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CLT UPDATE
Saturday, September 16, 2017
"The Best Legislature Money Can
Buy" eases back into the job
|
In the first eight months of the 2017
session, only 79 bills out of more than 6,000 filed have
been approved by the House and Senate and signed into law by
Gov. Charlie Baker.
Thirty-five of those were local bills
dealing with an individual city or town and 29 were on sick
leave banks for individual state workers. Sick leave banks
allow employees to voluntarily donate sick, personal or
vacation days to a pool for use by ill fellow state workers
so they can get paid while on medical leave.
Of the 15 remaining, 10 ranged from
supplemental budgets and extending simulcast racing to
designating May as Seatbelt Awareness Month and the first
week in August as Ice Bucket Challenge week.
The remaining five are five major key issues
that came to a roll call vote in both branches and were
signed into law by Baker.
Here they are:
$18 MILLION IN PAY HIKES (S 16) —On Feb. 2,
the House 116-43, Senate 31-9, overrode Gov. Charlie Baker’s
veto of an $18 million pay raise package including hikes for
senators, representatives, judges, court clerks, the
governor and the other five statewide constitutional office
holders....
Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, said, “These cynical
actions demonstrate that when the leadership and enough
beholden members in the Legislature want something badly
enough ― they just take it. Disguising it as something at
all legitimate required a whole two days.” Ford continued,
“There was little if any trickery and manipulation that
didn’t go into this shameless effort on behalf of
legislative leadership and others with much to gain.” ...
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week Ending Sept. 8, 2017
By Bob Katzen
House leaders are weighing the prospects of
packing vetoed spending back into the state budget when they
return to Beacon Hill next week, but the ongoing slump in
state tax collections that resumed in August is not making
for easy decisions.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey
Sánchez told the News Service Thursday that he and his
office are still reviewing revenue reports for July and
August, but he expects the House to take up at least some
budget veto overrides when it returns to formal sessions on
Wednesday.
"We're working with the conference report
and reviewing the things we could be taking up, but we are
going to take some things up," Sánchez said.
Gov. Charlie Baker signed a $39.4 billion
fiscal 2018 budget in July and vetoed nine of the budget's
outside sections and $320.3 million across 169 line items,
including $202 million related to the MassHealth changes he
proposed in June. The net impact of the vetoes, after
accounting for federal revenues, is $193 million, according
to a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation analysis.
Before breaking for the August recess,
legislators said they planned to monitor summer tax
collections before deciding whether to override any of
Baker's $320 million in budget vetoes. Formal sessions are
expected to occur over the next ten weeks....
The revenue reports, though, have not
revealed a glut of unexpected revenue to support spending
that would be added back into the budget through overrides.
The Department of Revenue on Wednesday reported collecting
$1.712 billion in taxes in August, which was $16 million or
0.9 percent below the monthly benchmark. Two months into
fiscal year 2018, tax collections are up 1.9 percent but $11
million below the year-to-date benchmark, the department
said.
"Total revenues are slightly below actual
collections from the same period last year, and are also
below the monthly benchmark," Revenue Commissioner
Christopher Harding said in a statement.
State House News Service
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Tax collections under benchmark as veto overrides are
weighed
Undeterred by tax collections that are
trailing benchmarks two months into the fiscal year, the
Legislature is half way toward restoring $275 million in
spending that Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed from the annual
budget.
Without debate, the House on Wednesday voted
to put back funding for the Tufts School of Veterinary
Medicine, a big data fund, and rental assistance among
dozens of other priorities.
House Democrats needed just a few hours to
speed through votes overriding a majority of the $320
million that Baker excised in July, when he signed a fiscal
2018 budget that he said had a $39.4 billion bottom line.
The spending will be restored if Senate Democrats also agree
to the overrides.
House Republicans who voted to uphold
Baker's vetoes lacked the numbers to stop the overrides and
did not seek to persuade Democrats with floor speeches....
In fiscal 2016, Baker vetoed $163 million,
the Legislature restored $98 million and revenues came in
$481 million below the state's final revised benchmark. It
was a similar situation in fiscal 2017, when revenues missed
the revised benchmark by $431 million after the Legislature
restored $229 million of the $264 million vetoed by Baker,
who has also faulted the Legislature's budgets for funding
accounts at levels that are likely insufficient.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey
Sánchez contended that the budget lawmakers sent the
governor in July was balanced, Baker's vetoes "cut too
deeply," and Wednesday's overrides were only "first steps"
towards restoring funding. The funding restorations are
sustainable, Sánchez said....
While Baker's vetoes have been public since
July, information about which ones would be targeted for
overrides was tightly held before House leaders in the early
afternoon revealed they planned to take up 61 line-item
vetoes for override votes totaling $274.7 million in
spending. On Wednesday morning, House lawmakers told the
News Service they did not know what overrides would be taken
up that day or how much added spending would be in play....
For the past few years, the budgets that
have passed into law have tipped out of balance partway
through the year, requiring spending cuts and other actions
to shore them up. Two months into the fiscal year, tax
revenues are running $11 million behind benchmarks....
The Senate, where Democrats also hold a
veto-proof majority, is not planning to meet until late in
September and it is unclear whether veto overrides will be
the chamber's first order of business.
Citing the Democrat-backed state law that
hiked pay for lawmakers and other public officials at the
beginning of this year, the Massachusetts Republican Party
said Wednesday's actions showed Democrats to be
irresponsible money managers.
"Democrats just can't be trusted as
responsible stewards of our tax dollars. Now, having
cancelled tax relief for consumers, and raising their own
pay, their latest act of fiscal irresponsibility will place
taxpayers in further jeopardy. If they really cared about
their constituents, they would support the Governor's
efforts to balance the budget, while apologizing for their
votes to fatten their own paychecks," MassGOP spokesman
Terry MacCormack said in a statement.
State House News Service
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
House rebuffs Baker, insists on $275 million in spending
The Legislature continued the budget process
for Fiscal year Two Thousand Infinity this week - well, half
the Legislature.
A budget document unveiled when President
Trump's approval rating exceeded his disapproval sauntered
through its eighth month, still not truly final, as the
House replaced $275 million of the $360 million in vetoes
Gov. Baker made in July. The next step in the saga must be
taken by the Senate.
The hangup for now is that there's a rhythm
to legislation and, as fortune would have it, that rhythm is
the same as a Viennese waltz: ONE-two-three, one-two-three
... And the third step of the override process was paused
for the moment, as senators awaited the return of their
leader from Austria and the Czech Republic.
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg was in
Europe - a development that first surfaced publicly when his
staff said he wouldn't be at the weekly leadership meeting
Monday with Gov. Charlie Baker and House Speaker Robert
DeLeo, and would phone in for the session. He did.
The president, normally quite eager to share
the details of his public schedule, made no mentions of his
planned sojourn in the weeks and months leading up to his
departure. His travels through Vienna, Graz and Prague were
underwritten by the United Nations Association of Austria,
the City of Graz and the Senate Presidents Forum, which
collects money from corporations like Coca-Cola, Pzifer and
Reynolds tobacco and passes it on to presidents in the form
of grants for such policy and cultural forays. Thomas
Finneran, late of the Massachusetts House speakership, is on
staff as moderator of Forum discussions - a role he filled
during the Central Europe sessions, said Rosenberg's
spokesman.
And so the Senate, eager as it may be to
restore spending after senators decried vetoes as severe and
unnecessary, extended its six-week summer formal-session
hiatus. The vetoes may be taken up the last week of the
month, after the Autumnal equinox.
The 62 overrides processed in the House
chamber covered statewide programs and accounts, and Ways
and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sanchez said another batch,
addressing local needs and services, will be forthcoming....
For their part, the Baker administration
said there was "no basis" to restore spending now, given
revenue performance so far.
But Sanchez, speaking for the Democrats,
said a conservative approach was already baked into the
budget that landed on Baker's desk in July - that $400
million had been removed from the bottom line before Baker
saw it. The spending restorations are sustainable, he
assured.
By way more than the necessary two thirds,
Sanchez and his boss Speaker DeLeo had the votes.
For much of Wednesday, House members sat
chattering and nattering and fiddling with their devices,
punctuated by the sonorous reading of one veto after another
from the podium. Which items would come up and receive a
"yes" vote had been decided in secret over the past eight
weeks, so there was no debate. One by one, with nary a
decrease in din, representatives added money back to the
Commonwealth's fiscal 2018 bottom line - the scoreboard
glowing green on its leftward Democratic side, and more or
solid red on the Republican.
State House News Dervice
Friday, September 15, 2017
Weekly Roundup: Vienna Sausage Making
After speeding through budget override votes
Wednesday during their first formal session in weeks, the
House met for less than 30 minutes Thursday before gaveling
out for the weekend. The House advanced bills dealing with
local affairs in Ashland, Brockton and Whately and
introduced a Rep. Dylan Fernandes bill calling for a law
addressing first-time homebuyer savings accounts.
State House News Service
Thursday, September 14, 2017
HOUSE SESSION
They say “close” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades
and so while the commonwealth may be, as House Ways and
Means Chairman Jeffrey Sanchez put it Wednesday, “very
close” to collecting as much tax revenue as it expected
through the first two months of the fiscal year, it’s still
behind.
But unless forced, Beacon Hill is generally reluctant to
take its belt in a notch — if anything it’s more comfortable
with a belt expander. And so the House on Wednesday began
the process of overriding Gov. Charlie Baker’s budget
vetoes....
This is all part of a fiscally irresponsible pattern. Each
year Baker vetoes spending in the final budget to ensure it
will remain in balance for the full year. Each year
the House and Senate reverse most of those vetoes — leaving
it to Baker to make mid-year cuts if revenues fall short,
which they have for two years running.
The House could have waited a few weeks to review a full
three months of tax collections before it reversed Baker’s
cuts. Instead it made clear that has no interest in breaking
bad habits.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, September 15, 2017
Another spending rush
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
"In the first eight months of the 2017
session, only 79 bills out of more than 6,000 filed have
been approved by the House and Senate and signed into law by
Gov. Charlie Baker. Thirty-five of those were local bills
dealing with an individual city or town and 29 were on sick
leave banks for individual state workers," reported Beacon
Hill Roll Call. "Of the 15 remaining, 10 ranged from
supplemental budgets and extending simulcast racing to
designating May as Seatbelt Awareness Month and the first
week in August as Ice Bucket Challenge week. The
remaining five are five major key issues that came to a roll
call vote in both branches and were signed into law by
Baker."
"After speeding through
budget override votes Wednesday during their first formal
session in weeks, the House met for less than 30 minutes
Thursday before gaveling out for the weekend," the State
House News Service reported.
"Senate President Stanley Rosenberg was in
Europe," the State House News Service further observed, "so
the Senate, eager as it may be to restore spending after
senators decried vetoes as severe and unnecessary, extended
its six-week summer formal-session hiatus. The vetoes may be
taken up the last week of the month, after the Autumnal
equinox."
This is "THE BEST LEGISLATURE MONEY CAN BUY"
exposed at its finest. This is the same cabal of
haughty potentates who voted themselves a 35-40 percent pay
hike just last February complaining that they were
underappreciated, underpaid, and overworked. After their
six-week vacation some of them are back. Others not.
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg is still away on a
vacation junket, paid for by the United Nations
Association of Austria, Coca Cola, "Big Pharma"
and "Big Tobacco."
For this part-time-at-best performance we
were paying every one of them way too much even before
their obscene pay grab.
For legislators who managed to find their
way back to the State House after six weeks away, their
first order of business was a smooth return to spending more
than even the discredited "anticipated revenue projections."
This time-worn tradition is apparently on automatic pilot,
built into Democrat legislators' genes, or just the stupid
rising to their level of competence as usual. At least
this time their priority wasn't driving another
suicidal bullet train to self-enrichment.
Hide your wallets and purses, they're baaaaaaack!
Well, many were, for a mere one day and 30 minutes of
another this week, before taking
off again on Thursday for a long weekend. Bad habits
are hard to break
— call
it "legislative tradition." Some legislators haven't
returned yet, are still vacationing in foreign lands.
They'll get around to it, eventually. No concern for
them, their fattened pay checks keep rolling in.
After so much time away, you've gotta to ease back into the
daily grind slowly, don'cha you know?
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
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Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week Ending Sept. 8, 2017
By Bob Katzen
THE HOUSE AND SENATE
There were no roll calls in the House or Senate
last week.
This week, Beacon Hill Roll Call looks at the
handful of major legislation that was approved
by the Legislature and signed into law so far by
Gov. Charlie Baker in 2017.
In the first eight months of the 2017 session,
only 79 bills out of more than 6,000 filed have
been approved by the House and Senate and signed
into law by Gov. Charlie Baker.
Thirty-five of those were local bills dealing
with an individual city or town and 29 were on
sick leave banks for individual state workers.
Sick leave banks allow employees to voluntarily
donate sick, personal or vacation days to a pool
for use by ill fellow state workers so they can
get paid while on medical leave.
Of the 15 remaining, 10 ranged from supplemental
budgets and extending simulcast racing to
designating May as Seatbelt Awareness Month and
the first week in August as Ice Bucket Challenge
week.
The remaining five are five major key issues
that came to a roll call vote in both branches
and were signed into law by Baker.
Here they are:
$18 MILLION IN PAY HIKES (S 16) —On Feb. 2, the
House 116-43, Senate 31-9, overrode Gov. Charlie
Baker’s veto of an $18 million pay raise package
including hikes for senators, representatives,
judges, court clerks, the governor and the other
five statewide constitutional office holders.
The measure increases the salaries of the two
leaders who filed the bill, House Speaker Robert
DeLeo, D-Winthrop, and Senate President Stan
Rosenberg, D-Amherst, by $45,000 from $97,547 to
$142,547. The measure also hikes the pay of the
Legislature’s two Republican leaders, Sen. Bruce
Tarr, R-Gloucester, and Rep. Bradley Jones,
R-North Reading, by $37,500 from $85,047 to
$122,547. Another provision hikes the salaries
of the state’s judges by $25,000 and of court
clerks over an 18-month period.
The proposal raises the governor’s salary by
$33,200, from $151,800 to $185,000; the
lieutenant governor by $30,068, from $134,932 to
$165,000; secretary of state by $34,738 from
$130,262 to $165,000; treasurer by $47,083 from
$127,917 to $175,000; auditor by $30,048 from
$134,952 to $165,000; and the attorney general
by $44,418 from $130,582 to $175,000. It also
bans the six constitutional officers and the
House speaker and Senate president from earning
outside income, other than passive income from
investments.
“Given the current fiscal outlook for the state,
now is not the time to expend additional funds
on elected officials’ salaries,” Baker said.
“This bill is the result of a hasty process that
included little substantive debate or time for
public comment.”
Supporters said that only $1.4 million is for
the legislative pay raises while the remainder
is for hikes for constitutional officers, judges
and court clerks. They said that the hikes will
be entirely paid for from existing funds with no
net new cost to taxpayers. They noted many of
these legislative salaries are still lower than
the average salary of school superintendents and
town managers in most communities.
The pay raise package made it through the
Legislature at lightning speed. It was only
Thursday, Jan. 18, when the temporary Joint
Committee on Ways and Means held a brief
one-hour hearing on a December 2014 report of
the Special Advisory Commission on the
Compensation of Public Officials. At that point,
DeLeo and Rosenberg had not yet appointed
members of any committees so a temporary Ways
and Means Committee was hastily appointed and
assembled for the hearing. The hearing was
convened with less than 72 hours notice to the
public. Then just a week later on Jan. 25, a pay
raise package was approved.
Rosenberg defended the bill. “We followed
overall the recommendations of the independent
commission, that was appointed two years ago,”
he said. “They came back and said that the
constitutional officers’ salaries are out of
line with national salaries and ought to be
increased ... Fair minded people will consider
the fact that the stipends for the presiding
officers have not changed for 33 years. Who
works for the same amount 33 years later?”
The commission was chaired by Ira Jackson, Dean
of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of
Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston. Other
members were from the League of Women Voters,
Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, Massachusetts
Business Roundtable, University of Massachusetts
President’s Office and the Simmons College of
Management.
“The Advisory Commission conducted a
transparent, open, data-driven review of the
current compensation of public officials and
developed a series of major reforms and
recommendations based on its research, as well
as input from the public,” said Jackson.
An excerpt from the report sums up the
commission’s findings. “After extensive analysis
and fact finding, the Special Commission
concludes that the compensation of the
commonwealth’s constitutional officers and
legislative leadership is generally outdated and
inadequate.”
The report continued, “Massachusetts state
government is the instrument through which we
govern ourselves as a commonwealth. It is a
large and complex organization that provides
vital services that affect every citizen, and as
such it needs to attract talented, publicly
spirited and honest individuals from diverse
socio-economic and geographic backgrounds to
fulfill its mission of serving every citizen. In
recent years, state government has increasingly
been asked and expected to provide more and
better services with fewer resources. A greater
premium is placed on efficiency and
effectiveness in government today than in the
past, and there is a greater need for modern
management practices in all of its aspects.”
“The Beacon Hill power brokers robbed the
taxpayers,” said Rep. Jim Lyons, R-Andover.
“They voted to increase their salaries by over
50 percent. The Republican caucus voted
unanimously against this thievery and abuse of
power. We must end one-party rule on Beacon
Hill.”
“This wasn’t myself just thinking during the
Christmas holiday that this would be a good
thing to do,” said DeLeo. “This is something
which I’ve been hearing about for years from
constitutional officers. I’ve been hearing from
House members and Senate members and an awful
lot of folks.”
Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, said, “These
cynical actions demonstrate that when the
leadership and enough beholden members in the
Legislature want something badly enough ― they
just take it. Disguising it as something at all
legitimate required a whole two days.” Ford
continued, “There was little if any trickery and
manipulation that didn’t go into this shameless
effort on behalf of legislative leadership and
others with much to gain.”
“Strange — no one’s talking about the effect
these raises will have on bringing out more
candidates against incumbents,” said Sen.
Michael Barrett, D-Lexington, who supported the
raises. “It’s going to happen. These are the
first salary adjustments in recent memory big
enough to draw the interest of potential
competitors employed in the private sector
today.”
Paul Craney, executive director of the
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance said, “The move
sends the worst type of message. Good work
should be rewarded but there’s no good in this.
Salaries and pensions will go up for these
lawmakers and they’ll be quick to call for more
tax hikes.”
“These are serious jobs,” said Sen. Will
Brownsberger, D-Belmont. “And you want people to
compete for these jobs and you don’t want these
guys under financial strain. You’re talking
about the legislative leaders, you don’t want
them under financial strain any more than you
want a police officer walking the beat under
financial strain.”
“I don’t think anyone that works in the
Legislature as a representative or senator is
struggling to put food on their table or get
health care for their families,” responded Rep.
Shauna O’Connell, R-Taunton. “And we have people
in Massachusetts that are struggling. We have a
budget deficit right now. And the first thing
that we go in and do, the very first session we
have, is to vote on a substantial pay raise.”
In 1998, voters approved by a 2-to-1 margin a
constitutional amendment requiring governors to
calculate and announce an increase or decrease
in legislative salaries every two years. The
specific language requires legislative salaries
to be “increased or decreased at the same rate
as increases or decreases in the median
household income for the commonwealth for the
preceding two-year period, as ascertained by the
governor.”
Under that formula, legislators’ salaries were
increased by $2,515 for the 2017-2018
legislative session. The current base pay for
legislators is now $62,547. That hike came on
the heels of a salary freeze for the 2015-2016
legislative session, a $1,100 pay cut for the
2013-2014 session and a $306 pay cut for the
2011-2012 session. Prior to 2011, legislators’
salaries had been raised every two years since
the $46,410 base pay was first raised under the
constitutional amendment in 2001.
The new $62,547 salary means legislative
salaries have been raised $16,137, or 34.8
percent, since the mandated salary adjustment
became part of the state constitution.
$200 MILLION FOR LOCAL ROADS AND BRIDGES (H
3648)
$40.2 BILLION FISCAL 2018 STATE BUDGET (H 3800)
— House 140-9, Senate 36-2, approved and on July
11 Gov. Baker signed into law a conference
committee version of a $40.2 billion fiscal 2018
state budget to cover state spending from July
1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. The governor vetoed
$320.3 million in spending. The Legislature has
yet to override any of the vetoes.
FAIRNESS FOR PREGNANT WORKERS (H 3816)
REGULATE MARIJUANA (H 3818)
State House News Service
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Tax collections under benchmark as veto
overrides are weighed
By Colin A. Young
House leaders are weighing the prospects of
packing vetoed spending back into the state
budget when they return to Beacon Hill next
week, but the ongoing slump in state tax
collections that resumed in August is not making
for easy decisions.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sánchez
told the News Service Thursday that he and his
office are still reviewing revenue reports for
July and August, but he expects the House to
take up at least some budget veto overrides when
it returns to formal sessions on Wednesday.
"We're working with the conference report and
reviewing the things we could be taking up, but
we are going to take some things up," Sánchez
said.
Gov. Charlie Baker signed a $39.4 billion fiscal
2018 budget in July and vetoed nine of the
budget's outside sections and $320.3 million
across 169 line items, including $202 million
related to the MassHealth changes he proposed in
June. The net impact of the vetoes, after
accounting for federal revenues, is $193
million, according to a Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation analysis.
Before breaking for the August recess,
legislators said they planned to monitor summer
tax collections before deciding whether to
override any of Baker's $320 million in budget
vetoes. Formal sessions are expected to occur
over the next ten weeks.
The revenue reports, though, have not revealed a
glut of unexpected revenue to support spending
that would be added back into the budget through
overrides. The Department of Revenue on
Wednesday reported collecting $1.712 billion in
taxes in August, which was $16 million or 0.9
percent below the monthly benchmark. Two months
into fiscal year 2018, tax collections are up
1.9 percent but $11 million below the
year-to-date benchmark, the department said.
"Total revenues are slightly below actual
collections from the same period last year, and
are also below the monthly benchmark," Revenue
Commissioner Christopher Harding said in a
statement. "The small shortfall in August
collections reflects mostly lower than expected
income withholding payments, partially offset by
slightly better than expected performance in
regular sales tax and estate tax."
DOR cautioned that July and August, the first
two months of the fiscal year, are not
significant months for collections and that "it
is not advisable at this time to use
year-to-date collections to formulate trends or
patterns for the full fiscal year."
Sánchez said he's been reviewing the revenue
reports and characterized them as "at or around
benchmark." He also said that representatives
have been contacting his office throughout the
August recess to keep their budget priorities
atop the chairman's list.
"The members have been talking to us continually
through the summer and at the same time we're
reviewing the numbers," he said. "They're all
concerned about all the vetoes and given
everything we did before we went out for summer
recess there is a sense we can move forward on
some of the priorities they have established
either for their local districts or bigger
issues they're concerned about."
The chairman said his priorities when it comes
to determining which of the governor's vetoes
the House might override include having "an
understanding of the actual numbers of where
we're at with revenue," and understanding how
representatives feel about the budget as signed
by the governor. Then, he said, Ways and Means
will "take them all under consideration and
we'll see which ones end up making it through."
If the Legislature is to override the governor's
vetoes, the process must begin in the House and
must be completed during this calendar year.
Overrides require a two thirds vote in each
branch. The Legislature cannot hold formal
sessions this year later than Nov. 15, per its
own rules.
Asked if the House might consider overriding
some vetoes next week and waiting to see
September or October revenues before preparing a
second batch of overrides, Sánchez said, "I
think everything's possible."
The revenue commissioner, in his statement, put
more weight on September tax collections. "While
most economic indicators remain generally
positive about the Massachusetts economy, we
will continue to monitor revenue collections
closely, especially for September, which is
traditionally one of the largest collection
months," Harding said.
The Democrat-controlled Legislature typically
restores the vast amount of vetoed spending each
year, although veto overrides in July 2016
contributed to a rocky budget year that was
marked by repeated rounds of mid-year
adjustments and that ended with a revenue gap of
$431 million.
"If history is any guide, many of these vetoes
will be overridden in the months ahead, as since
FY 2012 almost 90 percent of all spending vetoes
have been overridden by the Legislature," the
Mass. Taxpayers' Foundation wrote in a summary
of the governor's vetoes. "The more spending
overrides, however, the greater the midyear
budget cuts."
State House News Service
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
House rebuffs Baker, insists on $275 million in
spending
By Andy Metzger
Undeterred by tax collections that are trailing
benchmarks two months into the fiscal year, the
Legislature is half way toward restoring $275
million in spending that Gov. Charlie Baker
vetoed from the annual budget.
Without debate, the House on Wednesday voted to
put back funding for the Tufts School of
Veterinary Medicine, a big data fund, and rental
assistance among dozens of other priorities.
House Democrats needed just a few hours to speed
through votes overriding a majority of the $320
million that Baker excised in July, when he
signed a fiscal 2018 budget that he said had a
$39.4 billion bottom line. The spending will be
restored if Senate Democrats also agree to the
overrides.
House Republicans who voted to uphold Baker's
vetoes lacked the numbers to stop the overrides
and did not seek to persuade Democrats with
floor speeches.
Before the votes began, House Minority Leader
Brad Jones, a North Reading Republican, urged
his colleagues to hold off on addressing the
spending vetoes until a clearer picture has
formed about first quarter tax revenues and the
impact of Hurricane Harvey on fuel prices. Jones
said Democrats may be setting up Baker to again
need to make midyear budget cuts, known as 9Cs.
"By restoring such a significant amount of
spending at this time, my fear is that we may
see a repeat of what happened last year, when
the governor was forced to make a series of 9C
cuts to bring the budget back into balance," he
said in a statement after Wednesday's session.
Baker, a Republican who is expected to seek
re-election next year, is ultimately responsible
for balancing the budget.
"The current fiscal environment, specifically
soft revenue collection reports to date,
indicates there is no basis to support the
decision to increase spending by $275 million,"
Baker spokesman Brendan Moss said in a
statement.
Baker and the Legislature have been forced to
revisit annual budgets midyear to account for
slow-growing tax receipts that fell short of
estimates, with imbalances compounded by the
Legislature's insistence on spending more than
revenues allowed.
In fiscal 2016, Baker vetoed $163 million, the
Legislature restored $98 million and revenues
came in $481 million below the state's final
revised benchmark. It was a similar situation in
fiscal 2017, when revenues missed the revised
benchmark by $431 million after the Legislature
restored $229 million of the $264 million vetoed
by Baker, who has also faulted the Legislature's
budgets for funding accounts at levels that are
likely insufficient.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sánchez
contended that the budget lawmakers sent the
governor in July was balanced, Baker's vetoes
"cut too deeply," and Wednesday's overrides were
only "first steps" towards restoring funding.
The funding restorations are sustainable,
Sánchez said.
"We're going to start with vetoes that have a
statewide impact and consider regional items in
the upcoming weeks, and we're continuing to
monitor our fiscal trends and weigh our options
as well," Sánchez told his colleagues on the
floor.
The bulk of the money targeted for restoration,
or $220 million, will go back to MassHealth to
cover caseload costs, Sánchez said.
MassHealth, the massive public insurance
program, was targeted this year by Baker with
cost-cutting reforms, which the Legislature
rejected.
While Baker's vetoes have been public since
July, information about which ones would be
targeted for overrides was tightly held before
House leaders in the early afternoon revealed
they planned to take up 61 line-item vetoes for
override votes totaling $274.7 million in
spending. On Wednesday morning, House lawmakers
told the News Service they did not know what
overrides would be taken up that day or how much
added spending would be in play.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo on Monday indicated
that the overrides scheduled for this week would
be somewhat modest.
"It's not going to be a great amount of them,"
DeLeo told reporters after meeting with the
governor and others.
For the past few years, the budgets that have
passed into law have tipped out of balance
partway through the year, requiring spending
cuts and other actions to shore them up. Two
months into the fiscal year, tax revenues are
running $11 million behind benchmarks.
"I decided to vote to sustain all of Governor
Baker’s vetoes, even though it meant voting
against restoring funding for many worthwhile
programs I otherwise would have supported,"
Jones said in a statement. "In my opinion, it
would have been more prudent to wait and see
what revenues look like in September and perhaps
even October before moving forward with
overrides."
The Senate, where Democrats also hold a
veto-proof majority, is not planning to meet
until late in September and it is unclear
whether veto overrides will be the chamber's
first order of business.
Citing the Democrat-backed state law that hiked
pay for lawmakers and other public officials at
the beginning of this year, the Massachusetts
Republican Party said Wednesday's actions showed
Democrats to be irresponsible money managers.
"Democrats just can't be trusted as responsible
stewards of our tax dollars. Now, having
cancelled tax relief for consumers, and raising
their own pay, their latest act of fiscal
irresponsibility will place taxpayers in further
jeopardy. If they really cared about their
constituents, they would support the Governor's
efforts to balance the budget, while apologizing
for their votes to fatten their own paychecks,"
MassGOP spokesman Terry MacCormack said in a
statement.
—Michael Norton
contributed reporting
State House News Service
Friday, September 15, 2017
Weekly Roundup: Vienna Sausage Making
By Craig Sandler
The Legislature continued the budget process for
Fiscal year Two Thousand Infinity this week -
well, half the Legislature.
A budget document unveiled when President
Trump's approval rating exceeded his disapproval
sauntered through its eighth month, still not
truly final, as the House replaced $275 million
of the $360 million in vetoes Gov. Baker made in
July. The next step in the saga must be taken by
the Senate.
The hangup for now is that there's a rhythm to
legislation and, as fortune would have it, that
rhythm is the same as a Viennese waltz:
ONE-two-three, one-two-three ... And the third
step of the override process was paused for the
moment, as senators awaited the return of their
leader from Austria and the Czech Republic.
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg was in Europe
- a development that first surfaced publicly
when his staff said he wouldn't be at the weekly
leadership meeting Monday with Gov. Charlie
Baker and House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and would
phone in for the session. He did.
The president, normally quite eager to share the
details of his public schedule, made no mentions
of his planned sojourn in the weeks and months
leading up to his departure. His travels through
Vienna, Graz and Prague were underwritten by the
United Nations Association of Austria, the City
of Graz and the Senate Presidents Forum, which
collects money from corporations like Coca-Cola,
Pzifer and Reynolds tobacco and passes it on to
presidents in the form of grants for such policy
and cultural forays. Thomas Finneran, late of
the Massachusetts House speakership, is on staff
as moderator of Forum discussions - a role he
filled during the Central Europe sessions, said
Rosenberg's spokesman.
And so the Senate, eager as it may be to restore
spending after senators decried vetoes as severe
and unnecessary, extended its six-week summer
formal-session hiatus. The vetoes may be taken
up the last week of the month, after the
Autumnal equinox.
The 62 overrides processed in the House chamber
covered statewide programs and accounts, and
Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sanchez said
another batch, addressing local needs and
services, will be forthcoming.
Republicans said the Senate should in fact be in
no rush to follow the House's lead. With state
leaders mired in a years-long inability to
accurately project tax revenues and then keep
spending within actual receipts, GOP
representatives said both branches should wait
at least another month, preferably two, to see
if the overrides are affordable.
For their part, the Baker administration said
there was "no basis" to restore spending now,
given revenue performance so far.
But Sanchez, speaking for the Democrats, said a
conservative approach was already baked into the
budget that landed on Baker's desk in July -
that $400 million had been removed from the
bottom line before Baker saw it. The spending
restorations are sustainable, he assured.
By way more than the necessary two thirds,
Sanchez and his boss Speaker DeLeo had the
votes.
For much of Wednesday, House members sat
chattering and nattering and fiddling with their
devices, punctuated by the sonorous reading of
one veto after another from the podium. Which
items would come up and receive a "yes" vote had
been decided in secret over the past eight
weeks, so there was no debate. One by one, with
nary a decrease in din, representatives added
money back to the Commonwealth's fiscal 2018
bottom line - the scoreboard glowing green on
its leftward Democratic side, and more or solid
red on the Republican.
And while wiseguys needed both eyebrows this
week - one to raise over Rosenberg's trip, and
the other over the prudence of budget regrowth -
the people actually affected by the line items -
people hoping to keep their apartments or their
jobs - likely breathed a sigh of relief. Or half
a sigh, anyhow, if that's possible. And by the
way? If those real people avoid the hit, they
won't begrudge Rosenberg some late-summer
Transatlantic meandering.
The Boston Herald
Friday, September 15, 2017
A Boston Herald editorial
Another spending rush
They say “close” only counts in horseshoes and
hand grenades and so while the commonwealth may
be, as House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey
Sanchez put it Wednesday, “very close” to
collecting as much tax revenue as it expected
through the first two months of the fiscal year,
it’s still behind.
But unless forced, Beacon Hill is generally
reluctant to take its belt in a notch — if
anything it’s more comfortable with a belt
expander. And so the House on Wednesday began
the process of overriding Gov. Charlie Baker’s
budget vetoes.
In his speech to the House Sanchez emphasized
the many worthy programs that would benefit from
this first round of overrides — special emphasis
given to HIV/AIDS treatment, MassHealth and
pediatric palliative care programs.
Less-well publicized were must-haves such as the
$1.9 million restored to the Massachusetts
Cultural Council, which funds grants to such
desperately needy nonprofits as the (private)
Wang Theater and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
And heaven forbid the state archives take a
haircut; it got the $100,000 back that Baker had
cut from its $666,000 budget. Saved for another
day will be the reversal of Baker’s vetoes of
spending on “tourism” priorities, no doubt.
This is all part of a fiscally irresponsible
pattern. Each year Baker vetoes spending in the
final budget to ensure it will remain in balance
for the full year. Each year the House
and Senate reverse most of those vetoes —
leaving it to Baker to make mid-year cuts if
revenues fall short, which they have for two
years running.
The House could have waited a few weeks to
review a full three months of tax collections
before it reversed Baker’s cuts. Instead it made
clear that has no interest in breaking bad
habits. |
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