible for state or federal subsidies or for
Medicaid.
To keep people from losing health insurance, the state allowed
people who think they might be eligible for assistance to enroll,
temporarily, in Medicaid, or MassHealth, as the program is known in
Massachusetts. Enrollees pay no premiums, but the federal government
has agreed to reimburse the state for at least half the costs. This
temporary program was recently extended through the end of the 2014
calendar year, which is halfway through the 2015 budget year.
By mid-June, 227,000 people had enrolled in temporary coverage, and
their claims, by June 5, totaled $90.5 million.
An unknown number of those people are not eligible for MassHealth.
If the website had worked, they would be paying at least part of
their own premiums, with most of the rest coming from federal
subsidies. Instead, the state is paying up to half.
But in fiscal 2014, MassHealth absorbed the added costs without
seeking extra money from the Legislature because of lower expenses
elsewhere in the program. For the fiscal year that starts Tuesday,
the Legislature is counting on the same trend.
Andrew C. Bagley, director of research and public affairs for the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-funded policy
organization, said the group remains “a bit concerned” about this
approach.
“It strikes me there is going to be some exposure, and it could be
significant,” he said.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Deval Patrick refuses to commit to Health Connector disclosure
By Matt Stout
Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday wouldn’t say whether he will veto a
bipartisan measure calling for a full accounting of what taxpayers
have spent to salvage the state’s broken Obamacare website, raising
questions about whether the GOP-backed amendment will ever become
law.
Spokeswoman Alex Zaroulis said the administration has plans to
release more info “through the end of this year ... including in the
report requested by the Legislature.” But when asked if that meant
Patrick is supporting lawmakers’ push for a more complete
accounting, Zaroulis balked. “We are still reviewing the conference
budget,” she said.
Just hours before the new fiscal year calendar turned, lawmakers
approved a
$36.5 billion state budget, including an amendment that
forces officials to review the financial impact of the failed
Massachusetts Health Connector website and provide a cost analysis
of what it’s spent on temporary insurance coverage by July 31.
Patrick has 10 days to review the budget before signing it. House
Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. (R-North Reading), who pushed
the amendment, said he hopes the governor doesn’t veto it.
“I think a line-item veto on their part would be nothing more than a
monumental admission — with multiple exclamation points — of the
abject failure of the administration and a complete desire to not be
forthcoming,” Jones said.
With thousands of Bay Staters on temporary health coverage — already
a $90-million-plus tab — more financial disclosure is an “absolute
necessity,” said Joshua Archambault of the Pioneer Institute.
“There’s a Pandora’s box of budget uncertainty coming for the rest
of 2014,” he said.
Associated Press
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Lawmakers agree on tax holiday, disagree on date
BOSTON — House and Senate lawmakers have agreed to give
Massachusetts shoppers another sales tax holiday this summer.
They just haven't agreed on when.
The Massachusetts Senate passed an amendment to an economic
development bill on Tuesday that would set the tax holiday for Aug.
9-10.
That's the weekend before the House-proposed tax holiday of Aug.
16-17.
Tax-free holidays have been held several times in recent years.
Retailers welcome them as an opportunity to lure shoppers into
stores to jump-start a typically slow time of year.
State officials have expressed concern, however, about the loss of
an estimated $20 million in sales tax revenue during the weekend.
The question of which weekend will have to be hashed out when a
conference committee meets to reconcile both economic development
bills into a single piece of legislation.
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