|
Help save yourself
— join CLT
today! |
CLT introduction and membership application |
What CLT saves you from the auto excise tax alone |
Ask your friends to join too |
Visit CLT on Facebook |
CLT UPDATE
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Finally, a responsible adult in the corner office
|
On Tuesday morning, Baker told his Cabinet and
was set to tell the news media that deficit is $765 million — a
significant sum — and argue that the shortfall is primarily the
result of the state spending too much....
On Monday, the state’s top finance official,
Kristen Lepore, previewed the administration’s take on the state’s
finances, did not specifically address whether there will be cuts,
but offered hints about parts of a solution.
She said that the tax money coming into state
coffers so far this fiscal year, which runs from July 2014 through
June, has met or exceeded expectations.
And while the administration’s analysis finds
part of the current gap results from overly optimistic predictions
for some types of money coming in — fees, for example — Lepore said
the main driver of the deficit is greater than expected spending.
“This is definitely a spending problem and not a
revenue problem,” Lepore, the secretary of administration and
finance, said in a State House interview with the Globe....
Asked whether the state will have to make cuts as
a result of the deficit, Lepore said, “It’s going to be a
combination of a lot of things, but we haven’t worked out any
details yet.”
But she did offer hints of how the administration
is — and is not — thinking about balancing the budget.
Baker has repeatedly pledged that he will not
hike taxes or fees. He has also said he will not cut aid to cities
and towns, nor take money out of the state’s “rainy day” fund, the
account designed for fiscal emergencies, to bridge this gap.
Lepore reiterated those pledges and, echoing
earlier remarks from Baker, said state aid to homeless families and
funding for the state’s troubled Department of Children and Families
will be held sacrosanct.
While governors have some unilateral authority to
chop budgets and wrangle savings, she indicated that the scope of
the problem will require action from the Legislature.
“I think it will be a partnership” between the
governor and the Legislature, she said....
After the election, the Patrick administration
announced a shortfall it pegged at $329 million. It pressed for
legislative action, which did not occur, and put some unilateral
cuts and savings into place.
According to the Baker administration, those
solved $252 million of the gap, leaving a $765 million problem left
to figure out.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Mass. facing $765 million budget deficit, Baker says
Gov. Charlie Baker’s $1 billion budget problem
could ultimately be higher once open enrollment on state Obamacare
coverage wraps up next month, fiscal watchdogs say, making the
potential for drastic cuts even more likely as the Republican aims
to shrink the looming gap.
“That’s the big unknown that they might not be
able to get their hands on until mid- to late March,” said Andrew
Bagley of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, adding that the
state could “easily” have at least 100,000 more enrollees in
Medicaid than it budgeted for when enrollment wraps Feb. 15. The
impact, he said, could mean heavy cuts in health and human services,
the state’s largest secretariat, as well as others in higher
education and public safety....
“Spending seems to be the primary issue here,”
Baker said, reiterating that he won’t cut local aid or raise taxes
and fees to fill the gap, nor would he touch the budget of the
embattled Department of Children and Families. “This problem needs
to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed now.”
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Obamacare costs could boost $765M budget deficit
Sometimes you have to point the finger. It’s not
taking the low road, it’s telling the truth.
So here was Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday,
confronting a totally predictable (except by the previous governor)
budget deficit of $765 million, and he still couldn’t bring himself
to mention who created the mess the commonwealth now finds itself
in.
So I gave him a second chance, on my radio show,
to pin the tail on the donkey, or should I say the donkey’s rear
end.
“Charlie,” I asked him yesterday, “whose fault is
this $765 million deficit?”
“Look,” he said, “long story short, fixing this
is going to belong to me, my administration and the Legislature. It
is what it is. People can draw whatever conclusions they want about
it.”
My conclusion is, I want Deval Patrick named,
dammit! He and his buddy Barack have fashioned very lucrative
careers spreading Bush Derangement Syndrome. The blame game
continues to this very day....
Remember, when word first started leaking out
that Deval’s mismanagement and hack hiring had blown a hole in the
state budget, he sent out a flack to say, “There are people behind
every line item, so budget management must be done with care.”
The problem was, it was Deval’s people behind
every line item, wielding Obamaphones and EBT cards. Forget care,
let’s see that weed wacker you were talking about during the
campaign, Charlie.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
C’mon Charlie Baker, pass buck to Deval Patrick!
By Howie Carr
Massachusetts unemployment is down.
State tax revenue is growing.
Cranes dot the metro Boston skyline.
So why does a state with an economy humming along
face an urgent budget gap pegged at $765 million? Wouldn’t good
economic times insulate the government from cuts now seen as
imminent?
On one level, it’s basic. As Governor Charlie
Baker explained in a Tuesday press conference: state spending is
poised to grow by 7.3 percent this fiscal year, while tax revenue is
set to increase only by about 4.4 percent.
“Spending seems to be the primary issue here,”
Baker said....
Noah Berger, president of the liberal-leaning
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said that this year’s budget
— as many budgets have in the past 15 or so years since voters
backed big income tax cuts — relied on a lot of short-term solutions
and “some wishful thinking,” which helps explain the deficit....
Berger believes that a longer-term reason behind
this and other budget gaps in recent years are income tax cuts put
into place more than a decade ago, undermining key state programs.
Other analysts say the state’s budget issues
wouldn’t be solved by higher taxes, but rather a more efficient and
effective government.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 22, 2015
If economy is humming, why does Mass. show a deficit?
Massachusetts has the nation’s lowest
participation of welfare recipients working to receive their
benefits, undermining one of the key reforms that was intended to
move people from public assistance to self-sufficiency, according to
a
study to be released Thursday by a conservative Beacon Hill
think tank.
Only 7.3 percent of people receiving welfare
benefits in the state held jobs in fiscal 2011, the most recent year
for which data were available, according to the Pioneer Institute.
That’s roughly one-fourth the national average of about 30
percent....
In Massachusetts, participation in what’s known
as workfare — which includes jobs, community service, and job
training — fell from 22 percent of recipients in 2010, even as
national participation rose, the study says.
“Our state has taken its eye off the prize with
regard to workfare,” said Greg Sullivan, research director at
Pioneer and coauthor of the report. “It seems Massachusetts has
effectively abandoned the idea.”
Sullivan, a former state inspector general,
criticized Deval Patrick for “gutting” the work requirement when he
was governor. “We were really the only state that had that kind of
drop,” Sullivan said....
The report used data from the US Department of
Health and Human Services for fiscal 2011, which ended June 2011,
and found that Massachusetts was the only state with a workfare
participation rate below 10 percent. Connecticut’s rate was 59
percent, New Hampshire’s 49 percent, and Maine’s 19 percent. Rhode
Island, which ranked just above Massachusetts, had an 11 percent
rate....
He called on Governor Charlie Baker to
“resuscitate the workfare program.” Baker was an architect of
welfare reforms in the administration of Governor William Weld in
the 1990s. The state’s workfare plan became a model for national
welfare reform enacted during the administration of President Bill
Clinton.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Participation in ‘workfare’ fell sharply in Mass., study finds
When it comes to bad budget news former Gov.
Deval Patrick is the gift that keeps on giving.
Gov. Charlie Baker has announced that the state
is now $765 million short of what it would need to support the level
of spending that is currently projected. That includes the budget
that took effect last July 1, separate spending bills enacted after
that, and state obligations that have increased on their own since
the budget was finalized.
The budget predicament appears to be a
combination of too much spending (an estimated 7.3 percent increase,
vs. an estimated 4.5 percent increase in revenue); poor forecasting
($170 million of the deficit is from an overestimate of state fee
collections, for example); and a refusal to stop adding new
spending even after the annual budget took effect.
And yes, part of that increase in spending can be
attributed both to Obamacare and to the state’s botched effort to
implement it, costs that will likely run into the hundreds of
millions of dollars....
For Baker — and we hope for House Speaker
Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stan Rosenberg — taxes are off the
table. And Baker has made clear that he has no plans to cut local
aid in the middle of the fiscal year, either. After all, why should
individual taxpayers and cities and towns pay the tab for a
preventable problem of Beacon Hill’s making?
But that leaves more cutting — and more pain in
some quarters.
When the advocates start dishing out the blame
pie they should give most of it to the Legislature, and stick a big
slice in the freezer for Deval Patrick.
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Anatomy of a deficit
Economic experts predicted on Thursday that state
tax revenues would continue to grow at a "modest" clip through
fiscal 2016, with estimates hovering around 4.5 percent growth as
lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Baker's team look ahead toward preparing
a new state budget.
The estimates, on par with tax collection growth
in fiscal 2015, led Rep. Brian Dempsey, the House's incumbent budget
chief, to suggest that despite encouraging signs of an economic
recovery there might be an "inflated sense" of what it means for
state revenue.
"What we're hearing today is slow growth in the 4
percent to 5 percent range, and we must continue to be cautious,"
Dempsey said near the end of a nearly three-hour hearing intended to
help officials develop a consensus revenue estimate upon which to
build the fiscal 2016 budget....
Unlike the 1990s recovery when revenue growth
eclipsed 6 percent a year, Dempsey said the state is unlikely to see
a return of such boom times when lawmakers stashed away savings, cut
taxes and still invested in areas like education. "We were able to
do it all," Dempsey said....
An income tax cut to 5.15 percent this January
took an estimated $70 million out of the fiscal 2015 budget, and
officials estimate over the course of a full year it will reduce
revenues for the state by $145 million in fiscal 2016.
While [Revenue Commissioner Amy Pitter] said the
triggers that would need to be hit to initiate a further reduction
to 5.1 percent in 2016 are too "tight" to confidently predict,
Bagley said [the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation] did assume
another income tax dip next year.
State House News Service
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Experts: Growth will mean $1 Bil more in taxes for budget
If you want to see your government in action,
just take a seat in the gallery high above the Massachusetts
House of Representatives.
But don’t take a picture, unless you want a
visit from the security guard. Don’t shoot any video. And that
spirited debate you hear below on multi-million-dollar cuts to
the state’s most vulnerable citizens? Well, it doesn’t really
amount to much. All the important stuff was worked out ahead of
time, behind closed doors. Massachusetts’ democracy may be one
of the oldest in the country. But it is also, in many respects,
one of the most opaque.
Government websites are difficult to
navigate. There are no clear penalties for state agencies that
improperly deny public records requests. And the Legislature has
exempted itself from the state’s public records and open
meetings laws.
Legislative leaders have long argued that
private meetings allow for more candid — and more productive —
conversations between lawmakers.
“The discussion becomes a lot more open and,
in that fashion, moves the process along a whole lot faster,’’
House Speaker Robert DeLeo once told the Globe, amid concern
about a closed-door budget process.
But many states conduct their business in
public; nearby New Hampshire is one of six states that has
written a right to open government into its constitution.
And all the secrecy in Massachusetts,
good-government advocates say, has consequences: making it more
difficult for citizens to participate, tougher for the media to
hold government to account, and easier for public officials to
slip into corruption.
There is a fog over Massachusetts state
government....
“Massachusetts has one of the worst public
records laws in the country,” says Robert Bertsche, a media
lawyer and partner at Prince Lobel Tye in Boston.
He’s a blunt fellow. But many share his
assessment.
Local transparency advocates have long
kvetched about the law. And three years ago, a national
consortium of good-government and media groups known as the
State Integrity Investigation gave Massachusetts an “F” for
“public access to information.” ...
Two years ago, the Sunlight Foundation graded
every Legislature on the transparency of its website, and the
Massachusetts body was one of five — alongside those of Alabama,
Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska — that got an “F.”
The site makes it difficult to assemble
meaningful data — on say, a lawmaker’s voting record.
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 23, 2015
Massachusetts’ problem with transparency
What’s your government up to? It’s harder than you might think
to find out
Gov. Charlie Baker is slamming the brakes on
the $1 billion bond offering for the controversial expansion of
the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center by ordering a
two-month delay while his finance team sorts through the current
budget mess.
The massive bond offering, which former Gov.
Deval Patrick approved last summer amid simmering concerns about
the project’s costs, was set to be issued on Monday, according
to Treasurer Deb Goldberg’s office.
But a Baker aide notified James Rooney, the
executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center
Authority, earlier this month that the administration intended
to delay it by 60 days, or until March 30 — a move that will
give the Republican’s team time to review it.
Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute, which
has been a vocal critic of the expansion, praised Baker’s move
and called issuing the bond an “irresponsible fiscal move.”
Pioneer has ripped the MCCA for relying on
overly optimistic revenue projections as part of the project’s
financing plan. For example, Stergios said it assumes that hotel
tax receipts will increase at an average annual rate nearly
three times the historical growth rate of the statewide hotel
tax.
“Other states have had to turn to taxpayer
bailouts. Massachusetts should avoid such an outcome,” Stergios
said in an email. “A 60-day delay to review the expansion’s
financing is just prudent.”
The Boston Herald
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Baker OKs delay in BCEC bonds
Team to review $1B cost
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
What a breath of fresh air our new governor,
Charlie Baker, brings to the corner office after eight years of
Deval Patrick's profligate spending, ridiculous waste,
gross incompetency, and higher taxes as the solution to
everything he proposed. Finally we have a responsible,
rational adult running Massachusetts who recognizes the obvious:
"This is definitely a spending problem and not a revenue problem.”
The Joshua Miller reported in the Boston Globe ("Mass. facing $765 million budget deficit, Baker says"):
After the election, the Patrick administration announced a shortfall
it pegged at $329 million. It pressed for legislative action, which
did not occur, and put some unilateral cuts and savings into place.
According to the Baker administration, those solved $252 million of
the gap, leaving a $765 million problem left to figure out.
As Howie Carr noted ("C’mon Charlie Baker, pass buck to Deval Patrick!"),
Gov. Baker refuses to resort to one of the Democrats' favorite
distractionss: The "Bush Derangement Syndrome." Though Baker
inherited a fiscal crisis left behind by the previous
administration, he's not pointing fingers —
instead, he's rolling up his sleeves and dealing with it. That
in itself is refreshing, invigorating.
Elections have consequences. Can you
imagine the response if Charlie had lost the election to Martha
Coakley? How quickly would massive tax hikes be imposed so the
gravy train could continue?
Regardless, Noah Berger, president of the
"liberal-leaning" Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center
— aka, The Gimme Lobby
— blames it all on "income tax cuts put
into place more than a decade ago." In Noah's socialist world,
voter mandates and taxpayer burdens are irrelevant, to be ignored in
the pursuit of "social justice." To his kind, More Is Never
Enough (MINE) and never will be.
Noah and his ilk whistle past the graveyard in
the face of the Pioneer Institute's new report, "Rebuilding
the Ladder to Self- Sufficiency: Workfare and Welfare Reform."
The Boston Globe ("Participation in ‘workfare’ fell sharply in Mass., study finds")
reported on the study:
Only 7.3 percent of people receiving welfare
benefits in the state held jobs in fiscal 2011, the most recent year
for which data were available, according to the Pioneer Institute.
That’s roughly one-fourth the national average of about 30
percent....
In Massachusetts, participation in what’s known
as workfare — which includes jobs, community service, and job
training — fell from 22 percent of recipients in 2010, even as
national participation rose, the study says.
Geez, do you suppose this increase of layabouts
— combined with the Medicaid giveaway
to Noah's constituency after the Healthcare Connector's functional
failure — might have something to do with the billion dollar
shortfall?
[Greg Sullivan, research director at
Pioneer and coauthor of the report], a former state inspector general,
criticized Deval Patrick for “gutting” the work requirement when he
was governor. “We were really the only state that had
that kind of drop.”
Again a good case for blaming Deval Patrick
— and it's not "anecdotal," an
"outlier," or "spillage" as he would have excused it.
Meanwhile, "Economic experts predicted on Thursday that state
tax revenues would continue to grow at a "modest" clip through
fiscal 2016, with estimates hovering around 4.5 percent growth as
lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Baker's team look ahead toward preparing
a new state budget," the State House News Service reported ("Experts: Growth will mean $1 Bil more in taxes for budget").
If Deval was still governor, or Martha won the election over Charlie
Baker, the discussion now would be how to spend another billion!
Amidst the fiscal chaos, just in the nick of time
Gov. Baker is also taking on the $1 billion bond offering for the
"controversial" expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition
Center, approved last summer by former-Governor Deval Patrick. (Oh
that "former" feels so good writing!) What a difference
having a responsible adult in the corner office for a change!
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford |
|
|
|
|
|
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Mass. facing $765 million budget deficit, Baker says
By Joshua Miller
Before Deval Patrick left office earlier this month, he gave Charlie
Baker, his gubernatorial successor, traditional gifts, including a
pewter key, a gavel, and a 19th-century Bible.
But Patrick also left Baker something more pernicious: a mid-year
budget gap the administration says is about the size of the gross
domestic product of the country of Samoa.
On Tuesday morning, Baker told his Cabinet and was set to tell the
news media that deficit is $765 million — a significant sum — and
argue that the shortfall is primarily the result of the state
spending too much.
The announcement will confirm a gap estimated last month by an
outside group, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, raise the
specter of painful cuts to services, and begin in earnest the first
true challenge of the Republican’s tenure: how to quickly bridge the
fiscal chasm.
On Monday, the state’s top finance official, Kristen Lepore,
previewed the administration’s take on the state’s finances, did not
specifically address whether there will be cuts, but offered hints
about parts of a solution.
She said that the tax money coming into state coffers so far this
fiscal year, which runs from July 2014 through June, has met or
exceeded expectations.
And while the administration’s analysis finds part of the current
gap results from overly optimistic predictions for some types of
money coming in — fees, for example — Lepore said the main driver of
the deficit is greater than expected spending.
“This is definitely a spending problem and not a revenue problem,”
Lepore, the secretary of administration and finance, said in a State
House interview with the Globe.
Medicaid costs, including fallout from Massachusetts’ bungled health
insurance website, are a significant part of the spending side of
the deficit, the administration found.
Higher than anticipated state and municipal employee health care
costs; more cases at the Department of Children and Families, a
greater need for public defenders, and more homeless families
needing shelter than were budgeted for, are among the other pieces
of the budget gap, according to the administration.
Lepore underscored the urgency of bridging the hole soon, saying it
needed to happen in “not months. And when I say weeks: A couple of
weeks, at the most.”
Since the state’s fiscal year ends in June, each day that goes by
means that any potential cuts will have to be spread over a shorter
period of time, which could increase how painful they are for the
agency impacted and the people it serves.
Asked whether the state will have to make cuts as a result of the
deficit, Lepore said, “It’s going to be a combination of a lot of
things, but we haven’t worked out any details yet.”
But she did offer hints of how the administration is — and is not —
thinking about balancing the budget.
Baker has repeatedly pledged that he will not hike taxes or fees. He
has also said he will not cut aid to cities and towns, nor take
money out of the state’s “rainy day” fund, the account designed for
fiscal emergencies, to bridge this gap.
Lepore reiterated those pledges and, echoing earlier remarks from
Baker, said state aid to homeless families and funding for the
state’s troubled Department of Children and Families will be held
sacrosanct.
While governors have some unilateral authority to chop budgets and
wrangle savings, she indicated that the scope of the problem will
require action from the Legislature.
“I think it will be a partnership” between the governor and the
Legislature, she said.
One potential area of cooperation with the Legislative branch she
spoke about is a state law that directs a certain stream of tax
money. After Massachusetts has collected more than about a billion
dollars in tax revenues from capital gains income in a fiscal year,
the statute steers subsequent collections of that type to the “rainy
day” fund.
Although Lepore did not say so directly, changing the law so that
those revenues go to the general fund instead of the “rainy day”
fund could help bridge the current gap.
Doing so would carefully adhere to Baker’s pledge not to take money
out of the “rainy day” fund to deal with the shortfall; it would
just mean not putting a certain chunk of money in it.
According to the administration, one of the largest single drivers
of the budget deficit is higher than anticipated spending on
Medicaid, the state-federal health program for poor and disabled
people.
That spending includes paying for health care of people newly
enrolled in Medicaid, who had previously been in a temporary
Medicaid program, the administration said.
The temporary program was instituted to make sure people would not
lose coverage after the state’s health insurance website — for
people who do not get insurance through their employer — failed. It
was never able to determine whether people were eligible for
assistance and more than 300,000 people were placed in the temporary
program.
The failure came after the site was changed in 2013 to comply with
the federal health care overhaul known as the Affordable Care Act.
Lepore repeatedly declined to assign blame for the deficit in the
more than $36 billion state budget.
“This is our problem to solve right now,” she said. “I’m the person
in charge of the budget, it’s my problem to solve right now with the
governor.”
Will they be able to do it?
Lepore did not hesitate: “Yes.”
Baker, a Republican, beat Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley
and three independent candidates in the November gubernatorial race.
After the election, the Patrick administration announced a shortfall
it pegged at $329 million. It pressed for legislative action, which
did not occur, and put some unilateral cuts and savings into place.
According to the Baker administration, those solved $252 million of
the gap, leaving a $765 million problem left to figure out.
In December, the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
estimated a budget gap of $750 million, almost identical in size to
the one outlined by the Baker administration this week.
The Patrick Administration vociferously disputed the Taxpayers
Foundation estimate both in December and on Patrick’s last full day
in office.
“In November, Governor Patrick assembled and executed a thoughtful
and responsible plan to close a [fiscal year 2015] budget gap, based
on reliable information and expert insight,” Alex Zaroulis, then a
spokeswoman for the secretary of administration and finance, said in
a Jan. 7 statement.
“The governor has never shied from making tough choices when needed,
but he also understands that there are people behind every line item
— so budget management must be done with care,” she continued. “The
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation report is incomplete and
inaccurate, and not a basis for good budget decisions.”
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Obamacare costs could boost $765M budget deficit
By Matt Stout
Gov. Charlie Baker’s $1 billion budget problem could ultimately be
higher once open enrollment on state Obamacare coverage wraps up
next month, fiscal watchdogs say, making the potential for drastic
cuts even more likely as the Republican aims to shrink the looming
gap.
“That’s the big unknown that they might not be able to get their
hands on until mid- to late March,” said Andrew Bagley of the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, adding that the state could
“easily” have at least 100,000 more enrollees in Medicaid than it
budgeted for when enrollment wraps Feb. 15. The impact, he said,
could mean heavy cuts in health and human services, the state’s
largest secretariat, as well as others in higher education and
public safety.
“That’s where governors have to go because the other areas of the
budget are untouchable,” Bagley said. “And because you’re cutting
over less than a six-month period, you’re almost cutting double.”
Baker yesterday revealed the state is facing a $765 million deficit,
which inched north of $1 billion before taking into account cuts
former Gov. Deval Patrick ordered before leaving office.
Baker did not reveal any specific plans of where he’ll look to fill
the gap, saying he’ll work with the Legislature to find answers. But
the estimate dwarfs the $329 million deficit Patrick projected.
“Spending seems to be the primary issue here,” Baker said,
reiterating that he won’t cut local aid or raise taxes and fees to
fill the gap, nor would he touch the budget of the embattled
Department of Children and Families. “This problem needs to be
addressed, and it needs to be addressed now.”
Medicaid costs, including $109 million tied to enrollment in
temporary coverage, are the primary driver of the budget woes,
creating a $230 million hole, Baker said. Another $155 million comes
from costs at the Group Insurance Commission.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
C’mon Charlie Baker, pass buck to Deval Patrick!
By Howie Carr
Sometimes you have to point the finger. It’s not taking the low
road, it’s telling the truth.
So here was Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday, confronting a totally
predictable (except by the previous governor) budget deficit of $765
million, and he still couldn’t bring himself to mention who created
the mess the commonwealth now finds itself in.
So I gave him a second chance, on my radio show, to pin the tail on
the donkey, or should I say the donkey’s rear end.
“Charlie,” I asked him yesterday, “whose fault is this $765 million
deficit?”
“Look,” he said, “long story short, fixing this is going to belong
to me, my administration and the Legislature. It is what it is.
People can draw whatever conclusions they want about it.”
My conclusion is, I want Deval Patrick named, dammit! He and his
buddy Barack have fashioned very lucrative careers spreading Bush
Derangement Syndrome. The blame game continues to this very day.
By the way, I hate that phrase, “it is what it is.” Bill Belichick.
But I’d be willing to forgive that, if Charlie would only name
names. Actually, one would suffice.
Remember, when word first started leaking out that Deval’s
mismanagement and hack hiring had blown a hole in the state budget,
he sent out a flack to say, “There are people behind every line
item, so budget management must be done with care.”
The problem was, it was Deval’s people behind every line item,
wielding Obamaphones and EBT cards. Forget care, let’s see that weed
wacker you were talking about during the campaign, Charlie.
You know, I told the governor, the people who voted for you would
appreciate you pointing the finger. I know they say don’t point the
finger, but dammit, point the finger!
“Look,” he said, “I have a problem. We have a problem. We’re gonna
solve it, and that’s that. I’ll leave it to others to draw
conclusions.”
I decided to back off and ask him about other matters. Like, when is
he going to get a new secretary of public safety to replace the Fan
Lady, Andrea Cabral?
“We’ll be making an announcement on that soon.”
Like, tomorrow?
“Soon. Very soon.”
Before he makes his next goofy bet on the Patriots, I hope. Next up
is Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state. Charlie was at the Colts
game Sunday, of course. You may not have seen him, though. He was in
the stands, not the owner’s box. And unlike a certain Thurston
Howell clone, he wasn’t wearing a foppish blue scarf that made him
look even more like a gigolo than usual.
“OK, Charlie,” I finally said, “I’ll give you one more chance. Who
is responsible for this $765 million deficit?”
“Howie,” he said, “we are going to fix the $765 million deficit.
Who’s responsible for it at this point is beside the point.”
Speaking of points, Charlie, it’s not too late. Point the finger!
Listen to Howie every weekday from 3 to 7 p.m. on WMEX AM
1510.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 22, 2015
If economy is humming, why does Mass. show a deficit?
By Joshua Miller
Massachusetts unemployment is down.
State tax revenue is growing.
Cranes dot the metro Boston skyline.
So why does a state with an economy humming along face an urgent
budget gap pegged at $765 million? Wouldn’t good economic times
insulate the government from cuts now seen as imminent?
On one level, it’s basic. As Governor Charlie Baker explained in a
Tuesday press conference: state spending is poised to grow by 7.3
percent this fiscal year, while tax revenue is set to increase only
by about 4.4 percent.
“Spending seems to be the primary issue here,” Baker said.
Now add the nuance.
Specialists say the deficit results from pitfalls that have undercut
revenue and demands that have slapped the state with higher than
expected costs.
Spending on Medicaid, the state-federal health program for poor and
disabled people, is coming in much higher than expected, in part,
due to the failure of the state health insurance website, the Baker
administration says. Unbudgeted Medicaid costs are the biggest
single spending-side issue contributing to the gap, according to the
administration: $230 million.
Like most years, funding for certain programs, such as public
defenders and emergency help for homeless families, is budgeted at a
level that often requires supplemental money as the fiscal year
unfolds, analysts said. Government employee and retiree health
insurance was also underfunded and now requires an infusion of cash.
While overall tax revenue is about on target, money coming into the
state from fines, fees, and the like is much lower than expected,
crimping the bottom line to the tune of $179 million, the
administration says.
And the budget relies on at least one volatile stream of income,
tax-related settlements — such as those hashed out between the state
and corporations. The administration estimates that gap alone to be
$100 million.
Noah Berger, president of the liberal-leaning Massachusetts Budget
and Policy Center, said that this year’s budget — as many budgets
have in the past 15 or so years since voters backed big income tax
cuts — relied on a lot of short-term solutions and “some wishful
thinking,” which helps explain the deficit.
One example of wishful thinking, he said: funding for public
defenders.
He said providing lawyers for indigent defendants is not a political
popular item, so it is often funded at a level that means it will
need more money later in the fiscal year.
“That’s just the kind of strategy that means you end up with midyear
deficits unless good things happen,” he said. What’s good? Tax
revenue coming in above expectations.
The Baker administration cited a $35 million shortfall in funding
for the Committee for Public Counsel Services — public defenders —
in its outline of the gap this fiscal year, which runs from July
2014 through June.
State Representative Brian S. Dempsey, the House’s budget chief,
said during the year certain accounts are always supplemented, and
that’s to be expected.
Another area of wishful thinking, Berger said, is the Group
Insurance Commission, which oversees health insurance for state and
some municipal employees, retirees, and their dependents.
The commission issued a warning in May 2014, before the current
budget was signed into law, that it would need at least $100 million
more for the 2015 fiscal year than the governor and the House had
proposed. The extra money was never added. This week, the Baker
administration said commission spending represents a $155 million
hole that needs to be filled.
Berger believes that a longer-term reason behind this and other
budget gaps in recent years are income tax cuts put into place more
than a decade ago, undermining key state programs.
Other analysts say the state’s budget issues wouldn’t be solved by
higher taxes, but rather a more efficient and effective government.
More contributing factors to the current gap cited by the
administration include greater than budgeted caseloads at the
troubled Department of Children and Families ($41 million) and
underfunding for emergency assistance for homeless families ($45
million).
But the single biggest underbudgeted category cited by the
administration in its outline of the gap is spending on Medicaid.
That spending includes paying for health care of people newly
enrolled in Medicaid, who had previously been in a temporary
Medicaid program instituted after the state’s health insurance
website failed, the administration said.
The temporary program was instituted to make sure people would not
lose coverage after the website — for people who do not get
insurance through their employer — did not function after it was
changed to comply with the federal health care overhaul.
The site was never able to determine whether people were eligible
for assistance, more than 300,000 people were placed in the
temporary program, and the cost associated with it has not yet been
fully sorted out.
“Until we get our arms around what this temporary Medicaid issue
looks like, we won’t really know the size of the problem and we
could be in for even worse surprises,” said Jim Stergios, executive
director of the conservative-leaning Pioneer Institute.
The Baker administration’s $765 million gap figure takes into
account $252 million in cuts and savings instituted by Governor
Deval Patrick shortly before he left office.
At a broader level, this year’s budget is squeezed by tax revenues
that, while going up fiscal year to fiscal year, are growing at a
slower rate than in previous economic recoveries.
In the 1990s and again for much of the 2000s, annual state revenue
growth averaged about 6.5 percent, according to an analysis from
business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
But since the middle of 2010, average tax revenue has grown about
4.7 percent each fiscal year, meaning the Legislature and governor
have a pool of money that grows at a slower rate than in the boom
years, stretching budgets.
“If we had really robust revenue growth on a great recovery, some of
these problems disappear,” said Andrew C. Bagley, who directs
research at the Taxpayers Foundation. “But we haven’t seen it.”
The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Participation in ‘workfare’ fell sharply in Mass., study finds
By Megan Woolhouse
Massachusetts has the nation’s lowest participation of welfare
recipients working to receive their benefits, undermining one of the
key reforms that was intended to move people from public assistance
to self-sufficiency, according to a
study to be released Thursday by a conservative Beacon Hill
think tank.
Only 7.3 percent of people receiving welfare benefits in the state
held jobs in fiscal 2011, the most recent year for which data were
available, according to the Pioneer Institute. That’s roughly
one-fourth the national average of about 30 percent.
Under the state- and federally-funded welfare program, known as
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, eligible recipients are
required to work 20 to 30 hours a week or perform community service
to receive benefits, which average about $453 a month. Roughly
160,000 people in Massachusetts currently receive benefits, but
people who are physically unable to work, mothers of young children,
and others are exempt from the work requirement.
In Massachusetts, participation in what’s known as workfare — which
includes jobs, community service, and job training — fell from 22
percent of recipients in 2010, even as national participation rose,
the study says.
“Our state has taken its eye off the prize with regard to workfare,”
said Greg Sullivan, research director at Pioneer and coauthor of the
report. “It seems Massachusetts has effectively abandoned the idea.”
Sullivan, a former state inspector general, criticized Deval Patrick
for “gutting” the work requirement when he was governor. “We were
really the only state that had that kind of drop,” Sullivan said.
The report used data from the US Department of Health and Human
Services for fiscal 2011, which ended June 2011, and found that
Massachusetts was the only state with a workfare participation rate
below 10 percent. Connecticut’s rate was 59 percent, New Hampshire’s
49 percent, and Maine’s 19 percent. Rhode Island, which ranked just
above Massachusetts, had an 11 percent rate.
Massachusetts’ rate declined as the economy improved, according to
the study. Participation during the Patrick administration peaked at
47.5 percent in the recession year of 2009, when unemployment
climbed to nearly 9 percent statewide. In 2011, the jobless rate
averaged about 7 percent. (The unemployment rate is currently less
than 6 percent in the state).
According to Sullivan, the state was able to sidestep the work
requirement because the federal government offers caseload reduction
credits to states that shrink their welfare rolls; the credits can
offset workfare participation requirements. The state’s success in
reducing welfare caseloads allowed workfare participation rates to
decline without incurring federal penalties, Sullivan said.
He called on Governor Charlie Baker to “resuscitate the workfare
program.” Baker was an architect of welfare reforms in the
administration of Governor William Weld in the 1990s. The state’s
workfare plan became a model for national welfare reform enacted
during the administration of President Bill Clinton.
Earlier this month, Baker did not reappoint Stacey Monahan as
executive director of the Department of Transitional Assistance. No
successor has been named.
A spokesman for Baker said in a statement that the governor
“understands improving performance within the welfare system is
imperative to ensuring families who are struggling are getting the
assistance they need in difficult times.”
“Massachusetts has an opportunity to reform and strengthen the
current system,” the statement said, “to get more individuals
working again through education, job-training, and employer
incentives.’’
Deborah Harris, staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform
Institute, a nonprofit poverty law center in Boston, said the
Patrick administration’s efforts to get welfare recipients into jobs
fell short and she hopes that changes in the Baker administration.
“The programs aren’t there ... there’s no funding for them,” Harris
said. “We need to spend some money. You get what you pay for.”
John Drew, executive director of Action for Boston Community
Development, a nonprofit social services agency, said he feared the
critique of the state’s welfare program vilified unemployed poor
people who are already struggling.
Drew said the Massachusetts economy is a difficult place for the
state’s poorest — often women with children or the homeless — who
also lack skills to fill many job openings.
“We’re not talking about a whole lot of people sponging off the
government, we’re talking about people in need,” Drew said. “It’s a
very punitive world.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, January 22, 2015
A Boston Herald editorial
Anatomy of a deficit
When it comes to bad budget news former Gov. Deval Patrick is the
gift that keeps on giving.
Gov. Charlie Baker has announced that the state is now $765 million
short of what it would need to support the level of spending that is
currently projected. That includes the budget that took effect last
July 1, separate spending bills enacted after that, and state
obligations that have increased on their own since the budget was
finalized.
The budget predicament appears to be a combination of too much
spending (an estimated 7.3 percent increase, vs. an estimated 4.5
percent increase in revenue); poor forecasting ($170 million of the
deficit is from an overestimate of state fee collections, for
example); and a refusal to *stop* adding new spending even after the
annual budget took effect.
And yes, part of that increase in spending can be attributed both to
Obamacare and to the state’s botched effort to implement it, costs
that will likely run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Patrick had trimmed spending in November by $198 million once the
cracks in the budget started to appear. So what it all adds up to is
a total budget gap of roughly $1 billion, halfway through the fiscal
year. This, dear taxpayers, is the combined legacy of Patrick and
the Democrat-dominated Legislature, who together botched the budget,
big-time.
(As an aside, how Baker must love having to solve a major problem
not of his own making, just a month before his own proposal for next
year’s budget is due.)
But Patrick is now Bay State history. There is a new governor, a new
leader of the state Senate, and attention must immediately shift to
closing the gap.
For Baker — and we *hope* for House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate
President Stan Rosenberg — taxes are off the table. And Baker has
made clear that he has no plans to cut local aid in the middle of
the fiscal year, either. After all, why should individual taxpayers
and cities and towns pay the tab for a preventable problem of Beacon
Hill’s making?
But that leaves more cutting — and more pain in some quarters.
When the advocates start dishing out the blame pie they should give
most of it to the Legislature, and stick a big slice in the freezer
for Deval Patrick.
State House News Service
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Experts: Growth will mean $1 Bil more in taxes for budget
By Matt Murphy
Economic experts predicted on Thursday that state tax revenues would
continue to grow at a "modest" clip through fiscal 2016, with
estimates hovering around 4.5 percent growth as lawmakers and Gov.
Charlie Baker's team look ahead toward preparing a new state budget.
The estimates, on par with tax collection growth in fiscal 2015, led
Rep. Brian Dempsey, the House's incumbent budget chief, to suggest
that despite encouraging signs of an economic recovery there might
be an "inflated sense" of what it means for state revenue.
"What we're hearing today is slow growth in the 4 percent to 5
percent range, and we must continue to be cautious," Dempsey said
near the end of a nearly three-hour hearing intended to help
officials develop a consensus revenue estimate upon which to build
the fiscal 2016 budget.
Economists cited global economic slowdowns in Europe and China,
unrest in the Middle East and Ukraine and the deflationary effect of
low oil prices, despite its benefits for consumers, as unknown
factors that are prohibiting a more robust recovery.
Unlike the 1990s recovery when revenue growth eclipsed 6 percent a
year, Dempsey said the state is unlikely to see a return of such
boom times when lawmakers stashed away savings, cut taxes and still
invested in areas like education. "We were able to do it all,"
Dempsey said.
Dempsey, new Senate Ways and Means Chairman Karen Spilka and
Administration and Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore led the hearing.
While much the first three weeks of the year have been consumed by
dealing with a $765 million fiscal 2015 deficit, Baker's budget team
must come to a consensus revenue estimate with House and Senate
leaders for fiscal 2016 by Jan. 31, and the governor's first budget
is expected in late February.
Dempsey cheered the Baker administration for moving "very
aggressively" to address the current budget shortfall, while saying
he "eagerly awaits details" of the governor's plan to close the gap.
"We'll be announcing a plan sometime early to mid-next week," Lepore
told reporters on her way to Thursday's hearing.
Andrew Bagley, research director of the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, projected that tax revenues this year, which are
trending $18 million below estimates, would come in $95 million
above benchmarks by the end of the year, representing 4.4 percent
growth.
For fiscal 2016, Bagley estimated a similar 4.5 percent rate of
growth, or $1.1 billion, for a total of $25.5 billion in tax
revenues.
The foundation estimates were roughly in line with those of other
experts, including Northeastern University economist Alan
Clayton-Matthews who said revenues can be expected to climb to
$25.73 billion in fiscal 2016.
David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute,
estimated that final fiscal 2015 revenues would come in just above
benchmarks at $24.5 billion, or 4.9 percent growth from fiscal 2014.
Moving into fiscal 2016, Tuerck said revenue growth would continue
at a 5.3 percent pace delivering $25.8 billion in taxes for the
state to spend.
A fourth opinion came from the Department of Revenue. Tax revenues
this fiscal year should wind up within a range of $94 million below
to $19 million above benchmarks, Revenue Commissioner Amy Pitter
told lawmakers. Looking ahead to fiscal 2016, Pitter said the
Department of Revenue expects tax revenues to grow by between $1.02
billion and $1.3 billion, or 4.2 percent to 5.7 percent.
Dempsey, along with House Minority Leader Brad Jones, floated the
idea in December of a corporate tax amnesty program to generate
additional revenues to close the budget deficit. The shortfall at
the time was assumed to be much smaller after former Gov. Deval
Patrick identified a $329 million deficit.
Asked by Dempsey for her opinion, Pitter said there's always a
danger in offering tax amnesty too frequently, which could influence
taxpayer behavior if they think amnesty will be a regular
occurrence.
The Legislature last year authorized a tax amnesty program for
individual filers. Pitter suggested that expanding tax amnesty to
businesses should happen soon, before filing season, if it happens
at all, and cautioned that the department currently lacks the
technology to implement a broader tax amnesty program to go after
non-filers.
"If we were going to do corporate, we'd want to do it almost
immediately," Pitter said, adding, "like a week from Thursday."
Lepore, quiet for much of the meeting, questioned Pitter over
whether the department had anticipated a further reduction in the
income tax next January when developing its revenue estimate.
An income tax cut to 5.15 percent this January took an estimated $70
million out of the fiscal 2015 budget, and officials estimate over
the course of a full year it will reduce revenues for the state by
$145 million in fiscal 2016.
While Pitter said the triggers that would need to be hit to initiate
a further reduction to 5.1 percent in 2016 are too "tight" to
confidently predict, Bagley said MTF did assume another income tax
dip next year.
Treasurer Deborah Goldberg reiterated her position that Baker and
lawmakers should steer clear of making any withdrawals from the
state's roughly $1.2 billion "rainy day" fund to balance the current
budget. Dempsey agreed with Goldberg that the state should be
building, not depleting, its reserves.
"I'd like to see it north of $2 billion. I'd like to see it at $2.5
billion," Dempsey said.
Tuerck, however, suggested lawmakers might consider using reserves
to cover the unbudgeted costs, potentially $230 million or more,
associated with Medicaid spending growth and the failed launch of
the Affordable Care Act in Massachusetts.
Goldberg also urged lawmakers to boost spending on state Lottery
advertising from $8 million to $10 million. She said an increased
advertising budget would allow her to boost her Lottery profit
expectations in fiscal 2016 from $925 million to nearly $930
million, still about $17 million shy of fiscal 2015 estimates.
"As a businesswoman, I firmly believe that the last thing you do
when you're trying to increase revenue is cut advertising. And
especially not when new competition is moving into your backyard,"
Goldberg said, referring to casinos and slot parlors.
The treasurer also recommended lowering the anticipated rate of
return on the state's pension fund investments from 8 percent to a
more "realistic" 7.75 percent, predicting bond rating agencies would
look favorably on the move.
"Yes, this change will increase our unfunded liability. But fiscal
responsibility demands planning beyond best-case scenarios in a
strong economy," she said.
According to Lottery Executive Director Beth Bresnahan, the drop for
two consecutive years in Lottery profits, despite rising sales
figures, is due to the popularity of higher priced instant tickets
that pay out bigger prizes. The Lottery remains on track to deliver
$947 million in profits for local aid to cities and towns in fiscal
2015, Goldberg said.
UMass Dartmouth economist Michael Goodman said Massachusetts faces
risks from the "fragile" world economy, and encouraged state
policymakers to focus on the cost of electricity, the urban
education "achievement gap," housing production that has lagged for
more than a decade because of "archaic zoning and land-use
regulations," transportation infrastructure and preparations for
climate change and sea-level rise.
Goodman said housing prices in Brockton are still well below their
pre-recession peak, while housing in Brookline is well above that
prior peak. He said people move to areas with lower housing prices,
but then commute because there is not enough economic opportunity in
those areas.
"I think about that every morning," Dempsey said.
Asked by Rep. Stephen Kulik, a Worthington Democrat, about the
economic impact of expanded broadband internet access to western
Massachusetts and Cape Cod, Goodman said lack of broadband can be a
"deal breaker" when people are deciding where to move their home or
business.
Quizzed by Spilka about the number of people who have given up on
looking for work, Clayton-Matthews said the rate of unemployment,
underemployment and those who have given up on looking for work in
the state is at about 11 percent, down from the recession high of
nearly 16 percent in 2009 and still off of the pre-recession level
of about 8 percent.
The unemployment rate was 5.5 percent in December.
Andy Metzger contributed reporting
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 23, 2015
Massachusetts’ problem with transparency
What’s your government up to? It’s harder than you might think to
find out
By David Scharfenberg
If you want to see your government in action, just take a seat in
the gallery high above the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
But don’t take a picture, unless you want a visit from the security
guard. Don’t shoot any video. And that spirited debate you hear
below on multi-million-dollar cuts to the state’s most vulnerable
citizens? Well, it doesn’t really amount to much. All the important
stuff was worked out ahead of time, behind closed doors.
Massachusetts’ democracy may be one of the oldest in the country.
But it is also, in many respects, one of the most opaque.
Government websites are difficult to navigate. There are no clear
penalties for state agencies that improperly deny public records
requests. And the Legislature has exempted itself from the state’s
public records and open meetings laws.
Legislative leaders have long argued that private meetings allow for
more candid — and more productive — conversations between lawmakers.
“The discussion becomes a lot more open and, in that fashion, moves
the process along a whole lot faster,’’ House Speaker Robert DeLeo
once told the Globe, amid concern about a closed-door budget
process.
But many states conduct their business in public; nearby New
Hampshire is one of six states that has written a right to open
government into its constitution.
And all the secrecy in Massachusetts, good-government advocates say,
has consequences: making it more difficult for citizens to
participate, tougher for the media to hold government to account,
and easier for public officials to slip into corruption.
There is a fog over Massachusetts state government. Below, a guide
to the mists — and the latest ideas for lifting them.
Not-so-public records
For the enterprising reporter or citizen activist, there is nothing
quite like documents — evidence, in black-and-white, of a misguided
policy or an act of corruption.
But good luck getting your hands on them.
“Massachusetts has one of the worst public records laws in the
country,” says Robert Bertsche, a media lawyer and partner at Prince
Lobel Tye in Boston.
He’s a blunt fellow. But many share his assessment.
Local transparency advocates have long kvetched about the law. And
three years ago, a national consortium of good-government and media
groups known as the State Integrity Investigation gave Massachusetts
an “F” for “public access to information.”
The flaws, critics say, are many. Chief among them: the exemptions.
The Massachusetts Legislature is one of just seven nationwide that
completely exempt themselves from a state public records law,
according to a Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press
tally from 2011.
The judicial branch’s administrative offices are also beyond the
reach of the law. And governors have claimed they, too, are exempt,
citing a 1997 Supreme Judicial Court ruling noting that the state’s
chief executive is not “explicitly” mentioned in the public records
statute.
So, while governors frequently release information to the public and
the press, they do so only at their pleasure.
Last year, when a Globe reporter asked then-Governor Deval Patrick’s
office to produce internal communications about the controversial
“tech tax,” the administration claimed, as always, that it wasn’t
obliged to turn over anything.
Then it shipped over a handful of unrevealing e-mails. Among them: a
note from a constituent criticizing the Globe’s coverage of the
issue.
Bertsche, the media lawyer, said the new governor could simply
declare that he will make his office subject to the public records
law.
Tim Buckley, a spokesman for Governor Charlie Baker, would not
address the idea directly, saying in a statement, “The
administration is reviewing public records request protocols and is
exploring ways to improve state government’s previous poor
transparency rankings.”
The cost of transparency
If some agencies provide less-than-helpful documents, others ask for
sizable sums to produce them.
Ask any reporter, activist, or political operative who’s filed
enough public records requests, and you’ll hear a tale of an $8,000
or $10,000 bill. That sort of tab, advocates say, is a substantial
deterrent — especially in an age of shrinking media budgets.
Some of the costs claimed by officials are copying fees. Current
rules allow agencies to charge 20 cents per page — quite a bit more
than your local copy shop.
State Representative Peter V. Kocot, a Northampton Democrat, has
filed legislation that would reduce copying fees to 5 cents per
letter-size page and 7 cents per legal-size page.
The bill would also require every state agency to designate one or
more “records access officers,” who would be encouraged to provide
documents in electronic form (eliminating the need for copying
fees).
In addition, Kocot’s legislation would allow plaintiffs suing over
the denial of public records to collect attorneys’ fees if they win
— addressing one of the biggest gripes in good-government circles.
Massachusetts is one of only four states with no such provision on
the books, according to the state chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union. And the omission, advocates say, has stopped many a
legal action before it starts.
“Small media or community organizations ... don’t necessarily have
the money to enter the war of attrition that is a public records
lawsuit,” said Shawn Musgrave, projects editor for MuckRock, a
Boston-based investigative journalism website that also helps people
file public records requests.
On the Intertubes
Two years ago, the Sunlight Foundation graded every Legislature on
the transparency of its website, and the Massachusetts body was one
of five — alongside those of Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky, and
Nebraska — that got an “F.”
The site makes it difficult to assemble meaningful data — on say, a
lawmaker’s voting record. And Paul D. Craney, executive director of
the right-leaning Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said there is not
enough in the way of live-streamed debates.
“We live in an era of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,” he said.
“There’s no reason why we don’t have, essentially, a C-SPAN for the
State House.”
Advocates say the state court system’s online presence is a concern,
too.
In recent years, the system has provided more basic docket
information on the Web — the name of the defendant, the outcome of
the case, that sort of thing. And anyone can watch oral arguments
before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court online.
But unlike the federal courts, the bulk of the state courts offer no
online access to court filings — the documents at the heart of a
case.
A courts committee is weighing expanded electronic access. But for
now, if you want filings, you have to go to the courthouse and ask
for hard copies.
More, more, more
There are plenty of other ideas floating around.
Transparency advocates have called for state legislative committees,
which play an influential role in developing policy, to uniformly
report roll calls — who voted yes, who voted no. At the moment,
reporting varies from committee to committee.
Secretary of State William F. Galvin is asking the Legislature for
new powers to go after agencies that deny public records requests.
And Mary Z. Connaughton, who heads up the government transparency
effort for the right-leaning Pioneer Institute in Boston, has called
for a nonpartisan budget office, independent of the governor and
state Legislature.
She says there is not enough neutral information on the costs of
proposed legislation: “It’s sorely lacking.”
One might expect conservatives, leery of the Democratic-dominated
state government, to advocate for this sort of agency. But at least
one prominent Democrat, newly sworn-in Treasurer Deb Goldberg, is
pushing the idea, too.
The office, patterned on the Congressional Budget Office in
Washington, would cost money, though — sure to be in short supply
during a budget crunch. And state lawmakers, who have long guarded
their dominion over the budget, seem cool to the idea.
Indeed, there are powerful interests opposed to many transparency
efforts.
Business organizations, for instance, have resisted Auditor Suzanne
Bump’s efforts to gain access to corporate tax returns, saying they
are concerned about proprietary information leaking into the public
sphere.
Bump says she needs the access in order to evaluate state oversight
of more than $2 billion in tax breaks designed to foster job growth
or promote green technology.
Thirty-seven other states, according to her office, have the power
to review returns for auditing purposes.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Baker OKs delay in BCEC bonds
Team to review $1B cost
By Matt Stout
Gov. Charlie Baker is slamming the brakes on the $1 billion bond
offering for the controversial expansion of the Boston Convention &
Exhibition Center by ordering a two-month delay while his finance
team sorts through the current budget mess.
The massive bond offering, which former Gov. Deval Patrick approved
last summer amid simmering concerns about the project’s costs, was
set to be issued on Monday, according to Treasurer Deb Goldberg’s
office.
But a Baker aide notified James Rooney, the executive director of
the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, earlier this month
that the administration intended to delay it by 60 days, or until
March 30 — a move that will give the Republican’s team time to
review it.
Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute, which has been a vocal critic
of the expansion, praised Baker’s move and called issuing the bond
an “irresponsible fiscal move.”
Pioneer has ripped the MCCA for relying on overly optimistic revenue
projections as part of the project’s financing plan. For example,
Stergios said it assumes that hotel tax receipts will increase at an
average annual rate nearly three times the historical growth rate of
the statewide hotel tax.
“Other states have had to turn to taxpayer bailouts. Massachusetts
should avoid such an outcome,” Stergios said in an email. “A 60-day
delay to review the expansion’s financing is just prudent.”
Baker aides emphasized that the MCCA bond offering is one of many to
be delayed until March, though exactly how many was unclear
yesterday, and that there aren’t particular parts of the BCEC
expansion they intend to dig into. A Jan. 13 letter alerting
investors that the state was putting them off cited the “current and
impending transitions” in both the governor’s and treasurer’s
offices.
In a statement, Baker’s budget chief, Kristen Lepore, indicated her
plate was already full dealing with the state’s $765 million budget
deficit.
“I am focused on simultaneously closing the FY15 gap and developing
the FY16 proposal,” Lepore said in a written statement. “I
appreciate the MCCA’s patience and cooperation while we devote much
of our time and energy to these two pressing issues.”
Rooney said the delay shouldn’t impact the project’s timeline, with
construction slated to begin in roughly two years and finishing by
mid-to-late 2019.
He said Baker’s chief of staff, Steve Kadish, called him roughly 10
days ago to gauge whether the project could handle the delay. Rooney
responded with an “easy yes.”
“We’re not really spending at any rate that we can’t handle right
now,” Rooney said, estimating he’ll spend “less than $2 million”
over the next three months, mainly to pay staff and consultants, as
part of the project. “It’s perfectly reasonable for them to want
time to get caught up on all the analytics that have gone into
this.”
|
| |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|