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CLT UPDATE
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Supplemental budget spending
aided by unexpected revenue increase
|
The state’s emergency savings account, a final
bulwark against extreme cuts to state services if the economy goes
sour, is less than half the size it was before the last recession.
Despite an economy on the upswing in recent
years, Beacon Hill leaders have repeatedly taken money out of the
state’s rainy day fund to paper over big holes in the state budget.
As a result, the account, also known as the stabilization fund,
stands at $1.1 billion, certainly a sizable sum, but a far smaller
percentage of state spending than in the past.
And now, with economic storm clouds on the
horizon, from China’s slipping economy to a volatile American stock
market to slowing national job growth, top analysts are increasingly
concerned that the fund won’t be big enough if there is a true
fiscal emergency.
“There’s going to be an economic downturn. Due to
the cyclical nature of our economy, it’s not a question of if, it’s
when. And if the downturn were to occur in the short-term, we’re
inadequately prepared,” said Eileen McAnneny, president of the
business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a top fiscal
watchdog.
Analysts say lawmakers have repeatedly drained
the fund to avoid making tough choices — raising taxes or cutting
services — to balance the budget....
In the summer of 2007, before the massive
recession began, the rainy day fund had $2.3 billion — a cushion of
about 7.8 percent of total state spending, according to the
Taxpayers Foundation. This summer, the rainy day balance stood at
$1.1 billion — about 2.7 percent of total state spending, a fraction
small enough to raise a red flag for analysts.
Noah Berger, president of the liberal-leaning
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said the diminished size of
the fund and the state’s propensity to drain it worries him.
If Massachusetts hasn’t built up enough of a
reserve for the next recession, he said, “the state will have to cut
deeply into funding for important things like K-12, higher
education, aid to cities and towns, and transportation” — or raise
taxes....
And Berger, the head of the Budget and Policy
Center, said it is always tough to make “the hard choices of
reducing spending or raising revenue,” a euphemism for raising
taxes, something Baker has repeatedly ruled out.
“It’s easier to identify temporary revenue
sources,” such as the rainy day fund, he said, “to patch over gaps
in the budget.”
But that, Berger emphasized, has a longer-term
cost that is only truly felt when, economically, it starts to rain.
The Boston Globe
Monday, October 5, 2015
State’s rainy day fund has dwindled over past decade
Tapping of pool viewed as risky if economy slumps
When the state began allowing flagmen onto
roadways seven years ago, Jeffrey Graham saw an opportunity to
expand his regional business into a multi-million-dollar market that
until then was dominated by police details.
Initially, business was good. Graham picked up a
few bids a year for traffic control at construction sites throughout
the Bay State. But after a while, he stopped getting calls.
"I haven't done a job in Massachusetts in
probably more than two years," said Graham, owner of New England
Traffic Control Services, based in Epsom, N.H. "The work just dried
up. It's really unfortunate."
Graham and others with traffic control businesses
say a state law passed in 2008, meant to open traffic details to the
private sector, instead allows police to maintain a long-standing
monopoly on roadwork jobs....
Chip Faulkner, associate director of the
Marblehead-based Citizens for Limited Taxation, said the
loopholes in state regulations fuel an entitlement mentality among
police who use details to boost their pay.
"It's a big perk," he said. "We're the only state
in the country that still uses police details this extensively. It's
a poster child for government waste."
Faulkner said cities and towns could save money
on major projects by hiring private flaggers over police officers,
who get paid $50 an hour or more to direct traffic, depending on
their union contracts and rank.
The Eagle-Tribune
Friday, October 2, 2015
Despite Law, Police Still Control Traffic at Most Worksites
With the consensus growing that time is running
short to address climate change, state leaders are spending millions
of dollars to promote clean energy.
Part of that agenda includes a large chunk of
money to encourage the use of electric cars....
The I-Team examined how much the state is
spending on electric car related programs.
Four million dollars has been spent in rebates to
electric car owners since 2010. Another $5.4 million went to
subsidizing electric charging stations.
In total, the Baker administration is committing
$20 million for all electric vehicle programs....
David Tuerck of the Beacon Hill Institute, a
conservative think tank, believes these programs are a waste of
money. “The average family is not going to take advantage of these
rebates to buy electric cars, because electric cars just aren’t
practical. Electric cars are for wealthy people that drive to
cocktail parties where they can amuse themselves by mentioning they
came there in an electric car.”
Electric car sales have been slumping for a while
now. Cars that rely on electricity in any form now make up about
only 3% of vehicles on the road. That’s the smallest share in four
years....
Critics, like Tuerck, argue this public money
could be spent in a more impactful way. “They come up with ideas
that are not based on reality.”
WBZ TV-4
Monday, October 5, 2015
I-Team: State Wasting Millions Of Dollars On Electric Car Programs?
After Baker in January inherited a fiscal 2015
budget that was hundreds of millions of dollars out of balance,
lawmakers in July reversed tens of millions of dollars in spending
vetoes handed down by Baker, whose team recently identified up to
$250 million in spending exposures in the three-month-old fiscal
2016 budget.
"It's going to be a tight year," Sen. Vinny
deMacedo, who has sat in on numerous budget conferences over the
years, said Thursday, hours before the Senate passed a $341 million
spending bill.
Baker's team faces a deadline on Thursday to make
adjustments to its budget revenue estimates and the potential
spending exposures are in addition to potential shortfalls
associated with budget savings initiatives, additional spending
stemming from this summer's budget veto overrides, and revenue
reductions from the two-day sales tax holiday in August.
Baker plans to review agency spending plans,
first quarter tax collections, and the final fiscal 2015 spending
bill that's nearing his desk.
"We're going to want to make sure that as we get
done working our way through this process, which will probably be
this month, that we believe that we're in good stead financially to
get through the fiscal year without having to go back and 9C
anything," Baker said this week. "But that's a decision that's going
to get made over the course of the next few weeks and we still have
some data to collect."
State House News Service
Friday, October 9, 2015
Advances - Week of October 11
The dirty little secret about budgeting on Beacon
Hill is that it's a year-round endeavor and one that regularly makes
key legislative leaders unavailable to deal with important
non-budgetary matters. That's about to be the case again as
Haverhill Democrat Rep. Brian Dempsey and Ashland Democrat Sen.
Karen Spilka are preparing to meet up in another closed budget
conference.
Dempsey and Spilka led the budget conference that
stretched past its July 1 deadline to come up with this year's state
budget and now face another round of negotiations on a supplemental
spending bill that also has a deadline. State Comptroller Thomas
Shack needs a completed fiscal 2015 budget by the end of October to
meet his deadline to close the books on fiscal 2015.
State House News Service
Friday, October 9, 2015
Advances - Week of October 11
The "Supp" heads to conference
The Senate nearly unanimously passed a $341.7
million spending bill on Thursday intended to close the books on
the fiscal year that ended in July and provide additional
resources in the current budget for substance abuse, debt
payments and child welfare.
The Senate's version of the spending bill
includes several major differences from the one approved by
House last week, increasingly the likelihood that it could be
headed for a conference committee to settle the disagreements.
State House News Service
Friday, October 9, 2015
Closeout budget likely headed to conference committee
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
The State House News service reported:
The current
fiscal year’s budget, which began on July 1, was,
depending on how the numbers are sliced, the first since
2011 that did not rely on directly draining the rainy
day fund. Still, unlike 2011, this year’s budget is
balanced by using $300 million that would normally land
in the fund....
Beacon Hill
leaders have taken money out of the fund or diverted
money meant to replenish it, even as the economy has
hummed along....
Baker’s top
budget official, Kristen Lepore, said rebuilding the
emergency account back up is definitely a goal, but “we
first have to put the state on sound financial footing.”
That, she said, means aligning spending with the money
that comes in from taxes, fees, and the federal
government.
In the CLT Update of July 5, 2014, "New
state budget increases spending by $2.5 billion" of the
budget passed for Fiscal Year 2015, I wrote:
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. This means that state spending has
increased by at least $4 billion in just the past two
years.
A year later the Legislature passed a new $38.1
billion budget for Fiscal Year 2016. (See: CLT Update, July 19,
2015, "Gov.
Baker signs $38.1B budget — no tax hikes") Gov. Baker vetoed
$162 million from it but the Legislature overrode $97 million
of his vetoes and restored the cuts.
In just three years since FY2013 ($32.5 billion),
the state budget and spending has increased by some $6 billion.
To fund those billions in increased spending, hundreds of millions
have been withdrawn from the state's "rainy day" fund.
The Department of Revenue reported on October 5
("September
Revenue Collections Total $2.553 Billion"): "Three months
into the fiscal year, revenues totaled $5.952 billion, $259 million
or 4.6 percent more than last year at this time and $35 million
above benchmark."
"$259 million or 4.6 percent more than last year
at this time," so Beacon Hill has a pleasant surprise
— more than expected taxpayer money
available to spend.
"The dirty little secret about budgeting on
Beacon Hill is that it's a year-round endeavor," reported the State
House News Service.
Thus the usual "supplemental budget" is now being
pushed through on Beacon Hill; last fiscal year's $36.3 billion
budget is about to retroactively increase by some $341 million.
Within that spending increase is $120 million to be added to the
state's "rainy day" stabilization fund. That's still $180
million short of what was supposed to be deposited to
replenish it, but leaves more to spend on perennially belated
payments to private contractors for their previous winters'
snow-plowing of state roads, and for new programs and spending that
will be larded into the spending baseline in future fiscal years:
Among the
spending included in the [supplemental budget] bill, the Senate
approved $27.8 million for substance abuse treatment and
prevention programs, funding to make final payments for snow
and ice removal last winter, $100 million for debt payments
in fiscal 2016 and a $120 million deposit in the state's
"rainy day" account.
Senators also voted in favor of $250,000 for a police body
camera pilot program, and adopted language backed by Gov.
Charlie Baker to begin in 2017 to refer women civilly
committed for substance abuse problems to a state hospital
rather than MCI Framingham.
Concerning the state's "rainy day" fund, Noah
Berger, president of the tax-borrow-and-spend cabal's Massachusetts
Budget and Policy Center, issued a warning worth heeding.
From the State House News Service: "If
Massachusetts hasn’t built up enough of a reserve for the next
recession, [Berger] said, 'the state will have to cut deeply into
funding for important things like K-12, higher education, aid to
cities and towns, and transportation' — or raise taxes."
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Chip Ford |
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The Boston Globe
Monday, October 5, 2015
State’s rainy day fund has dwindled over past decade
Tapping of pool viewed as risky if economy slumps
By Joshua Miller
The state’s emergency savings account, a final bulwark against
extreme cuts to state services if the economy goes sour, is less
than half the size it was before the last recession.
Despite an economy on the upswing in recent years, Beacon Hill
leaders have repeatedly taken money out of the state’s rainy day
fund to paper over big holes in the state budget. As a result, the
account, also known as the stabilization fund, stands at $1.1
billion, certainly a sizable sum, but a far smaller percentage of
state spending than in the past.
And now, with economic storm clouds on the horizon, from China’s
slipping economy to a volatile American stock market to slowing
national job growth, top analysts are increasingly concerned that
the fund won’t be big enough if there is a true fiscal emergency.
“There’s going to be an economic downturn. Due to the cyclical
nature of our economy, it’s not a question of if, it’s when. And if
the downturn were to occur in the short-term, we’re inadequately
prepared,” said Eileen McAnneny, president of the business-backed
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a top fiscal watchdog.
Analysts say lawmakers have repeatedly drained the fund to avoid
making tough choices — raising taxes or cutting services — to
balance the budget.
Lawmakers need to rein in the practice of spending more than the
state takes in, McAnneny said, which has led to drawing down or
diverting money from the rainy day account not because of economic
catastrophe, but to balance the books in relatively good times.
“We have to live within our means,” she said.
The Legislature is poised to this month send Governor Charlie Baker
a budget bill adding money to the fund in an effort to build up its
bottom line.
In the summer of 2007, before the massive recession began, the rainy
day fund had $2.3 billion — a cushion of about 7.8 percent of total
state spending, according to the Taxpayers Foundation. This summer,
the rainy day balance stood at $1.1 billion — about 2.7 percent of
total state spending, a fraction small enough to raise a red flag
for analysts.
Noah Berger, president of the liberal-leaning Massachusetts Budget
and Policy Center, said the diminished size of the fund and the
state’s propensity to drain it worries him.
If Massachusetts hasn’t built up enough of a reserve for the next
recession, he said, “the state will have to cut deeply into funding
for important things like K-12, higher education, aid to cities and
towns, and transportation” — or raise taxes.
In the fiscal year that ran through June 2013, for example, the
state used more than $500 million from rainy day fund reserves to
balance its budget. The next year, to balance the budget,
Massachusetts used more than $350 million from the fund and diverted
more than $400 million that was meant for it .
And last fiscal year, the numbers for which are still subject to
change, the state relied on more than $140 million from the account,
as well as diverting more than $600 million meant for it, to keep
the budget in balance.
The current fiscal year’s budget, which began on July 1, was,
depending on how the numbers are sliced, the first since 2011 that
did not rely on directly draining the rainy day fund. Still, unlike
2011, this year’s budget is balanced by using $300 million that
would normally land in the fund.
Of course, all that money goes to support state services — from
health care for the poor to public safety to protecting the
environment — but it’s money that won’t be there in a pinch.
Top bond-rating agencies see the state as being on very solid
financial footing, but some of their analysts said they were
watching the balance of the rainy day fund with concern.
The state’s “stabilization fund has been drawn down recently and
that is a concern,” said David Hitchcock, senior director with
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, but its total level remains
“substantial” compared to other states.
“In our view, the purpose of a stabilization fund is to build up
money in the good times to save up for the bad times. These are
relatively good times and they are the appropriate times to set
money aside,” he said.
Hitchcock was among those who said they were concerned that Beacon
Hill leaders have taken money out of the fund or diverted money
meant to replenish it, even as the economy has hummed along.
At the same time, he and analysts from other bond-rating agencies
lauded the state’s broader commitment to fiscal stability.
Hitchcock said the state’s good bond rating maintains a stable
outlook.
The state’s bond rating, currently the second from the highest and
reaffirmed by three big rating agencies this year, helps it borrow
money at lower rates. Fear of losing it can prompt action, and
Beacon Hill leaders say they are focused on beefing up the account.
“We are worried about the rainy day fund,” said Senator Karen E.
Spilka, the chairwoman of the chamber’s budget-writing committee.
“Very concerned about the need to replenish it.”
On Wednesday, the House passed a budget bill closing the books on
the last fiscal year that included a $75 million deposit in the
rainy day fund. The Senate is expected to take up the legislation
this week and also put aside money for the fund.
Representative Brian S. Dempsey, chairman of the House’s budget
committee, said the chamber’s action “indicates that we are strongly
committed to replenishing the fund as much as possible.”
He also emphasized that fiscal responsibility extends beyond just
keeping the major savings account well stocked. Dempsey said the
state has, in recent years, been putting more money aside to reduce
Massachusetts’ unfunded pension liability.
Baker’s top budget official, Kristen Lepore, said rebuilding the
emergency account back up is definitely a goal, but “we first have
to put the state on sound financial footing.” That, she said, means
aligning spending with the money that comes in from taxes, fees, and
the federal government.
And Berger, the head of the Budget and Policy Center, said it is
always tough to make “the hard choices of reducing spending or
raising revenue,” a euphemism for raising taxes, something Baker has
repeatedly ruled out.
“It’s easier to identify temporary revenue sources,” such as the
rainy day fund, he said, “to patch over gaps in the budget.”
But that, Berger emphasized, has a longer-term cost that is only
truly felt when, economically, it starts to rain.
The Eagle-Tribune
Friday, October 2, 2015
Despite Law, Police Still Control Traffic at Most Worksites
By Christian Wade
When the state began allowing flagmen onto roadways seven years ago,
Jeffrey Graham saw an opportunity to expand his regional business
into a multi-million-dollar market that until then was dominated by
police details.
Initially, business was good. Graham picked up a few bids a year for
traffic control at construction sites throughout the Bay State. But
after a while, he stopped getting calls.
"I haven't done a job in Massachusetts in probably more than two
years," said Graham, owner of New England Traffic Control Services,
based in Epsom, N.H. "The work just dried up. It's really
unfortunate."
Graham and others with traffic control businesses say a state law
passed in 2008, meant to open traffic details to the private sector,
instead allows police to maintain a long-standing monopoly on
roadwork jobs.
For one, the law requires police officers to conduct traffic on all
roads with speed limits of 45 mph or higher, which includes most
major roadways.
Secondly, the law gives cities and towns the authority to bypass the
requirement to use flaggers for work done on local roads, including
jobs by utility companies.
Likewise, most police union contracts require officers be assigned
to details in which the city or town is footing the bill, as
provided by the 2008 law.
Graham said another factor is the state's prevailing wage law, which
requires private flaggers to be paid more than $45 per hour,
depending on the region of the state.
That doesn't include insurance and others costs that add to the
hourly wages for flagmen.
The deck is stacked in favor of police officers,
he said.
Former Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat who left office in January,
led the effort to replace police officers with flagmen on road
details as part of a cost-savings plan. He was met with fierce
opposition from police unions. Lawmakers eventually passed a weaker
version of his legislation.
While the state Department of Transportation says the move saved
millions of dollars a year, it still relies heavily on police
details.
Of nearly $25 million spent on traffic control for MassDOT work in
fiscal 2014, only $845,686 went to flagging companies, according to
the department.
And cities including Lawrence, Newburyport and Salem still rely
exclusively on police officers, instead of private flagmen.
Chip Faulkner, associate director of the Marblehead-based
Citizens for Limited Taxation, said the loopholes in state
regulations fuel an entitlement mentality among police who use
details to boost their pay.
"It's a big perk," he said. "We're the only state in the country
that still uses police details this extensively. It's a poster child
for government waste."
Faulkner said cities and towns could save money on major projects by
hiring private flaggers over police officers, who get paid $50 an
hour or more to direct traffic, depending on their union contracts
and rank.
Law enforcement officials defend police control at construction
sites. While costs may be higher, they argue for the added benefit
of putting another cop out on the street.
"We have officers that interrupt crimes or even something as simple
as giving someone directions while they're out there," said Lawrence
Police Chief James Fitzpatrick. "It comes down to a question of
public safety."
MassDOT officials said the changes have reduced the costs to
taxpayers by allowing the state to pay only for the amount of time a
flagman or officer is on the job. Before the law was enacted, the
state was required to pay police a minimum number of hours for
details.
"While spending on construction has increased, overall the cost of
traffic control has decreased," said Michael Verseckes, a department
spokesman.
But a 2009 state audit, one year after the law was enacted, found
that transportation officials "overstated" the estimated savings of
the law, from $5.7 million to $7.2 million a year.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are proposing rules to give police even more
control over traffic details.
One bill, filed by Sen. James Timilty, D-Walpole, would prohibit
flaggers from working state highway jobs unless the highway
department would save at least 20 percent from a police detail.
Timilty -- who received more than $20,000 in contributions from
state and local police unions since 2008, according to the state
Office of Campaign and Political Finance -- didn't return a message
left seeking comment.
Neither did the State Police Association of Massachusetts, which
represents troopers. It referred questions about details to a public
relations firm, Liberty Square Group, which declined to comment.
In New Hampshire, transportation officials rely mostly on flagmen
for traffic details, even on some highways.
"We all know that people slow down more for blue lights than orange
vests, but we try to balance that out as much as possible," said
Bill Boynton, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of
Transportation.
Graham said the prevailing wage in New Hampshire for a flagger is
about $20 an hour, compared to about $50 an hour for police details.
"That's a great wage for a flagger," he said. "And it's a big
savings for the state."
Flagging companies say they've been intimidated
by police officers in Massachusetts and in some cases even forced
off local construction sites after police unions filed grievances
against cities and towns for hiring private flagmen.
Fiscal watchdogs said there appears to be little appetite among
state leaders to change the law.
"The police officers in Massachusetts are exploiting a monopoly,"
said Frank Conte, a policy analyst for the Beacon Hill Institute, a
conservative think tank at Suffolk University in Boston. "And nobody
has the political will to change it."
WBZ TV-4
Monday, October 5, 2015
I-Team: State Wasting Millions Of Dollars On Electric Car Programs?
By Ryan Kath
BOSTON (CBS) – With the consensus growing that time is running short
to address climate change, state leaders are spending millions of
dollars to promote clean energy.
Part of that agenda includes a large chunk of money to encourage the
use of electric cars.
Joel Salituri recently bought a BMW i3 and is already seeing the
savings. He is spending about $35 a month in electricity to charge
the car. “I was averaging a little over $300 a month, give or take
the gas prices. It’s about a 90% savings.”
While Salituri is happy to save money and help the environment, he’s
also pleased with the rebates he got from the government when he
bought his car. “The federal is $7,500 and the state is $2,500, so
that’s $10,000 immediately off the top.”
Massachusetts Commissioner of Energy Resources Judith Judson thinks
the state’s rebate program is a good investment. “We do see an
opportunity here.”
When asked if this money could be better spent on other green
initiatives instead, Judson said greenhouse gas emissions need to be
addressed in the transportation sector because it accounts for about
40% of all emissions.
The I-Team examined how much the state is spending on electric car
related programs.
Four million dollars has been spent in rebates to electric car
owners since 2010. Another $5.4 million went to subsidizing electric
charging stations.
In total, the Baker administration is committing $20 million for all
electric vehicle programs.
When asked if she thought these types of programs could really spur
the ownership of electric cars, Judson said yes. “The cost of these
vehicles is coming down, and coupled with the rebates, we do see
these catching on.”
That’s not what the I-Team found. We observed a state subsidized
charging station at a busy Plymouth shopping plaza for 10 hours.
Joel Salituri was the only car owner to pull in for a charge during
that time span.
“I haven’t been here and found anybody else ever using them,” added
Salituri.
David Tuerck of the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative think
tank, believes these programs are a waste of money. “The average
family is not going to take advantage of these rebates to buy
electric cars, because electric cars just aren’t practical. Electric
cars are for wealthy people that drive to cocktail parties where
they can amuse themselves by mentioning they came there in an
electric car.”
Electric car sales have been slumping for a while now. Cars that
rely on electricity in any form now make up about only 3% of
vehicles on the road. That’s the smallest share in four years.
Possible causes include the lower prices of gas, and design issues
like concerns about how long a battery will stay charged.
John Paul of AAA added, “Gasoline internal combustion engines right
now are just that much more practical.”
Judson defends the state’s investment in this area, saying it’s not
just a niche market. “It’s a growing industry, and it’s important to
the future of the Commonwealth.”
Judson added that these programs are not funded with taxpayer
dollars, but mostly with penalties and fines collected against large
polluters.
Critics, like Tuerck, argue this public money could be spent in a
more impactful way. “They come up with ideas that are not based on
reality.”
State House News Service
Friday, October 9, 2015
Advances - Week of October 11
After Baker in January inherited a fiscal 2015 budget that was
hundreds of millions of dollars out of balance, lawmakers in July
reversed tens of millions of dollars in spending vetoes handed down
by Baker, whose team recently identified up to $250 million in
spending exposures in the three-month-old fiscal 2016 budget.
"It's going to be a tight year," Sen. Vinny deMacedo, who has sat in
on numerous budget conferences over the years, said Thursday, hours
before the Senate passed a $341 million spending bill.
Baker's team faces a deadline on Thursday to make adjustments to its
budget revenue estimates and the potential spending exposures are in
addition to potential shortfalls associated with budget savings
initiatives, additional spending stemming from this summer's budget
veto overrides, and revenue reductions from the two-day sales tax
holiday in August.
Baker plans to review agency spending plans, first quarter tax
collections, and the final fiscal 2015 spending bill that's nearing
his desk.
"We're going to want to make sure that as we get done working our
way through this process, which will probably be this month, that we
believe that we're in good stead financially to get through the
fiscal year without having to go back and 9C anything," Baker said
this week. "But that's a decision that's going to get made over the
course of the next few weeks and we still have some data to
collect."
While nominally intended to address "deficient" fiscal 2015
accounts, that bill also includes "supplemental" fiscal 2016
spending, prompting Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr to call it a
"sufficiency budget." Tarr expressed concerns about the
affordability of new spending authorizations.
Senate budget chief Karen Spilka said legislators are "not spending
what we don't have" while acknowledging the need to monitor
spending. "There is no way to get around that," she said.
While Department of Revenue officials report on tax collections
twice a month, the Baker administration does not regularly and
publicly issue reports that track actual state spending against
spending levels approved in the annual state budget. And while tax
collections over the first quarter of fiscal 2016 are beating
benchmarks by $35 million, Administration and Finance Secretary
Kristen Lepore told the News Service Friday that administration
officials remain concerned that non-tax revenues continue to fall
short of projections.
"We still have a non-tax revenue problem that wasn't recognized in
the '16 budget," she said.
State House News Service
Friday, October 9, 2015
Closeout budget likely headed to conference committee
By Matt Murphy
The Senate nearly unanimously passed a $341.7 million spending bill
on Thursday intended to close the books on the fiscal year that
ended in July and provide additional resources in the current budget
for substance abuse, debt payments and child welfare.
The Senate's version of the spending bill includes several major
differences from the one approved by House last week, increasingly
the likelihood that it could be headed for a conference committee to
settle the disagreements. Among the disputes between the branches is
whether the 2016 state primary election should be held on Tuesday
Sept. 6 or Thursday, Sept. 8.
After hours of debate, the Senate adopted numerous amendments to the
bill, including several outside policy sections dealing with
unemployment insurance eligibility, education savings accounts and
other matters.
Among the spending included in the bill, the Senate approved $27.8
million for substance abuse treatment and prevention programs,
funding to make final payments for snow and ice removal last winter,
$100 million for debt payments in fiscal 2016 and a $120 million
deposit in the state's "rainy day" account.
Senators also voted in favor of $250,000 for a police body camera
pilot program, and adopted language backed by Gov. Charlie Baker to
begin in 2017 to refer women civilly committed for substance abuse
problems to a state hospital rather than MCI Framingham.
Sen. Kenneth Donnelly, an Arlington Democrat, cast the lone vote
against the final bill after arguing passionately against Senate
Majority Leader Harriette Chandler's amendment that altered his
proposal to reform the way insurance carriers compensate ambulance
service operators and how rates for emergency services are set.
Comptroller Thomas Shack told the News Service last month that, for
practical purposes, the deadline to closeout fiscal 2015, which
ended on July 1, is the end of October when he needs to file the
state's Statutory Basis Financial Report.
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PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
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