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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, July 3, 2019
New
'Death Tax' hike: "They can go to hell”
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While lawmakers meet behind closed doors to
finalize the coming year’s state budget — and confront a set
of problems compounding in an existential crisis — a few
basic facts should be considered.
It took our state 220 years, from the first
governorship of John Hancock to the Y2K computer turnover,
to reach a budget totaling $20 billion.
In just the past 20 years, though, that
figure has doubled, to more than $42 billion.
During that same span, the state population
has increased just 8.7 percent.
All told, we’re now spending over 100
percent more money to service fewer than 10 percent more
people.
Massachusetts doesn’t have a revenue
problem. It has a spending problem, affected by inflation
and rising — in some cases, skyrocketing — costs, of course,
but also its budget decisions....
Roads, bridges, and the T suffer from
decades of neglect and underfunding, but just drive across
the New Hampshire border and you’ll find highways without
potholes, medians that are mowed, and breakdown lanes free
of trash. Those fundamentals are not beyond the Bay State’s
capacity....
The first move shouldn’t be tax hikes to pay
for new education spending, as some lawmakers latched on to
after a recent Suffolk University poll....
And the public would probably be more
inclined to support a tax increase when the top-paid state
employee list isn’t filled with workers making five to 10
times the average citizen.
The senators and representatives behind
those closed doors on Beacon Hill, as well as the governor
in the State House corner office, have double the money
available just 20 years ago.
The Boston Globe
Monday, July 1, 2019
The state doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending
problem
By Glen Johnson
For the ninth year in a row, the Legislature
had to pass a stopgap spending measure to keep state
government running. And it’s not as if budget writers have
to slog through tough debates about where to cut spending:
Tax revenues are pouring in far in excess of estimates.
Other states manage to do more — in some
cases, much more. Forty-two states have enacted budgets for
fiscal 2020 already, according to the National Association
of State Budget Officers. In fact, Massachusetts is one of
just two states with a fiscal year starting July 1 where the
Legislature has not passed an annual spending plan yet. (The
other is Ohio.) ...
“So far this session, the House has passed
major pieces of legislation to fund state services, keep our
roads safe, raise revenue, invest in our roads and bridges,
support farmers, put in place consumer protections and
create safeguards for workers, among other items,” [House
Speaker Robert A. DeLeo] said in a statement.
“The Senate has been working diligently
since January, and will continue its collaborative process
to craft bold, actionable solutions to the challenges facing
the Commonwealth,” said state Senate President Karen Spilka.
In several cases, bills that have passed one
chamber are awaiting further action elsewhere on Beacon
Hill. The Legislature has sent only a handful of meaningful
measures to Baker’s desk so far this year, according to a
Globe review....
For comparison, in their six-month
legislative session that ended earlier this month, New York
legislators not only completed a $175.5 billion budget, they
hammered out deals on more than a dozen consequential policy
issues. Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, approved stronger
rental laws and protections for undocumented immigrants,
moved to eliminate almost all greenhouse gas emissions by
2050, and overhauled the state’s voting laws and the
Legislature’s own ethics rules, among other measures.
“A sense of jealousy and a sense of serious
anger,” is how former state representative Jay R. Kaufman
said he felt reading a recent New York Times editorial
praising all the New York Assembly accomplished this year.
“A comparable editorial cannot be written about the
Massachusetts Legislature,” said Kaufman, who left Beacon
Hill after 24 years to start a nonprofit focused on
leadership training for the public sector....
Lawmakers and others point to the complexity
of the state’s almost $43 billion budget and stress the
importance of getting it done right, not fast — especially
since the stopgap spending measure means there’s no
practical consequences to a delay of a few weeks’ time.
On Monday, Baker told reporters he is
unbothered by the Legislature’s repeated budget tardiness.
Passing a temporary budget to let lawmakers have more time
“usually ends up producing a better product then simply
getting there by June 30,” he said....
DeLeo has said the House plans to take up a
tax package this fall to help fund transportation. House and
Senate education chairs are meeting regularly to hash out a
consensus on revamping the state’s antiquated education
funding formula, which they hope to unveil before lawmakers
scatter for August vacations.
The timeline for other high-profile
initiatives remains murky — including legislation pushed by
Baker that would make it easier for cities and towns to
change zoning to allow new housing. Another Patriots season
is set to start without Massachusetts allowing legal wagers,
a year after the Supreme Court cleared the way for states to
have sports betting — while a dozen other states, including
Rhode Island, have charged ahead.
Even mundane matters can move at a sluggish
pace. Lawmakers did not finish a $200 million borrowing bill
for municipal road repairs until June, taking five weeks
longer to pass the annual measure than they did last year,
according to State House News Service, even though the
borrowing level has remained essentially unchanged since
2012.
“It’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel.
. . . This is the same thing over and over again,” said
Franklin’s director of public works, Robert Cantoreggi.
Passing the annual road repair bill after
March makes it harder for many cities and towns to plan
their construction projects and can drive up costs, because
so many municipalities are trying to hire a limited pool of
contractors in a compressed amount of time, he said....
Cantoreggi said the process for authorizing
these funds “could be a lot more efficient, but that’s
Beacon Hill.”
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Once again, Mass. is one of the last states not to have a
budget
Unable to agree on an annual state budget by
the July 1 deadline, House and Senate Democrats are breaking
for the Fourth of July holiday and now hoping that a budget
deal might come next week.
After holding sessions open Tuesday while
waiting to see if a budget accord emerged, the House and
Senate adjourned early Tuesday afternoon and called for
informal sessions Wednesday.
After the session, Second Assistant Majority
Leader Rep. Paul Donato of Medford told the News Service the
House is not expecting the budget conference committee to
file its report this week.
Sen. Patricia Jehlen of Somerville, who
gaveled out Tuesday's Senate session, also said any
consideration of a budget deal, if one is reached, will take
place next week....
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has
also speculated that the conference committee members "are
likely to revisit" tax revenue assumptions because fiscal
2019 revenues have vastly outpaced projections, however,
legislative leaders have not given voice to revisiting tax
estimates.
Of the 46 states that started the new fiscal
year Monday, only two are still waiting for their
Legislature to finalize a fiscal 2020 budget --
Massachusetts and Ohio, according to the National
Association of State Budget Officers.
State House News Service
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Lawmakers breaking for holiday without budget deal
The state’s chief medical examiner’s office
wants to double the fee it charges next of kin for it to
examine a body before it’s cremated, providing a potential
budget boon that funeral directors worry comes on the backs
of grieving loved ones.
The proposal, which officials expect to put
in place by August, would hike from $100 to $200 the fee the
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner charges to visually
inspect every body set to be cremated.
With an estimated 30,000 views a year, the
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner would stand to collect
$6 million annually — or twice the $3 million that the fee
currently generates, officials said. Officials notified
lawmakers last month of the proposed increase, which doesn’t
require a change in law to go into effect....
“I think it’s going to be a big expense for
the families, especially people who have limited income,”
said Paul Phaneuf, owner of St. Pierre-Phaneuf Funeral
Chapels. “When you raise something 100 percent, people will
take a look and say, ‘Wow, that’s substantial.’
Unfortunately, the consumer is not going to have any choice
in it.” ...
The fee hike is in addition to the nearly
$12 million in state funding the office is expected to
receive next fiscal year, itself a $2 million boost from two
years ago....
“They’re looking for revenue enhancement,”
said Peter Stefan, funeral director and owner of Graham,
Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester.
“Why do they need any money for a viewing
when it’s already been viewed in the original investigation?
And now you want to raise it to $200? They can go to hell.”
Officials noted that under state law, the
view, and its attached fee, is required for “any person
whose body is intended for cremation.”
Stefan, however, argued that if the office
needs an infusion of cash, state officials should consider
using some of the budget surplus they’re expected to reap
this year. Tax revenues were tracking $952 million above
projections at the close of May.
“Don’t go looking to the public to pay
more,” Stefan said.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
State looks to double cremation ‘view fee’
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
The state has
another billion dollar budget surplus this year — but
More Is Never Enough (MINE). Now it wants to
double the cost of pre-cremation after death. This
gives a new dimension to the term "Death Tax."
“Why do they
need any money for a viewing when it’s already been
viewed in the original investigation?" asked Peter
Stefan, a Worcester funeral director. "And now you
want to raise it to $200? They can go to hell.”
Meanwhile,
like the Catholic faithful in Rome awaiting the puff of
smoke over the Vatican announcing that a new pope has
been chosen, legislators throughout the State House this
week waited with bated breaths for such an announcement
from their own College of Cardinals in its Holy See of
Conference Committee. Nobody but the select six
committee members, and perhaps the House Speaker and
Senate President, have even a hint of what is being done
in secret behind their backs, or when they will be told.
Early
yesterday, with the extended long holiday weekend for
legislators looming, the House and Senate gave up the
ghost and recessed until maybe next week when a budget
might be ready — or maybe not. It doesn't matter
much anyway the governor ("unbothered" by the lateness)
and legislators have proclaimed of this new state
tradition.
In the CLT
Update of June 22 ("Craziness
expands on Beacon Hill") I wrote:
In
the end all the elected place-holding buffoons
playing government at our expense will
rubber-stamp whatever the six or eight adults in
the room bang out as an acceptable state budget
when they get around to it.
Once the new
budget is released, which none will have time to read if
they can even find a copy, it'll take only minutes for
it to be rushed to the House and Senate floors, blindly
rubber-stamped and sent on to the governor for his quick
signature, and they all know it. They just want to
be present to apply their "Yea" stamp to make the vote
unanimous, with rare exception another Bay State
"tradition."
Former Boston
Globe veteran political reporter Glen Johnson this week
noted the incredible growth of spending in
Massachusetts:
It took our state 220
years, from the first governorship of John
Hancock to the Y2K computer turnover, to reach
a budget totaling $20 billion.
In just the past 20 years,
though, that figure has doubled, to
more than $42 billion.
But in the
CLT Update of April 28, 1999 — twenty years ago
— I much earlier noted:
It took Massachusetts
government 207 years to reach the first $10
Billion budget and only another dozen years to
double it to $20 Billion, but the pols are out
to break that 12-year record!
They're pushing for $21
Billion as we speak!
That march in
annual billion dollar spending increases inexorably
continues to this day. My thanks for Glen
Johnson's update.
Why does
Massachusetts spend so much more than elsewhere?
See just the
exorbitant cost it pays to maintain its terrible
highways, 390% above the national average! Something is
VERY wrong with this picture.
Compare what Massachusetts spends on just its
highway maintenance with neighboring New Hampshire:
$695,443 vs. $197,468
—
per state-controlled mile.
But that is
just the on-the-books spending. Off-the-books
debt is horrifying. After reading Glen
Johnson's column I decided to dig deeper, into the
state's overall debt.
While the
governor and Legislature seek to borrow billions more
for new spending schemes, according to "Ninth
annual Financial State of the States report - 2018"
issued last year by
Truth In Accounting, Massachusetts is ranked 5th
worst in highest debt:
MASSACHUSETTS needs about $87 billion to pay its
bills, including unfunded pensions and retiree
health care benefits. Each taxpayer’s share of
this debt rose to $33,500, making Massachusetts
the fifth worst state. The state’s unfunded
pension debt decreased slightly thanks in part
to the economic recovery, but the estimated
amount of money Massachusetts needs to cover the
health care benefits promised state employees
when they retire increased by more than $3.5
billion.
On top of the
Massachusetts being ranked #5 in the highest state &
local tax collections per capita (Tax Foundation,
Facts and Figures, 2019), and tied for 43rd-latest
to reach "Tax
Freedom Day" this year — each and every
Massachusetts taxpayer carries a personal
share of the state's $87 billion debt: Every
taxpayer owes an additional $33,500 that nobody's
mentioned.
And that
doesn't include what is owed by your municipal
government
— and you.
Happy
Independence Day, folks. One of my pet peeves for
a very long time has been hearing tomorrow's national
holiday referred to as "The 4th of July." That's
like wishing someone a "Merry December 25th" instead of
Merry Christmas! July 4 each year is the date on
which we celebrate the fledgling USA's Declaration of
Independence in 1776. Happy Independence Day!
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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The Boston Globe
Monday, July 1, 2019
The state doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has
a spending problem
By Glen Johnson
While lawmakers meet behind closed doors to
finalize the coming year’s state budget — and
confront a set of problems compounding in an
existential crisis — a few basic facts should be
considered.
It took our state 220 years, from the first
governorship of John Hancock to the Y2K computer
turnover, to reach
a budget totaling $20 billion.
In just the past 20 years, though, that figure
has doubled, to
more than $42 billion.
During that same span, the state population has
increased just 8.7 percent.
All told, we’re now spending over 100 percent
more money to service fewer than 10 percent more
people.
Massachusetts doesn’t have a revenue problem. It
has a spending problem, affected by inflation
and rising — in some cases, skyrocketing —
costs, of course, but also its budget decisions.
The Commonwealth has lived up to its name by
providing a strong social safety net. It’s spent
more in recent decades to boost its public
schools, launch the health insurance program
that became the model for Obamacare, and support
newcomers and the less fortunate with food,
housing, and education assistance programs.
At the same time, the state has been plagued by
public-sector mismanagement: excessive salaries
for government workers, especially in the
higher-ed and public safety arenas; lavish
pension programs perpetuating that pay for
decades of retirement; and questionable
oversight of things as basic as the quality of
concrete used in the Big Dig.
Massachusetts now finds itself confronted with
that unenviable budget math, as the State House
News Service recently reported. About half of
its spending is consumed by three areas:
MassHealth, the health care program serving
seniors, children, and low-income residents that
consumes over $16 billion alone; public-employee
pensions; and payments on its existing debt.
All the other services provided by the state
must come from the remaining pie.
The numbers underscore the challenge of
defeating the three-headed monster now
confronting us.
• Housing costs statewide have become
astronomical, with $4,400 monthly rents in
Boston’s Seaport and record prices elsewhere.
• Workers living in the suburbs can’t drive into
the city efficiently because of clogged highways
and a backlog of maintenance to key connectors
such as the Tobin Bridge.
• And commuters relying on or heeding advice to
use public transportation have found it
terminally unreliable, as shown during the
winter of 2015 or the recent Green and Red Line
derailments.
How can Boston, the capital and economic engine
of Massachusetts, continue to function if people
priced out of the city can’t get there from
elsewhere?
A conundrum has turned into a crisis.
Housing is a challenge because every owner has
the inherent right to get as much for their
property as possible. But the city and state
have leverage through their permitting powers to
force developers into providing more affordable
units than already required.
Health care is a vital job sector for
Massachusetts, but its leaders need to be
convinced to control costs so that runaway
problem can be reined in. Governor Baker was
once one of them and can speak their language.
Roads, bridges, and the T suffer from decades of
neglect and underfunding, but just drive across
the New Hampshire border and you’ll find
highways without potholes, medians that are
mowed, and breakdown lanes free of trash. Those
fundamentals are not beyond the Bay State’s
capacity.
And if you want to see what really can be, go to
Logan Airport and get on Cathay Pacific’s
15-hour nonstop flight to Hong Kong. When you
land, you’ll board an automated train connecting
the airport to Kowloon in 24 minutes.
You can then fly on, as my wife and I did in
March, to Beijing and tour a city with over 30
times more people than Boston that still moves
its masses with a dated-but-functional subway
system. And connects them to the rest of the
country with new 200 mile-per-hour trains.
The reflex from our political leaders can’t be
MBTA fare hikes like the one set to take place
on Monday, desperately needed as the money may
be.
The first move shouldn’t be tax hikes to pay for
new education spending, as some lawmakers
latched on to after a recent Suffolk University
poll.
Instead, government leaders at all levels —
local, state, and federal — need to think fresh
about how they can provide core services
underpinning the fundamentals of our economy.
The $50 million emergency MBTA transfer the
governor announced Tuesday is a start; his
five-year, $8 billion influx announced last
August is a painfully slower help, aimed at
completing repairs and upgrades by 2032.
People need to be able to afford a home, commute
to work, and get to school, the grocery store,
and a doctor as efficiently as possible.
Additional services can be provided, improved,
or expanded from there.
And the public would probably be more inclined
to support a tax increase when the top-paid
state employee list isn’t filled with workers
making five to 10 times the average citizen.
The senators and representatives behind those
closed doors on Beacon Hill, as well as the
governor in the State House corner office, have
double the money available just 20 years ago.
Boston, its suburbs, and the rest of
Massachusetts would benefit if they had the
wisdom and political courage to focus first on
half the problems.
Glen Johnson is a former Globe political
reporter who covered the State House for eight
years.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Once again, Mass. is one of the last states not
to have a budget
By Victoria McGrane
There is no shortage of vexing problems facing
Massachusetts government these days: The MBTA is
in constant crisis. Housing is increasingly
unaffordable in Boston and beyond. And the state
is being sued for failing to provide minority
children with a decent education.
But don’t look to the Legislature for any kind
of immediate action. Its leaders are not
planning to tackle most of these key policy
debates until later in the year — at the
earliest — and they’ve also just blown through
their July 1 deadline to finish their most
fundamental task: crafting a budget.
For the ninth year in a row, the Legislature had
to pass a stopgap spending measure to keep state
government running. And it’s not as if budget
writers have to slog through tough debates about
where to cut spending: Tax revenues are pouring
in far in excess of estimates.
Other states manage to do more — in some cases,
much more. Forty-two states have enacted budgets
for fiscal 2020 already, according to the
National Association of State Budget Officers.
In fact, Massachusetts is one of just two states
with a fiscal year starting July 1 where the
Legislature has not passed an annual spending
plan yet. (The other is Ohio.)
Beacon Hill leadership says behind-the-scenes
work is happening on several fronts, including
an overhaul of the state’s troubled education
funding formula and proposals to pump more money
into the beleaguered public transportation
system. House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo recently
described the latter as a “crisis” after
Governor Charlie Baker announced his request for
$50 million in additional revenue to speed up
fixes to the MBTA.
“So far this session, the House has passed major
pieces of legislation to fund state services,
keep our roads safe, raise revenue, invest in
our roads and bridges, support farmers, put in
place consumer protections and create safeguards
for workers, among other items,” DeLeo said in a
statement.
“The Senate has been working diligently since
January, and will continue its collaborative
process to craft bold, actionable solutions to
the challenges facing the Commonwealth,” said
state Senate President Karen Spilka.
In several cases, bills that have passed one
chamber are awaiting further action elsewhere on
Beacon Hill. The Legislature has sent only a
handful of meaningful measures to Baker’s desk
so far this year, according to a Globe review.
He’s taken action on 30 bills, but only two of
these qualify as meaty policy matters — a ban on
so-called gay conversion therapy for minors, and
the repeal of a policy precluding families
receiving welfare benefits from getting
additional assistance when another child is
born. Lawmakers passed the latter over Baker’s
veto.
Lawmakers and other Beacon Hill defenders argue
bills sent to Baker’s desk are not the only
yardstick by which to gauge the Legislature’s
productivity. The start of the two-year
legislative session is typically dominated by
hearings, of which more than 100 have happened
to date.
For comparison, in their six-month legislative
session that ended earlier this month, New York
legislators not only completed a $175.5 billion
budget, they hammered out deals on more than a
dozen consequential policy issues. Governor
Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, approved stronger
rental laws and protections for undocumented
immigrants, moved to eliminate almost all
greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and overhauled
the state’s voting laws and the Legislature’s
own ethics rules, among other measures.
“A sense of jealousy and a sense of serious
anger,” is how former state representative Jay
R. Kaufman said he felt reading a recent New
York Times editorial praising all the New York
Assembly accomplished this year. “A comparable
editorial cannot be written about the
Massachusetts Legislature,” said Kaufman, who
left Beacon Hill after 24 years to start a
nonprofit focused on leadership training for the
public sector.
Some items are nearing the finish line on Beacon
Hill. Both chambers have passed legislation this
year banning the use of mobile devices while
driving. The House and Senate also each passed
bills to bolster organized labor. In both cases,
lawmakers still must work out differences in
conference committee.
They also recently approved a constitutional
amendment to raise income taxes on millionaires
— the first procedural step to putting the
proposal on the ballot, something that would
happen, at the earliest, in 2022.
In Beacon Hill’s biennial rhythm, the season for
hard-nosed negotiation and horse trading on the
big, complicated matters typically comes in the
second year — with the hard deadline at the
session’s end.
At the close of the previous two-year session,
lawmakers struck a so-called grand bargain that
combined a $15 minimum wage and a paid family
and medical leave program with a permanent sales
tax holiday and overtime changes. (Legislative
action only came, though, after progressive
activists and business interests had secured
separate ballot measures on their respective
priorities.)
Lawmakers and others point to the complexity of
the state’s almost $43 billion budget and stress
the importance of getting it done right, not
fast — especially since the stopgap spending
measure means there’s no practical consequences
to a delay of a few weeks’ time.
On Monday, Baker told reporters he is unbothered
by the Legislature’s repeated budget tardiness.
Passing a temporary budget to let lawmakers have
more time “usually ends up producing a better
product then simply getting there by June 30,”
he said.
And several outside advocates said they’re
optimistic Beacon Hill will prove able to finish
legislation on key policy fronts during the
session, which ends next year.
“I actually give high marks to the Legislature
this session because there’s been a clear
acknowledgment of the need to act decisively on
our transportation crisis, and it is a crisis,”
said former state transportation secretary James
Aloisi. While they may not have the details
worked out, both DeLeo and Spilka have indicated
“action is not just warranted but necessary.
That alone gives me a lot of hope that the
Legislature intends to step up and do something
significant” this session, he said.
DeLeo has said the House plans to take up a tax
package this fall to help fund transportation.
House and Senate education chairs are meeting
regularly to hash out a consensus on revamping
the state’s antiquated education funding
formula, which they hope to unveil before
lawmakers scatter for August vacations.
The timeline for other high-profile initiatives
remains murky — including legislation pushed by
Baker that would make it easier for cities and
towns to change zoning to allow new housing.
Another Patriots season is set to start without
Massachusetts allowing legal wagers, a year
after the Supreme Court cleared the way for
states to have sports betting — while a dozen
other states, including Rhode Island, have
charged ahead.
Even mundane matters can move at a sluggish
pace. Lawmakers did not finish a $200 million
borrowing bill for municipal road repairs until
June, taking five weeks longer to pass the
annual measure than they did last year,
according to State House News Service, even
though the borrowing level has remained
essentially unchanged since 2012.
“It’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel. . .
. This is the same thing over and over again,”
said Franklin’s director of public works, Robert
Cantoreggi.
Passing the annual road repair bill after March
makes it harder for many cities and towns to
plan their construction projects and can drive
up costs, because so many municipalities are
trying to hire a limited pool of contractors in
a compressed amount of time, he said. The House
transportation committee chairman, William
Straus, said he disagrees that the timing of the
bill had a negative impact on any cities and
towns.
But Cantoreggi said the process for authorizing
these funds “could be a lot more efficient, but
that’s Beacon Hill.”
State House News
Service
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Lawmakers breaking for holiday without budget
deal
By Colin A. Young
Unable to agree on an annual state budget by the
July 1 deadline, House and Senate Democrats are
breaking for the Fourth of July holiday and now
hoping that a budget deal might come next week.
After holding sessions open Tuesday while
waiting to see if a budget accord emerged, the
House and Senate adjourned early Tuesday
afternoon and called for informal sessions
Wednesday.
After the session, Second Assistant Majority
Leader Rep. Paul Donato of Medford told the News
Service the House is not expecting the budget
conference committee to file its report this
week.
Sen. Patricia Jehlen of Somerville, who gaveled
out Tuesday's Senate session, also said any
consideration of a budget deal, if one is
reached, will take place next week.
Donato said the House is hopeful that the four
Democrats and two Republicans on the conference
committee -- led by Sen. Michael Rodrigues and
Rep. Aaron Michlewitz -- will continue talks
through the Fourth of July holiday and coming
weekend.
Legislative leaders say negotiators are making
progress but there's no tangible evidence of
that since the committee is meeting privately
and won't discuss what they've agreed upon or
what's holding up a final deal.
The budget bills contain many similarities but
take different approaches in key areas,
including school aid, prescription drug price
controls, a tuition and fee freeze at the
University of Massachusetts, aid to the
struggling nursing home industry, and new taxes
on vaping products and opioid manufacturers.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has also
speculated that the conference committee members
"are likely to revisit" tax revenue assumptions
because fiscal 2019 revenues have vastly
outpaced projections, however, legislative
leaders have not given voice to revisiting tax
estimates.
Of the 46 states that started the new fiscal
year Monday, only two are still waiting for
their Legislature to finalize a fiscal 2020
budget -- Massachusetts and Ohio, according to
the National Association of State Budget
Officers.
There are five other states where the
Legislature has passed a final budget but it has
not yet taken effect. Three states -- Oregon,
Rhode Island and Wisconsin -- were awaiting the
governor’s action on the budget as of Monday and
the governors of New Hampshire and North
Carolina have vetoed the final budget passed by
lawmakers, according to NASBO.
In New Hampshire, lawmakers have passed a
resolution to keep the Granite State's
government operating at present funding levels
through Oct. 1.
A $5 billion interim budget that Lt. Gov. Karyn
Polito signed last Thursday is keeping state
government operations going and administration
officials said that funding is sufficient for
the month of July.
The missed budget deadline did not bother
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who said on
Monday that extra time at the negotiating table
can ultimately result in a better budget.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester
Republican, said he was "accepting" of giving
the conference committee a little extra time if
it's going to mean progress, for instance,
toward wringing out prescription drug expenses
from the state's Medicaid program.
"It's certainly something that I'm concerned
about but I'm not alarmed about it yet," he
said. "Obviously we're into the beginning of the
new fiscal year. We need to get a budget done
soon. If it takes a little bit longer to get it
done right and deal with some of the major
policy issues, like how we're going to deal with
reducing the cost of prescription drugs, I'm
patient about that."
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance on Tuesday
rejected the notion that a later budget is a
better budget and said "lawmakers look petty and
desperate" by trying to justify their inability
to meet a deadline.
"While legislative leaders defend their
tardiness, MassFiscal would like to remind the
public that a late budget usually results in a
far less transparent process," spokesman Paul
Craney said in a statement. "House and Senate
legislative leaders will rush to pass this
budget very quickly after its released. It's a
tactic leadership has been relying on to move
their agenda and keep the public in the dark."
As for how long Tarr is willing to wait, the
minority leader said his patience won't last
forever.
"We do at some point need the certainty and the
stability of having a state budget that will
carry us through the fiscal year. That's a
balance and right now I think the balance has
not been disrupted but certainly if this goes on
a lot longer then it will be concerning," he
said.
Last year, Massachusetts was the last state in
the country to have its annual budget in place.
—Michael P. Norton and Matt Murphy
contributed to this report.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
State looks to double cremation ‘view fee’
By Matt Stout
The state’s chief medical examiner’s office
wants to double the fee it charges next of kin
for it to examine a body before it’s cremated,
providing a potential budget boon that funeral
directors worry comes on the backs of grieving
loved ones.
The proposal, which officials expect to put in
place by August, would hike from $100 to $200
the fee the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
charges to visually inspect every body set to be
cremated.
With an estimated 30,000 views a year, the
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner would stand
to collect $6 million annually — or twice the $3
million that the fee currently generates,
officials said. Officials notified lawmakers
last month of the proposed increase, which
doesn’t require a change in law to go into
effect.
But the hike has stirred frustration among some
funeral directors, who argue a 100 percent
increase will only further tax the growing
number of families who’ve opted against
traditional burials.
In a four-year span, the number of cremation
views the medical examiner’s office processed
spiked 25 percent, topping 29,200 in fiscal year
2018, records show. And that additional $100
would come on top of the thousands of others
dollars a funeral can typically cost.
“I think it’s going to be a big expense for the
families, especially people who have limited
income,” said Paul Phaneuf, owner of St. Pierre-Phaneuf
Funeral Chapels. “When you raise something 100
percent, people will take a look and say, ‘Wow,
that’s substantial.’ Unfortunately, the consumer
is not going to have any choice in it.”
State officials argue the fee hasn’t increased
in 10 years, and that the extra revenue would go
toward a range of initiatives, from helping pay
salaries of newly hired medical examiners to
covering the costs of expanding the hours at its
Cape Cod facility, from five days a week to
seven.
The agency also launched a new online portal in
January to help it better communicate with
funeral homes, and this fall, intends to open a
long-delayed, $15 million facility in Westfield,
which will operates 24 hours a day and replace
its office in Holyoke and borrowed space it uses
in Worcester.
The fee hike is in addition to the nearly $12
million in state funding the office is expected
to receive next fiscal year, itself a $2 million
boost from two years ago.
“The OCME is committed to providing the highest
level of medico-legal services available,” said
Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Executive Office
of Public Safety and Security, which oversees
the chief medical examiner.
The office plans to take feedback on the
proposal at a July 19 public hearing at One
Ashburton Place, but whether it could be
persuaded to back off is unclear. Eric Hogberg,
the office’s general counsel, told lawmakers in
a June 11 letter that the office expects the
increase to go into effect within 60 days, or
mid-August. State statute says the fee must only
be at least $75.
The agency, which last month learned it would
keep its newly won accreditation despite
slipping performance, has support within the
industry, too. Adrianne Faggas — president of
the Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association,
which represents nearly 500 establishments —
said she and other funeral directors met with
state officials months ago to discuss the
increase, which she considers “long overdue.”
“The increase will help with many improvements
to medical legal services that they provide to
families of the commonwealth,” Faggas, the
funeral director for Faggas Funeral Home in
Watertown, said in an e-mail.
David Brezniak, of Brezniak-Rodman Funeral
Directors in Newton, argued the rising number of
cremations also creates demands for more views
and administrative work.
“I know there probably are funeral directors who
are upset about it,” he said. “But it’s the cost
of providing services to the public. The amount
of cremations has steadily increased over the
last 10, 15 years. We’re almost hitting new
territory.”
The proposal, however, has inflamed other
criticisms about the fee system. Performing
cremation views is designed, in part, to ensure
the office does some type of investigation into
deaths before a body is cremated.
But even in cases of violent deaths, which
typically prompt a more intensive autopsy, next
of kin who choose to cremate the body once it’s
released from the medical examiner are still
required to pay a cremation view fee. It’s a
practice that’s chaffed some funeral directors,
who argue it amounts to charging families for
work already performed under the medical
examiner’s primary responsibilities.
“They’re looking for revenue enhancement,” said
Peter Stefan, funeral director and owner of
Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in
Worcester.
“Why do they need any money for a viewing when
it’s already been viewed in the original
investigation? And now you want to raise it to
$200? They can go to hell.”
Officials noted that under state law, the view,
and its attached fee, is required for “any
person whose body is intended for cremation.”
Stefan, however, argued that if the office needs
an infusion of cash, state officials should
consider using some of the budget surplus
they’re expected to reap this year. Tax revenues
were tracking $952 million above projections at
the close of May.
“Don’t go looking to the public to pay more,”
Stefan said.
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