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Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
45 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Grad Tax
advances; sales tax rollback fallout
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With eight hearings on Tuesday's docket,
Citizens for Limited Taxation on Monday tried to get the
word out early about a topic that's largely fallen out of
favor on Beacon Hill: tax cuts.
Saying state spending has soared to nearly
$43 billion, an increase of $15 billion in ten years, CLT
called for the state to roll back the sales tax rate to 5
percent -- the rate it was at before the Legislature raised
it to 6.25 percent in 2009.
"Though rolling back the sales tax is a
small recognition for the many sacrifices made by taxpayers
to fund all of state government, it would demonstrate a
degree of appreciation," CLT wrote in a memo to the
Committee on Revenue, adding that it took 207 years for the
state to enact its first budget with a bottom line of larger
than $10 billion.
Gov. Charlie Baker supported a 5 percent
sales tax rate during his first run for governor in 2010 and
called for a sales tax cut at the Republican State
Convention in 2018. However, the appetite for big tax cuts
appears small on Beacon Hill this year, and lawmakers are
instead mulling over possible tax increases to make larger
investments in transportation and education.
The sales tax reduction bills are sponsored
by Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (S 1776) and Rep. Marc
Lombardo (H 2545).
State House News Service
Monday, May 6, 2019
CLT: Cut sales tax to show taxpayers some appreciation
By Michael P. Norton
Massachusetts legislators should roll back
the state’s sales tax to 5 percent, where it was for decades
until the state Legislature increased it in 2009, an
anti-tax group says.
The state’s sales tax is currently 6.25
percent, with a 0.75 percent local option that pushes it to
7 percent in some cities and towns.
In 2009, the year the sales tax increased,
the state budget was $27.4 billion.
“Spending has increased by 55 percent since
then,” Citizens for Limited Taxation said in a
written statement, referring to the proposed $42.8 billion
budget recently approved by the Massachusetts House of
Representatives. “With that amount of revenue (taxpayers’
money) pouring in and being spent as quickly as it arrives,
the state can certainly ‘afford’ to roll back the sales tax
to 5 percent − and the Legislature certainly *does not* need
to confiscate more of taxpayers’ hard-earned income − what
remains of it.”
Adjusted for inflation, the 2009 state
budget would be worth $32.9 billion in today’s dollars,
meaning the House budget approved for next fiscal year would
be a 30 percent increase over that figure....
But Citizens for Limited Taxation, which
takes a skeptical approach toward taxes and government
spending, says legislators are playing a dangerous game.
“Taxes simply cannot continue to be piled
upon past tax increases over and over, new taxes devised and
imposed in perpetuity, to spend ever more. There is a limit,
if Massachusetts is to avoid further crushing productive
taxpayers or chasing even more of them out of the
commonwealth,” Citizens for Limited Taxation said in the
written statement Monday, May 6....
“Though rolling back the sales tax is a
small recognition for the many sacrifices made by taxpayers
to fund all of state government, it would demonstrate a
degree of appreciation,” Citizens for Limited Taxation said
in the statement. “We hope that you too will appreciate this
is well past due.”
Spokesmen for the House and Senate
co-chairmen of the committee could not immediately be
reached for comment Monday.
An official with the Massachusetts Budget
and Policy Center, which is less skeptical of taxes than
Citizens for Limited Taxation, said a sales tax decrease
must be paired with a cut in spending or another tax
increase.
The New Boston Post
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Restore Massachusetts Sales Tax To 5 Percent,
Citizens for Limited Taxation Says
Massachusetts taxpayers showered state
government with a nearly $1 billion windfall in April,
altering state budget dynamics and making it possible for
Beacon Hill to at least think about the possibility of a
year-end surplus.
The $4.32 billion collected in April
represented a $1.02 billion, or nearly 31 percent increase
over April 2018 tax receipts and put state government on
course to potentially far outpace the collection number that
Gov. Charlie Baker and the Legislature used to build this
year's $41.7 billion state budget.
With two months left in fiscal 2019, tax
collections of $24.5 billion are up 8 percent, or $1.8
billion over the same ten-month period in fiscal 2018 and
are running $961 million, or 4.1 percent ahead of the
benchmarks that state budget writers have been using to make
fiscal ends meet.
The news comes as Beacon Hill Democrats cast
about for new tax and revenue sources to fuel their spending
desires, especially in the areas of education and
transportation.
State House News Service
Saturday, May 4, 2019
April tax receipts surge by more than $1 Billion
April tax revenues came in a whopping $1.02
billion over last year, putting the state on track to end
the year with a surplus but prompting a note of caution from
the governor, and fiscal watchdogs say the boon is a
“one-time” result partly driven by federal tax reform.
“We got a very significant, what I would
describe as sort of one-time benefit,” Gov. Charlie Baker
told reporters yesterday. “I think we all agree that this
will probably mean a more significant deposit to the
stabilization fund, which I think we all think is a good
thing.” ...
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President
Eileen McAnneny cautioned that lawmakers shouldn’t “bank on”
the surplus just yet.
“Robust revenue collection is a good news
story,” McAnneny said. “But given how volatile tax
collections have been in recent years, and the possibility
that much of this revenue is nonrecurring in nature, now is
the time to build our financial resiliency for the future.”
McAnneny said that lawmakers should
strengthen the state’s finances and economy with the extra
money by paying off current debt or making capital
investments in key priorities instead of increasing annual
spending on operations, which she said is “unsupported by
sustainable tax revenues.”
The Boston Herald
Monday, May 6, 2019
Massachusetts stuffs the coffers with April revenue boost
With tax collections pouring in but
Democrats still on the hunt for new revenue, the possibility
of repealing tax breaks for specialized industries like
aviation or the chance to apply new taxes to unhealthy,
sugary drinks dangles like low-hanging fruit before many
lawmakers.
But for every tax break or untaxed good that
looks ripe for the taking, there is a constituency on the
other end worried about the impact a change might have on
jobs or the livelihoods of local business owners.
The Joint Committee on Revenue saw that
tug-of-war play out Tuesday as members of the committee
listened to testimony about legislation proposing to change
the way the state applies its 6.25 percent sales tax.
It was the committee's first hearing on tax
bills since House Chairman Mark Cusack told his colleagues
at the opening of House budget deliberations in late April
that his committee planned to get "rocking and rolling"
soon, starting the process of holding hearings on tax bills
in anticipation of a revenue debate later this year.
State House News Service
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Tax bills stir soda, trucking, aviation industries
Senate leaders unveiled a $42.7 billion
fiscal year 2020 budget proposal on Tuesday, virtually
mirroring the total spending figure in the House's budget
approved last week but embracing additional revenues the
other chamber avoided.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee's
proposal calls for a 3.1 percent increase in spending over
last year's budget, including what lawmakers describe as a
"historic" boost in public education funding, new
initiatives to improve mental health and a University of
Massachusetts tuition freeze. Those efforts are buoyed by
new taxes on opioid manufacturers and vaping products, two
ideas backed by Gov. Charlie Baker but eschewed in the House
budget.
"Each line item, each number, is much more
than just a number," said Senate President Karen Spilka in a
briefing about the budget. "It is a statement of the
Senate's priorities and our values and what we hold dear."
The Ways and Means Committee planned to
formally advance the budget in an executive session Tuesday
afternoon. Senators can file amendments until Friday, May 10
at 12 p.m., and the full chamber will launch its annual
string of formal sessions to debate the budget starting
Tuesday, May 21....
The Ways and Means Committee's budget does
not include $35 million in not-yet-legal sports betting
revenue that Baker projected, but — unlike the House, which
adopted a set of rules banning any sports-gambling
amendments during this year's budget process — Rodrigues
said senators will be allowed to debate the topic.
The Senate budget does impose a 15 percent
tax on opioid manufacturers for sales dispensed in
Massachusetts and a 75 percent tax on wholesale prices of
e-cigarettes and related products.
"We feel that these two revenue proposals
are very much a component of the public purpose of what we
are raising the revenues for, i.e. substance abuse
treatment, i.e., public health," Rodrigues said. "We think
there is adequate revenues in the state's coffers without
raising new revenues to fully invest in our priorities."
While the initial budget proposal only
includes those specific taxes, Rodrigues said any other
revenue amendments that senators want to pursue "will be
open to discussion." ...
The Senate is likely to use a consolidation
process similar to the House to bundle amendments on similar
topics, but leaders do not plan to block anything from
coming to the chamber floor, Rodrigues said.
"We're not going to rule anything out of
order," he said. "The Senate will debate any and all
amendments that members should happen to file, unless it's
completely, totally out of order. But we're not going to use
any sort of discretionary decisions to stifle debate."
State House News Service
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Senate includes opiod, vaping taxes in $42.7 Bil budget
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
CLT's news release on Monday ("Yes
on S-1776 and H-2545 – Roll
Back the Sales Tax to 5%"), chock full of historical
data on metastasizing state budget spending, got
significant attention. Beside the (above) news
reports, I was called by Alan Zarek for an extensive
interview on his Fall River WSAR AM-1480 program,
"Newsroom" at noon. Then Howie Carr quoted CLT's
historic budget figures on his WRKO program while
speaking with Rep. Marc Lombardo on his bill to roll
back the sales tax to 5%.
Sadly, few if any expect to see the
sales tax reduced this year, if ever. Legislators
are too consumed with ways to increase taxes and
revenue so they can spend ever more.
This is despite the shocking revenue
numbers released over the weekend from last month.
Total revenues for April came in at over a Billion
dollars more than last April's take, just a year
ago. A Billion dollars more
– but More Is Never Enough
(MINE) and in Massachusetts never will be.
Today the House and Senate very briefly
met jointly in Constitutional Convention to consider the
sixth attempt at a graduated income tax (seventh if you
count last year's attempt, thrown out by the state
Supreme Judicial Court). I was watching the
session just now but the vote happened so fast I must
have blinked. The State House News Service just
reported:
"House and Senate Democrats resurrected a
proposed income surtax on wealthy residents
Wednesday, voting 156-37 to advance the proposed
millionaire tax constitutional amendment (H 86).
Further consideration of the proposal is
expected when the Constitutional Convention
returns from recess on June 12."
They're looking to squeeze another Two
Billion dollars from "millionaires"
– for now. They'll
come for everyone else soon after if they can shatter
that constitutional barricade that requires all tax
rates be equal among taxpayers. The Takers
have long lusted for that breach of John Adams' oldest
still-functioning written constitution in effect in the
world.
The state Senate released its budget
yesterday, totaling $42.7 Billion same as the House, but
with different spending priorities. The Senate
included taxes in its budget. Does the Senate now
presume the House budget to be a "money
bill" open to Senate additions of more and new taxes
when they start debating it on May 21?
We were afraid of this . . .
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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The New Boston Post
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Restore Massachusetts Sales Tax To 5 Percent,
Citizens for Limited Taxation Says
By Matt McDonald
Massachusetts legislators should roll back the
state’s sales tax to 5 percent, where it was for
decades until the state Legislature increased it
in 2009, an anti-tax group says.
The state’s sales tax is currently 6.25 percent,
with a 0.75 percent local option that pushes it
to 7 percent in some cities and towns.
In 2009, the year the sales tax increased, the
state budget was $27.4 billion.
“Spending has increased by 55 percent since
then,” Citizens for Limited Taxation said
in a written statement, referring to the
proposed $42.8 billion budget recently approved
by the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
“With that amount of revenue (taxpayers’ money)
pouring in and being spent as quickly as it
arrives, the state can certainly ‘afford’ to
roll back the sales tax to 5 percent − and the
Legislature certainly *does not* need to
confiscate more of taxpayers’ hard-earned income
− what remains of it.”
Adjusted for inflation, the 2009 state budget
would be worth $32.9 billion in today’s dollars,
meaning the House budget approved for next
fiscal year would be a 30 percent increase over
that figure.
Democrats in the state Legislature have recently
been discussing ways to increase taxes, not ways
to decrease them.
But Citizens for Limited Taxation, which takes a
skeptical approach toward taxes and government
spending, says legislators are playing a
dangerous game.
“Taxes simply cannot continue to be piled upon
past tax increases over and over, new taxes
devised and imposed in perpetuity, to spend ever
more. There is a limit, if Massachusetts is to
avoid further crushing productive taxpayers or
chasing even more of them out of the
commonwealth,” Citizens for Limited Taxation
said in the written statement Monday, May 6.
The statement is billed as a memo to the
Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on
Revenue, which consists of state representatives
and state senators.
“Though rolling back the sales tax is a small
recognition for the many sacrifices made by
taxpayers to fund all of state government, it
would demonstrate a degree of appreciation,”
Citizens for Limited Taxation said in the
statement. “We hope that you too will appreciate
this is well past due.”
Spokesmen for the House and Senate co-chairmen
of the committee could not immediately be
reached for comment Monday.
An official with the Massachusetts Budget and
Policy Center, which is less skeptical of taxes
than Citizens for Limited Taxation, said a sales
tax decrease must be paired with a cut in
spending or another tax increase.
“Because Massachusetts needs to balance its
budget, any responsible proposals to reduce
revenue should also specify which public
spending would have to be reduced or what new
taxes would take the place of the lost revenue,”
said Phineas Baxandall, senior policy analyst at
the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, in a
written statement through a spokesman.
Bills have been filed in the House and Senate to
reduce the sales tax to 5 percent.
One is House Bill 2545, sponsored by state
Representative Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica),
which would reduce the sales tax to 5 percent
immediately. It has a total of two sponsors
among the 200 state legislators. The other one
is state Representative Shaunna O’Connell
(R-Taunton).
Another is Senate Bill 1776, sponsored by state
Senator Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester), which would
decrease the sales tax to 5.8 percent on August
1, 2019, then to 5.4 percent on August 1, 2020,
then to 5 percent on August 1, 2021. It has a
total of three sponsors among the 200 state
legislators. The other two are state Senator
Donald E. Humason Jr. (R-Westfield) and State
Representative David DeCoste (R-Norwell).
State House News
Service
Saturday, May 4, 2019
April tax receipts surge by more than $1 Billion
By Michael P. Norton
Massachusetts taxpayers showered state
government with a nearly $1 billion windfall in
April, altering state budget dynamics and making
it possible for Beacon Hill to at least think
about the possibility of a year-end surplus.
The $4.32 billion collected in April represented
a $1.02 billion, or nearly 31 percent increase
over April 2018 tax receipts and put state
government on course to potentially far outpace
the collection number that Gov. Charlie Baker
and the Legislature used to build this year's
$41.7 billion state budget.
With two months left in fiscal 2019, tax
collections of $24.5 billion are up 8 percent,
or $1.8 billion over the same ten-month period
in fiscal 2018 and are running $961 million, or
4.1 percent ahead of the benchmarks that state
budget writers have been using to make fiscal
ends meet.
The news comes as Beacon Hill Democrats cast
about for new tax and revenue sources to fuel
their spending desires, especially in the areas
of education and transportation. State officials
are embarking on a multi-year plan to ramp up
K-12 education spending, an effort Baker says
does not require new taxes, and Democrats are
restarting their push for a 4 percent income
surtax on households with annual incomes above
$1 million.
The revenues for April, the biggest month of the
year for collections, were announced early
Friday evening, hours after the federal
government announced that U.S. employers added
263,000 new jobs in April, beating the average
monthly gain of 213,000 over the past 12 months.
Analyzing the collections, state revenue
officials said individual income tax withholding
and sales taxes, which account for about 70
percent of annual tax revenues, poured in at
levels close to monthly benchmarks, with almost
all of the big gains coming in three
"historically volatile categories."
Revenue from non-withheld income, which
officials say reflects taxes due for 2018 but
received in fiscal 2019, are running $336
million above benchmark. Corporate taxes are
eclipsing benchmarks by $473 million, which the
revenue department attributes in part to federal
tax changes and repatriation. Estate tax
payments are running 38 percent above
benchmarks, or $142 million year to date.
"The strong results in April offset the
shortfall in estimated payments that we
experienced in December and January, because we
believe many taxpayers opted to make their
payments with returns and extensions during the
April filing season," Revenue Commissioner
Christopher Harding said in a statement,
cautioning that the patterns "cannot be relied
upon to repeat" and observing that categories of
revenues that rose sharply can also fall.
Only three months ago, as collections fell well
shy of December and January benchmarks, receipts
were running 2.4 percent lower than projections
and were up only 1.3 percent over actual
collections for the first seven months of fiscal
2018. Collections in January fell 6 percent
compared to January 2018.
While a small percentage of overall collections,
receipts associated with motor vehicle sales in
April were up nearly 30 percent over April 2018.
The Boston Herald
Monday, May 6, 2019
Massachusetts stuffs the coffers with April
revenue boost
By Mary Markos
April tax revenues came in a whopping $1.02
billion over last year, putting the state on
track to end the year with a surplus but
prompting a note of caution from the governor,
and fiscal watchdogs say the boon is a
“one-time” result partly driven by federal tax
reform.
“We got a very significant, what I would
describe as sort of one-time benefit,” Gov.
Charlie Baker told reporters yesterday. “I think
we all agree that this will probably mean a more
significant deposit to the stabilization fund,
which I think we all think is a good thing.”
Revenue collections for April totaled $4.323
billion, a level $942 million over the revised
monthly benchmark, and $1.019 billion more than
the actual collections in April 2018, according
to the Department of Revenue. The money puts the
state on track to surpass the collection number
that Baker and the Legislature used to build
this year’s $41.7 billion state budget.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President
Eileen McAnneny cautioned that lawmakers
shouldn’t “bank on” the surplus just yet.
“Robust revenue collection is a good news
story,” McAnneny said. “But given how volatile
tax collections have been in recent years, and
the possibility that much of this revenue is
nonrecurring in nature, now is the time to build
our financial resiliency for the future.”
McAnneny said that lawmakers should strengthen
the state’s finances and economy with the extra
money by paying off current debt or making
capital investments in key priorities instead of
increasing annual spending on operations, which
she said is “unsupported by sustainable tax
revenues.”
Corporate and business tax revenue is also up
more than $91 million from April 2018. Some
portion of this surplus is likely from corporate
dividend repatriation, a component of federal
tax reform that is one-time in nature, according
to the MTF and the DOR.
Baker said the state’s revenue situation is
“consistent with what other states are telling
us under federal tax reform.” But he noted that
the two core elements that drive 70% of the tax
revenue — individual income tax withholding and
sales tax — is about 1% over benchmark.
“I would rather have the true-up be to the
commonwealth’s benefit as opposed to have the
true-up be in the other direction because I’ve
seen that,” Baker said. “When it’s on the other
side, it creates terrible dislocation for
everybody toward the end of the year.”
State House News
Service
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Tax bills stir soda, trucking, aviation
industries
By Matt Murphy
With tax collections pouring in but Democrats
still on the hunt for new revenue, the
possibility of repealing tax breaks for
specialized industries like aviation or the
chance to apply new taxes to unhealthy, sugary
drinks dangles like low-hanging fruit before
many lawmakers.
But for every tax break or untaxed good that
looks ripe for the taking, there is a
constituency on the other end worried about the
impact a change might have on jobs or the
livelihoods of local business owners.
The Joint Committee on Revenue saw that
tug-of-war play out Tuesday as members of the
committee listened to testimony about
legislation proposing to change the way the
state applies its 6.25 percent sales tax.
It was the committee's first hearing on tax
bills since House Chairman Mark Cusack told his
colleagues at the opening of House budget
deliberations in late April that his committee
planned to get "rocking and rolling" soon,
starting the process of holding hearings on tax
bills in anticipation of a revenue debate later
this year.
"Every year our state loses millions of dollars
in revenue to special tax breaks, and while some
of these are useful to achieving our economic or
policy goals, there is no rationale for reducing
or exempting taxes on specific luxury goods,"
said Rep. Tami Gouveia, an Acton Democrat.
Gouveia has filed legislation to repeal the
sales tax exemption for aircraft, which she said
could net the state an additional $20 million a
year. And Sen. Adam Hinds, the co-chair of the
Revenue Committee who is also leading a Senate
examination of the tax code, said the exemption
is often held up to him as an example of the
"incoherence" of the state's tax policies.
But Sean Collins, regional manager of the
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, said the
aviation industry is intertwined into everything
from medical transports to wildlife management,
and the tax exemption helps support thousands of
jobs, mainly in aircraft maintenance.
If the tax exemption was repealed, "we would see
a gradual loss of jobs," Collins warned, telling
the panel that pilots can fly to any number of
states within 30 minutes where they won't have
to pay a tax on parts or labor.
Facing the opposite problem, advocates for the
trucking industry showed up to testify in
support of bills (H 2517/S 1759) filed by Senate
Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues and
House Minority Leader Brad Jones that would stop
taxing "rolling stock," or the trucks used to
transport goods across state lines.
Steve Normandin, president of the Truckers
Association of Massachusetts, said 93 percent of
all goods spend time on a truck, and that number
is only getting higher with the rise of online
retail. The exemption for rolling stock,
however, was repealed in 1996, and the
Department of Revenue currently collects between
$9 million and $13 million a year, though
Normandin admitted the tax is "not collected
consistently or widely."
Ed Rodricks, also with the Truckers Association,
said by restoring the exemption the Legislature
would put Massachusetts on more competitive
footing and in line with 37 others states. The
money saved, he said, would allow trucking
companies to invest in newer vehicles that are
more fuel efficient and expel fewer carbon
emissions.
The opportunity to reduce carbon emissions
wasn't the only public health benefit being
touted as a possibility through changes to the
tax code.
Health advocates, including representatives from
the Joslin Diabetes Center and the American
Heart Association, were back at the State House
making their case for taxing sodas and other
sugary drinks.
The latest proposal, filed by Rep. Kay Khan,
would apply a three-tiered tax structure to
sugary drinks, with beverages with the most
sugar, such as Coca-Cola, facing a 24-cent per
can tax.
"If you could do one thing to dramatically
improve the health of the people of
Massachusetts, it would be to enact a sugary
drink tax," said David Martin, CEO of the
Massachusetts Health Council.
Several doctors linked high-sugar sodas and
other drinks to increases in childhood obesity
and diabetes, and Allyson Perron, of the
American Heart Association, said the money
raised through the tax could be put into
programs that would make water and other healthy
alternatives more accessible at schools.
The idea of a tax on soda, which former Gov.
Deval Patrick pushed unsuccessfully almost every
year he was in office, was once again opposed by
convenience store operators and beverage
manufacturers.
Jon Shaer, the executive director of the New
England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers
Association, said a provision in the bill that
would put the onus for collecting the tax on
retailers if distributors fail to pay would be
unfair because there is no way for a store owner
to verify if the tax had been paid.
Bree Dietly, a partner at Northbridge Group and
representative of the American Beverage
Association, also said it would push sales over
the border and lead to a $700 million loss in
retail sales around the state.
Citing the example of Philadelphia and that
city's soda tax, Dietly said, "People just moved
somewhere else to do their shopping. That
doesn't convey any health benefits."
Rep. Randy Hunt, a Sandwich Republican and
accountant, peppered proponents with similar
questions about how the tax would be enforced,
and suggested the proposal needed more work.
Hunt also asked Shaer whether the tax would lead
store owners to stock their shelves with more
healthy alternatives.
"Possibly," Shaer said. "At the end of the day,
retailers are going to sell what sells."
State House News
Service
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Senate includes opiod, vaping taxes in $42.7 Bil
budget
By Chris Lisinski
Senate leaders unveiled a $42.7 billion fiscal
year 2020 budget proposal on Tuesday, virtually
mirroring the total spending figure in the
House's budget approved last week but embracing
additional revenues the other chamber avoided.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee's proposal
calls for a 3.1 percent increase in spending
over last year's budget, including what
lawmakers describe as a "historic" boost in
public education funding, new initiatives to
improve mental health and a University of
Massachusetts tuition freeze. Those efforts are
buoyed by new taxes on opioid manufacturers and
vaping products, two ideas backed by Gov.
Charlie Baker but eschewed in the House budget.
"Each line item, each number, is much more than
just a number," said Senate President Karen
Spilka in a briefing about the budget. "It is a
statement of the Senate's priorities and our
values and what we hold dear."
The Ways and Means Committee planned to formally
advance the budget in an executive session
Tuesday afternoon. Senators can file amendments
until Friday, May 10 at 12 p.m., and the full
chamber will launch its annual string of formal
sessions to debate the budget starting Tuesday,
May 21.
Matching projections in the House budget, Senate
leaders anticipate about $133 million in revenue
from marijuana sales and $294 million in revenue
from casino and slots gaming. Overall, though,
the Ways and Means Committee, under the
leadership of new Chairman Michael Rodrigues,
was more willing to pursue new forms of revenue
than its colleagues in the House were.
The Ways and Means Committee's budget does not
include $35 million in not-yet-legal sports
betting revenue that Baker projected, but —
unlike the House, which adopted a set of rules
banning any sports-gambling amendments during
this year's budget process — Rodrigues said
senators will be allowed to debate the topic.
The Senate budget does impose a 15 percent tax
on opioid manufacturers for sales dispensed in
Massachusetts and a 75 percent tax on wholesale
prices of e-cigarettes and related products.
"We feel that these two revenue proposals are
very much a component of the public purpose of
what we are raising the revenues for, i.e.
substance abuse treatment, i.e., public health,"
Rodrigues said. "We think there is adequate
revenues in the state's coffers without raising
new revenues to fully invest in our priorities."
While the initial budget proposal only includes
those specific taxes, Rodrigues said any other
revenue amendments that senators want to pursue
"will be open to discussion."
One key area of spending in the proposal is on
elementary and secondary education. Senate
leaders proposed $5.176 billion in Chapter 70
education aid to municipalities, a $268 million
increase over the current budget and more than
$50 million higher than what the House approved
last month. The budget also calls for a $25
million increase in special education funding
and a $10 million increase in charter school
reimbursements.
Although the budget does not completely overhaul
the outdated foundation budget formula used to
determine how much each city and town receives
in education funding, Rodrigues said the
additional money will work as a "down payment"
toward implementation of reforms recommended by
a state commission. The Joint Committee on
Education is currently weighing several
different bills aimed at revamping the system.
"This deposit, this down payment will work along
with what they're looking at," Rodrigues said.
On Wednesday, the mayors and school officials
from Brockton, New Bedford and Worcester plan to
hold a briefing in Boston on the "severe
education challenges facing Massachusetts'
Gateway Cities, the need for legislative action,
and an update on the possibility of a lawsuit."
The municipal officials will be joined by
attorneys who are working with those cities and
other education experts to provide a report on
school conditions, potential legislative action
and to answer questions about a possible
lawsuit.
The Ways and Means Committee's budget includes
language mandating that University of
Massachusetts in-state tuition and fees remain
flat next year. However, the proposal matches
the House and Baker budgets in funding the
system at $558 million, effectively ignoring
testimony from UMass President Marty Meehan last
week that said a tuition freeze would require
another $10 million.
Following an announcement Spilka made last
month, the budget proposal targets mental health
as an important focus, allocating almost $900
million at various services. About $3 million in
new funding would go to diversion efforts to
move people with substance-abuse disorders and
critical mental health needs from the criminal
justice system into treatment programs, while
another $3.5 million would be allocated to help
open five recovery centers.
Senate leaders also called for a new $10 million
mental health trust fund, which would both
launch a public awareness campaign aimed at
reducing stigma and create a program to forgive
student-loan debt for behavioral health care
workers.
An outside section to the budget proposal
imposes a one-year time limit on so-called "clawbacks,"
limiting the ability of insurance companies to
retroactively deny mental health claims.
The Senate's budget proposal hews more closely
to Baker's approach on prescription drug pricing
than to the House's. Like those, the Senate
leadership version allows MassHealth to
negotiate costs directly with pharmaceutical
manufacturers, but companies could have input on
what details they are asked to provide and the
Health Policy Commission would be required to
accept it.
If state officials feel a manufacturer is
withholding information, a case could still be
referred to the attorney general's office, but
the Senate version implements an appeals process
with an administrative law judge before that
stage. The HPC would be allowed to make public
its proposal for the price of a drug it is
negotiating, and the state auditor would be
directed to investigate how to increase
transparency related to pharmacy benefit
managers.
The budget also invests $15 million in nursing
home stabilization in the wake of several
closures and calls for creation of a task force
to study the issue and complete a report by Nov.
30 on how to protect seniors from industry
upheaval.
The Senate is likely to use a consolidation
process similar to the House to bundle
amendments on similar topics, but leaders do not
plan to block anything from coming to the
chamber floor, Rodrigues said.
"We're not going to rule anything out of order,"
he said. "The Senate will debate any and all
amendments that members should happen to file,
unless it's completely, totally out of order.
But we're not going to use any sort of
discretionary decisions to stifle debate."
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