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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 10, 2019
Still no
budget but dysfunction abounds
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Actions have consequences, no question about
it. But inaction has consequences too. And the inability of
Massachusetts lawmakers to agree — in a timely fashion — on
the policy details of a $42.7 billion budget for the fiscal
year that began July 1 can indeed have an impact down the
road....
Meanwhile, Moody’s, the credit rating
agency, sent out a timely reminder last week to the handful
of states beginning the fiscal year without a full-year
budget in place that “late budgets are a sign of governance
weakness, which, in extreme cases, can be negative for state
credit quality.”
It also noted that for Massachusetts it has
pretty much become standard procedure. The state has not
produced an on-time budget since 2010. While a few states —
including New Hampshire and Rhode Island — don’t have a
final budget because they are still wrestling with
gubernatorial vetoes, only Massachusetts and Ohio have
failed to actually pass a budget.
As Moody’s noted, “Late budgets can also
expose local governments and other downstream entities to an
interruption in state payments.”
Cities and towns do indeed wait for the
final word on school funding, and hundreds of programs big
and small — mental health programs, or nursing homes
struggling to keep their doors open — await final word on
whether the fiscal year already in progress will be a lean
one or one that will allow growth and expansion....
Governor Charlie Baker has put his usual
not-to-worry spin on the situation, insisting that the
extended budget negotiation “usually ends up producing a
better product then simply getting there by June 30.” Easy
for him to say — he’s got a line-item veto.
These budget negotiations began June 5, so
seriously — it’s time to bring this one to a close. Those
whose futures rise or fall based on that budget are entitled
to know its final direction.
A Boston Globe editorial
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
State budgeteers get a warning shot
The fiscal 2020 budget and distracted
driving bills remained under negotiation Wednesday morning
as clerks said that neither conference committee had filed
its report overnight.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo on Tuesday
updated the potential House schedule for this week, advising
members to also be ready for a potential formal session on
Friday, should conference committees reach consensus.
State House News Service
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Budget, driving bills remain in conference committees
By Michael P. Norton
The Senate held its session open for less
than an hour Wednesday before gaveling out for a third
straight day when it became apparent that an overdue state
budget deal is still not ready. A Republican did not even
enter the chamber until midway through a recess in
Wednesday's session, which saw the Senate congratulate Eagle
Scouts and discharge two bills to committees. Senators plan
another informal session Thursday.
State House News Service
Senate Session - Wednesday, July 10, 2019
By Chris Lisinski
In virtually every state of the union, the
new fiscal year began on July 1, and in virtually every
state of the union, the legislature passed a budget before
the deadline arrived. Only in Massachusetts and Ohio have
lawmakers failed to put together a spending bill to fund the
government for the next 12 months. The nonfeasance in both
cases is egregious — crafting a budget, after all, is the
legislature’s most important task.
But the reaction in the two states could
hardly be more different.
In Ohio, this is the first time since 2009
that lawmakers have failed to adopt an operating budget on
time. The state’s Republican governor and legislative
leadership have expressed chagrin and frustration at their
failure to get the job done. Leaders of the Democratic
minority have excoriated the legislature for a “dereliction
of duty that would get most working Ohioans sent to the
unemployment line.”
But in Massachusetts, that dereliction of
duty is taken for granted. Lawmakers elsewhere may do their
jobs, but Beacon Hill can’t be bothered with anything as
humdrum as finalizing a budget. This is the ninth
year in a row that the Legislature has ignored its
obligation to have a budget in place by July 1. The Bay
State’s political class couldn’t care less....
Governor Charlie Baker, a nominal Republican
and former corporate executive, might have been expected to
take fiscal deadlines more seriously, but he merely shrugs.
“I don’t have a problem with the budget being a week or two
late,” he told reporters last week. If it ends up being a
month or two late, he won’t have a problem with that either.
“Some years the budget lands on June 22, some years it lands
on July 22, some years it lands on Aug. 22,” he said
serenely in 2017. “The Commonwealth still manages to find a
way to function.” ...
In the real world, there is a price to be
paid for disregarding deadlines. But politicians on Beacon
Hill operate in a world of make-believe: They pretend to be
“working diligently” and voters pretend to believe them.
Paid a handsome salary for being “full-time
legislators,” most members of the Massachusetts General
Court have no discernible impact on legislation. There are
200 state senators and representatives, but just six of
them, meeting secretly as a conference committee, will
decide on the makeup of the fiscal 2020 budget. When that
budget is finally released, it will be rubber-stamped within
a few hours, then sent to Baker for his signature. No
lawmaker will bother to read the budget. There will be only
a handful of dissenting votes. Like characters aboard the
H.M.S. Pinafore, Massachusetts legislators always vote at
their party’s call, and never think of thinking for
themselves at all.
Why should they? Virtually every one is sure
to cruise to reelection next year.
Lawmakers in this state have always been an
embarrassment to democratic self-government. “In
Massachusetts the worst men get into the Legislature,”
Elbridge Gerry told the Constitutional Convention of 1787;
the State House was a place where “men of indigence,
ignorance, and baseness spare no pains, however dirty, to
carry their point.” Now there are women to go along with the
men, but otherwise not much has changed.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Bay State lawmakers blow off their deadline. So what else is
new?
By Jeff Jacoby Globe
Democratic leaders declared their
independence from deadlines this week as they cruised into
the new fiscal year without a 12-month budget in place and
heard barely a whisper of criticism from Republicans for
their lateness.
The Registry of Motor Vehicles, however,
could not avoid negative attention. . . .
State House News Service
Friday, July 5, 2019
Weekly Roundup - You've got mail
Hundreds more drivers have had their
Massachusetts licenses suspended as a result of a review of
the state's mishandling of out-of-state violation notices as
Gov. Charlie Baker and his top transportation adviser
announced Friday a "reprioritization" of public safety at
the RMV.
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack
said that the licenses of 330 more drivers had been
suspended since Monday, bringing the total number of drivers
flagged to 846 and the total number of missed notices for
serious infractions to 1,108....
"The lapses discovered at the registry are
unacceptable and the consequences of these lapses have had
tragic outcomes," Baker said at a Friday afternoon press
conference, called on a quiet day at the capitol after the
Fourth of July holiday.
Baker said the RMV serves "both an important
customer service role and a critical public safety role,"
but is falling short in that dual mission....
"It's clear there's an immediate need to
reprioritize public safety across the organization," Baker
said....
Pollack said she has also decided to
immediately create a new senior, deputy registrar position
at the RMV focused on safety, and has already started
recruiting for the role.
The Registry of Motor Vehicles' failure to
review tens of thousands of out-of-state violation notices
came to light after it was discovered that the commercial
drivers license of a 23-year-old West Springfield man should
have been suspended before he allegedly crashed his truck
into a group of motorcyclists in New Hampshire last month,
killing seven.
State House News Service
Friday, July 5, 2019
License suspensions piling in wake of Registry failures
As the state again begins a new fiscal year
without a permanent budget, credit rating agency Moody’s
said Massachusetts’ late budgets, along with six other
states in similar situations, are a sign of “governance
weakness.”
“Late budgets are common in Massachusetts,”
according to Moody’s, which released its three-page report
Wednesday. The state’s fiscal year began July 1.
A year ago, Massachusetts was the last state
without a permanent spending plan by the time one finally
reached the desk of Gov. Charlie Baker and was signed by him
on July 26....
Lawmakers broke Wednesday for the July
Fourth holiday weekend, but legislative leaders say
negotiators are making progress.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Moody’s: Massachusetts’ late budget a sign of ‘governance
weakness’
The governor and House speaker each have a
similar plan to provide $1 billion over 10 years to help
cities and towns prepare for and adjust to climate change,
though the speaker wants to borrow the money while the
governor is proposing a specific tax increase to fund his
program. At a hearing Monday, activists and lawmakers
suggested a third option -- how about doing both?
Gov. Charlie Baker's bill (S 10) would raise
the state's real estate transfer tax to generate as much as
$137 million a year to protect properties and help cities
and towns cope with climate change impacts, while House
Speaker Robert DeLeo's bill (H 3941) would borrow the money
and make the 20 years of debt payments exempt from the
state's statutory debt ceiling....
Alexandra Schluntz of [Conservation Law
Foundation] encouraged the Legislature to study and support
other funding proposals alongside DeLeo's bill.
"The magnitude of the challenges the
commonwealth faces will require significant resources beyond
those proposed in this bill," she said. "GreenWorks and S 10
are complementary approaches and we need all hands on deck."
...
"Regardless of how much money we are
authorized to borrow or regardless of whether or not there
is a cap, climate adaptation in the next 20 to 30 years is
going to require more funding than we can imagine and it's
going to require a diversity of funding sources," [Steve
Long, government relations director for The Nature
Conservancy] said Monday. "There may be times when our
economy has its ups and downs when bonding might not be as
available as it is now."
Since 1989, the state has had a statutory
limit in place to cap the total amount of outstanding direct
state debt. The limit automatically increases by 5 percent
each year and is fixed at $25.2 billion for the current
fiscal year. As of Feb. 28, the state had approximately
$27.44 billion in outstanding direct debt, according to
state financial statements published in April, about $21.61
billion of which is subject to the debt limit.
"I believe that it should be through
bonding, by and large, because I think it's a good
approach," House Bonding Committee Chair Antonio Cabral
said. "It doesn't mean I will not entertain other ways to
find other sources of revenue to continue working on this
and to expand the work, but I think it's a solid approach as
long as we are serious about looking at the cap and what can
be spent outside of that cap."
Rep. David Vieira [R-Falmouth], the ranking
minority member of the House Bonding Committee and a member
of the state's Capital Debt Affordability Committee, said he
would not be OK with exempting $1 billion of borrowing from
the state's bond cap unless the Legislature also implements
a way to generate an equal amount of new revenue....
"I mean, here we are a few weeks after the
deadline, being the last state in the country to approve a
budget. Moody's smacked us a few years ago because we
weren't making the consolidated net surplus transfers into
the stabilization fund and now we're looking at potentially
exempting a billion dollars worth of bonding without a
revenue source to support it," he said.
State House News Service
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Climate activists recommend tax-and-borrow approach
House Speaker Robert DeLeo met with the
House chairmen of the ways and means, revenue and
transportation committees for about two hours Wednesday
morning to sketch out the broad transportation financing
package expected to get a vote in the House this fall.
As congestion on the roads and unreliable
service on public transportation test the patience of
commuters and residents, DeLeo has indicated that he is open
to tax hikes or just about any other policy prescription to
address the state's critical transportation needs....
The current debate over transportation comes
six years after Beacon Hill Democrats passed their last tax
plan to pay for transportation, which was supposed to bring
in $805 million for the system by fiscal year 2018 and
generate $500 million in new revenue each year.
"This bill meets the real and immediate
needs of our transportation system while minimizing the
impact on our businesses and families," DeLeo said on June
26, 2013. "I am confident that we now have the resources to
fund a healthy transportation system and build our economy."
Key components of the package were soon
stripped. The Legislature later that year repealed its tax
on software services, and voters in 2014 rejected a
provision that indexed the gas tax to inflation. Straus said
Wednesday that the House's consideration of a new
transportation financing bill is not an acknowledgment that
the 2013 law was insufficient...
Though the Senate's timeline for considering
transportation financing is unclear -- Senate President
Karen Spilka has appointed a working group to recommend
sweeping tax policy changes for the 2021-2022 session --
Straus said Wednesday that the House will take up its own
plan before the calendar flips.
"Certainly this year," he said when asked
about the timing for consideration of the bill. "It's a
two-year session, but the speaker has been clear that this
is going to be dealt with this year, at least in the House."
State House News Service
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
DeLeo, chairs huddle to talk transportation fixes
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Okay, I
surrender. I've been holding off with a new Update
expecting the FY 2020 budget would be finalized by now.
Since it's still a work in progress with an unknown
delivery date, one of only two states still without a
budget, I guess we need an update.
On July 2
— a Tuesday — the Legislature
recessed for the approaching Independence Day holiday
and a long, extended weekend. They expected to
return to work and a budget out of conference committee
on Monday, July 8. Still no budget in sight.
Now they're holding out hope for maybe Friday — maybe
not. Hey, no rush folks, nothing to see here.
Everyone of both parties on Beacon Hill is in lockstep,
from the lowest freshman legislator to the governor all
are in agreement on something for a change: An
acceptable budget simply cannot be achieved in
Massachusetts by the statutory deadline, and the past
nine years proves that.
That six days off wasn't vacation
time. That comes next month for a very extended
period that you and I will never experience until
retirement. Meanwhile the fat salaries continue
being paid to members of "The Best Legislature Money Can
Buy" — the alleged full-time Legislature.
That's not to say nothing at all
is being done on Bacon Hill. The scheme to spend a
billion taxpayer dollars on "climate adaptation"
("adaptation" is now the operative word, "mitigation"
has become obsolete) is undergoing its own "adaption."
Whether it is to be funded through taxation (Gov.
Baker's plan) or borrowing (House Speaker DeLeo's
scheme), a solution has been struck among some:
Both tax and borrow, and spend more.
Only in Massachusetts is this
considered somehow a compromise between Baker's "climate
adaptation" bill and DeLeo's "climate adaptation" bill.
The utterly dysfunctional and
disgraced Registry of Motor Vehicles is imploding.
Despite raking in more cash from fees than most if not
any other state agency, still it cannot perform its
basic function, its alleged purpose: public
safety.
In the CLT Update of Feb. 1, 2014
("State
revenue hikes now unilaterally imposed by MassDOT")
I noted:
When reading about all the transportation
department boondoggles over the past month, I
wondered how the Massachusetts Department of
Transportation (MassDOT) was going to pay for
all the giveaways.
Now
we know: through the state's cash-cow slush
fund, the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Last year's major state transportation bill
swept $51 million in surplus fee revenues from
the state's motor vehicle inspection "trust
fund" through MassDOT over to the MBTA to help
bail-out its budget crisis. "The Registry
collected $550 million in revenue in 2013,
including $134 million in motor vehicle
inspection fees," according to the State House
News Service. Now the MassDOT wants to hike the
vehicle inspection fee -- an arbitrary decision
which it now apparently controls -- to rake in
even more.
In his May 1, 2014 Boston Herald
column ("Either
way, you pay") Howie Carr added:
By
the way, it’s not just the gasoline tax that
pays for roads and bridges.
Ever hear of the automobile excise tax? Or the
6.25 percent sales tax on automobiles bought in
the commonwealth? How about the tolls? And don’t
forget the Registry of Motor Vehicles — an
agency that costs $60 million to run, and brings
in $600 million or so every year.
"[A]n agency that costs $60
million to run, and brings in $600 million or so every
year."
That's a $540 million excess
profit on its $60 million operating cost, but the cash
cow RMV can't handle even its most basic functions.
Only in Massachusetts is this
possible — until it was exposed.
But they have a solution.
Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack
will "immediately create a new senior, deputy registrar
position at the RMV focused on safety, and has already
started recruiting for the role."
Gov. Charlie
Baker is satisfied with another "nationwide search" for
an additional bureaucrat to accomplish what all the
others are incapable of providing: "Secretary
Pollack continues to have the full confidence of this
administration."
Pollock is in
charge of the collapsing MBTA as well.
Meanwhile in the shadows
House Speaker Robert DeLeo is quietly meeting with his
lieutenants to plot a "broad transportation financing
package expected to get a vote in the House this fall."
He is "open to tax hikes or just about any other policy
prescription."
Hang onto your
wallets folks and suit up for battle. Despite
budget spending they intend to increase by another
billion taxpayers' dollars —
another Bay State "tradition" — and despite
recent billion dollar annual revenue surpluses
— they're coming at
taxpayers again, for more.
More for
"climate adaption," more for "transportation
infrastructure" — more,
more, always more.
Will voters
ever decide that enough is enough and change the
players, finally wake up and throw the bums out, save
the commonwealth while something remains that's worth
salvaging?
The situation
has become akin to the "battered-wife syndrome."
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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The Boston
Globe
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
A Boston Globe editorial
State budgeteers get a warning shot
Actions have consequences, no question about it.
But inaction has consequences too. And the
inability of Massachusetts lawmakers to agree —
in a timely fashion — on the policy details of a
$42.7 billion budget for the fiscal year that
began July 1 can indeed have an impact down the
road.
Sure, there’s no immediate crisis — a stopgap $5
billion appropriation temporarily keeps state
government afloat, while a six-member
House-Senate conference committee continues to
meet behind closed doors to iron out their
differences.
Meanwhile, Moody’s, the credit rating agency,
sent out a timely reminder last week to the
handful of states beginning the fiscal year
without a full-year budget in place that “late
budgets are a sign of governance weakness,
which, in extreme cases, can be negative for
state credit quality.”
It also noted that for Massachusetts it has
pretty much become standard procedure. The state
has not produced an on-time budget since 2010.
While a few states — including New Hampshire and
Rhode Island — don’t have a final budget because
they are still wrestling with gubernatorial
vetoes, only Massachusetts and Ohio have failed
to actually pass a budget.
As Moody’s noted, “Late budgets can also expose
local governments and other downstream entities
to an interruption in state payments.”
Cities and towns do indeed wait for the final
word on school funding, and hundreds of programs
big and small — mental health programs, or
nursing homes struggling to keep their doors
open — await final word on whether the fiscal
year already in progress will be a lean one or
one that will allow growth and expansion.
It’s true that there are some important policy
differences in the House and Senate versions of
the budget — differences and initiatives worth
fighting for.
High on that list of policy proposals worth the
fight is the Senate’s approach to controlling
prescription drug costs, especially those paid
for under the state’s Medicaid program. The
Senate proposal has teeth and it has
transparency and, therefore, could save an
estimated $70 million a year. The House version,
well, isn’t even close.
The Senate budget would also add a new tax on
vaping products and on opioid manufacturers —
both items contained in the governor’s budget,
but dropped by the House. The tax on vaping
products is estimated to bring in $24 million a
year but its nonmonetary benefits are as obvious
as they are huge. The opioid excise tax would
generate $14 million that could make a small
dent in the social costs of the epidemic such
drugs have helped spawn.
The different approaches taken to K-12 education
funding by the House and Senate could ultimately
be resolved in the ongoing Education Committee
negotiations over a new funding formula,
although the $50 million boost in Chapter 70
funds in the Senate version could make that a
little easier.
The Senate did, however, go too far with its
attempt to micromanage operations at the
University of Massachusetts by freezing tuition
and fees. Perhaps the warning shot across the
bow of UMass President Marty Meehan is
sufficient.
Both House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz
and his Senate counterpart Michael Rodrigues are
new to their respective leadership posts, but
it’s also true that neither is a novice.
Governor Charlie Baker has put his usual
not-to-worry spin on the situation, insisting
that the extended budget negotiation “usually
ends up producing a better product then simply
getting there by June 30.” Easy for him to say —
he’s got a line-item veto.
These budget negotiations began June 5, so
seriously — it’s time to bring this one to a
close. Those whose futures rise or fall based on
that budget are entitled to know its final
direction.
The Boston
Globe
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Bay State lawmakers blow off their deadline. So
what else is new?
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist
In virtually every state of the union, the new
fiscal year began on July 1, and in virtually
every state of the union, the legislature passed
a budget before the deadline arrived. Only in
Massachusetts and Ohio have lawmakers failed to
put together a spending bill to fund the
government for the next 12 months. The
nonfeasance in both cases is egregious —
crafting a budget, after all, is the
legislature’s most important task.
But the reaction in the two states could hardly
be more different.
In Ohio, this is the first time since 2009 that
lawmakers have failed to adopt an operating
budget on time. The state’s Republican governor
and legislative leadership have expressed
chagrin and frustration at their failure to get
the job done. Leaders of the Democratic minority
have excoriated the legislature for a
“dereliction of duty that would get most working
Ohioans sent to the unemployment line.”
But in Massachusetts, that dereliction of duty
is taken for granted. Lawmakers elsewhere may do
their jobs, but Beacon Hill can’t be bothered
with anything as humdrum as finalizing a budget.
This is the ninth year in a row that the
Legislature has ignored its obligation to have a
budget in place by July 1. The Bay State’s
political class couldn’t care less.
Democratic House speaker Robert DeLeo blithely
acknowledged on Monday that he and his
colleagues are still “haggling” over the budget,
then claimed, ludicrously, that they have “a
proud history of getting things done.” Equally
risible was Senate president Karen Spilka’s
assurance that her chamber “has been working
diligently since January,” despite the absence
of any budget to show for it.
Governor Charlie Baker, a nominal Republican and
former corporate executive, might have been
expected to take fiscal deadlines more
seriously, but he merely shrugs. “I don’t have a
problem with the budget being a week or two
late,” he told reporters last week. If it ends
up being a month or two late, he won’t have a
problem with that either. “Some years the budget
lands on June 22, some years it lands on July
22, some years it lands on Aug. 22,” he said
serenely in 2017. “The Commonwealth still
manages to find a way to function.”
The Commonwealth will also manage to find a way
to function if you flout the deadline for filing
your state income tax returns, but that won’t
shield you from hefty interest charges and late
fees. Your insurance company will manage to find
a way to function if you fail to pay your
homeowner’s or term life premium, but your
coverage will still be cancelled. Visa and
Discover will manage to find a way to function
if you blow off your payment due date by a month
or two, but don’t expect your credit score to
remain unscathed.
In the real world, there is a price to be paid
for disregarding deadlines. But politicians on
Beacon Hill operate in a world of make-believe:
They pretend to be “working diligently” and
voters pretend to believe them.
Paid a handsome salary for being “full-time
legislators,” most members of the Massachusetts
General Court have no discernible impact on
legislation. There are 200 state senators and
representatives, but just six of them, meeting
secretly as a conference committee, will decide
on the makeup of the fiscal 2020 budget. When
that budget is finally released, it will be
rubber-stamped within a few hours, then sent to
Baker for his signature. No lawmaker will bother
to read the budget. There will be only a handful
of dissenting votes. Like characters aboard the
H.M.S. Pinafore, Massachusetts legislators
always vote at their party’s call, and never
think of thinking for themselves at all.
Why should they? Virtually every one is sure to
cruise to reelection next year.
Lawmakers in this state have always been an
embarrassment to democratic self-government. “In
Massachusetts the worst men get into the
Legislature,” Elbridge Gerry told the
Constitutional Convention of 1787; the State
House was a place where “men of indigence,
ignorance, and baseness spare no pains, however
dirty, to carry their point.” Now there are
women to go along with the men, but otherwise
not much has changed.
To subscribe to
Jeff Jacoby's free weekly newsletter, Arguable,
click here
State House News
Service
Friday, July 5, 2019
Weekly Roundup - You've got mail
Recap and analysis of the week in state
government
By Matt Murphy
Democratic leaders declared their independence
from deadlines this week as they cruised into
the new fiscal year without a 12-month budget in
place and heard barely a whisper of criticism
from Republicans for their lateness.
The Registry of Motor Vehicles, however, could
not avoid negative attention.
Gov. Charlie Baker, back from London in time to
celebrate the Fourth of July, called a press
conference Monday to explain how the RMV had let
tens of thousands of warnings from other states
about Massachusetts drivers go unreviewed as the
paper notices were piled into boxes and left in
a Quincy storage room....Regardless of who might
be to blame the RMV lapse, no one was pointing
any fingers over the late fiscal 2020 state
budget.
Baker said he was far more concerned with
legislative leaders working smarter, not faster,
and said he was willing to wait if it meant a
better "work product."
"I don't have a problem with the budget being a
week or two late," Baker said on Monday, the
first day of the new fiscal year.
And legislative negotiators appear ready to put
that statement to the test.
Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Michael Rodrigues
took their deliberations over a nearly $43
billion annual budget into the long holiday
weekend with it looking likely July 9 could be
the earliest the branches get asked to vote on a
compromise plan.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr said at this
point he's "concerned" but not "alarmed," and
House Minority Leader Brad Jones has taken to
mocking the lateness each day on Twitter, but
not threatening much else.
It helps that Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito last week
signed an interim $5 billion budget bill to keep
government running through July. That means
state beaches will be open, food benefits will
be paid and the trains will be running, to the
extent you can count on them any other day.
But after nine straight years of blown July 1
deadlines, it can become desensitizing,
especially with no one threatening a government
shutdown or being punished at the polls for
tardiness.
"We really should be working in a way that tries
to make sure it's the exception and not the
rule, and I would say we're getting closer to
making it the rule instead of the exception,"
Jones said.
STORY OF THE WEEK: At the RMV, it's worse than
we thought.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 5, 2019
License suspensions piling in wake of Registry
failures
By Matt Murphy
Hundreds more drivers have had their
Massachusetts licenses suspended as a result of
a review of the state's mishandling of
out-of-state violation notices as Gov. Charlie
Baker and his top transportation adviser
announced Friday a "reprioritization" of public
safety at the RMV.
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said
that the licenses of 330 more drivers had been
suspended since Monday, bringing the total
number of drivers flagged to 846 and the total
number of missed notices for serious infractions
to 1,108.
The out-of-state notices that have led to the
846 new driving suspensions have been for
violations that include operating under the
influence, refusal to take a breathalyzer or
motor vehicle homicide. New notices arriving
from other states are now being processed within
one business day, Pollack said.
"The lapses discovered at the registry are
unacceptable and the consequences of these
lapses have had tragic outcomes," Baker said at
a Friday afternoon press conference, called on a
quiet day at the capitol after the Fourth of
July holiday.
Baker said the RMV serves "both an important
customer service role and a critical public
safety role," but is falling short in that dual
mission.
"The initial review has revealed that the
organization has struggled to balance the
necessary and appropriate focus, prioritization
and allocation of resources to these two
missions and this has contributed to create an
environment that allowed for the failures that
have since been identified," he said.
"It's clear there's an immediate need to
reprioritize public safety across the
organization," Baker said.
Baker said he is working on legislation to make
the state's commercial driving license
requirements "more stringent," and he and
Pollack said the administration has hired Grant
Thornton, a national auditing and accounting
firm, to investigate why the RMV in March 2018
appears to have stopped regularly reviewing
out-of-state violation notices.
Auditors have already met with members of the
staff, Pollack said, and will be on site Monday
to begin the review with plans to issue a 30-day
interim report and a final report within 60
days. Their investigation will include an
examination of the processes in place at the RMV
for reviewing out-of-state notices and
recommendations on how to overhaul the agency,
Baker said.
Pollack said she has also decided to immediately
create a new senior, deputy registrar position
at the RMV focused on safety, and has already
started recruiting for the role.
The Registry of Motor Vehicles' failure to
review tens of thousands of out-of-state
violation notices came to light after it was
discovered that the commercial drivers license
of a 23-year-old West Springfield man should
have been suspended before he allegedly crashed
his truck into a group of motorcyclists in New
Hampshire last month, killing seven.
Information provided by the state of Connecticut
about Volodymyr Zhukovskyy's driving history
should have triggered an automatic license
suspension, but went unprocessed by the RMV.
After RMV Registrar Erin Deveney resigned last
week in the fallout from the New Hampshire
crash, Baker and Pollack on Monday revealed that
the RMV had found thousands of unreviewed
notices from other states collected in 53 mail
bins in a Quincy storage room.
Pollack said Friday that over the course of week
staff had searched every RMV occupied office and
building for additional notices. Five more boxes
were found in Quincy and have since been
reviewed.
Officials also found 72 "properly labeled boxes"
at the RMV's archives in Concord, and could not
verify that all of the violation notices dating
back to 2011 had been processed. The review of
the archived notices is ongoing, but Pollack
said so far 168 suspension notices have been
discovered resulting in 130 drivers being newly
suspended.
"Their work continued and will be ongoing in the
days and weeks ahead," Pollack said.
To put the violation of license suspensions in
context, Pollack said that the RMV suspends
about 230,000 licenses a year. In May alone,
roughly 3,000 licenses were suspended for
in-state operating under the influence or
refusal to take a chemical breath test.
The state is also working with the National
Driver Registry and the American Association of
Motor Vehicle Administrators to review all 5.2
million licenses in Massachusetts, and Pollack
said that testing of the check system is
underway and the review will begin on July 15.
The trouble at the RMV is just the latest
controversy to beset the Massachusetts
Department of Transportation where the
performance problems of the MBTA have been well
documented, but Baker said Pollack has not lost
his trust to fix the problems.
"Secretary Pollack continues to have the full
confidence of this administration," Baker said.
Pollack said that of the 846 drivers who have
been suspended as a result of the ongoing review
she was "not aware of any at this time" who had
been involved in additional tragedies when they
shouldn't have been driving.
The Boston
Herald
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Moody’s: Massachusetts’ late budget a sign of
‘governance weakness’
By Jonathan Ng
As the state again begins a new fiscal year
without a permanent budget, credit rating agency
Moody’s said Massachusetts’ late budgets, along
with six other states in similar situations, are
a sign of “governance weakness.”
“Late budgets are common in Massachusetts,”
according to Moody’s, which released its
three-page report Wednesday. The state’s fiscal
year began July 1.
A year ago, Massachusetts was the last state
without a permanent spending plan by the time
one finally reached the desk of Gov. Charlie
Baker and was signed by him on July 26.
“This year, the commonwealth joined a number of
other states in debate over education funding.
Legislators are having difficulty reaching
consensus on whether to freeze tuition and fees
at state colleges and universities, among other
issues,” according to Moody’s.
The House and Senate 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.
“Massachusetts, however, has a well-established
practice of enacting a temporary budget, giving
the commonwealth an additional month to enact a
final budget,” the report states, in reference
to the $5 billion interim budget Lt. Gov. Karyn
Polito signed last week to keep state government
open.
Last week, Baker declined to criticize the
Democratic-controlled Legislature for a late
state budget.
“I don’t have a problem with the budget being a
week or two late,” Baker told reporters after
meeting with legislative leaders last week. “I
care a lot more about the quality of work
product and the completeness of that work
product and giving people the ability to do the
stuff that they need to do depending on where we
are to finish the process.”
Lawmakers broke Wednesday for the July Fourth
holiday weekend, but legislative leaders say
negotiators are making progress.
House officials said the four Democrats and two
Republicans on the budget conference committee —
led by Sen. Michael Rodrigues and Rep. Aaron
Michlewitz — planned to continue talks through
the Fourth of July holiday and this weekend,
with an eye toward reaching a final compromise
next week.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Climate activists recommend tax-and-borrow
approach
By Colin A. Young
The governor and House speaker each have a
similar plan to provide $1 billion over 10 years
to help cities and towns prepare for and adjust
to climate change, though the speaker wants to
borrow the money while the governor is proposing
a specific tax increase to fund his program. At
a hearing Monday, activists and lawmakers
suggested a third option -- how about doing
both?
Gov. Charlie Baker's bill (S 10) would raise the
state's real estate transfer tax to generate as
much as $137 million a year to protect
properties and help cities and towns cope with
climate change impacts, while House Speaker
Robert DeLeo's bill (H 3941) would borrow the
money and make the 20 years of debt payments
exempt from the state's statutory debt ceiling.
The speaker's bill, which was filed by Rep.
Thomas Golden and redrafted by the
Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy
Committee, got a warm reception from
environmental groups, realtors and
municipalities at a House Committee on Bonding,
Capital Expenditures and State Assets on Monday
morning, though some said the scope of the
problem is greater than either bill is able to
address singlehandedly.
"Ideally, our coalition would like to see a
combined bill that brings together the best
elements of each proposal," Steve Long,
government relations director for The Nature
Conservancy, said as he testified alongside
officials from the Rivers Alliance and the
Conservation Law Foundation. Long said he likes
the speaker's proposal, dubbed GreenWorks,
because "it gets really specific about how the
money would be spent" and likes Baker's proposal
"in that it suggests a new source of revenue."
Alexandra Schluntz of CLF encouraged the
Legislature to study and support other funding
proposals alongside DeLeo's bill.
"The magnitude of the challenges the
commonwealth faces will require significant
resources beyond those proposed in this bill,"
she said. "GreenWorks and S 10 are complementary
approaches and we need all hands on deck."
The DeLeo plan would create the GreenWorks
infrastructure program and allocate $1 billion
over 10 years via grants through the Executive
Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Baker's plan is to generate new revenue to help
cities and towns address their vulnerabilities
by raising the state's deeds excise from $2.28
to $3.42 for every $500 of the sale price of a
property.
Baker said last month that he proposed to create
an "expendable trust" because it allows more
flexibility than borrowing would in how the
money is used. Borrowed money, Baker said, has
"very defined terms in state finance law with
respect to what you can use it for."
"Regardless of how much money we are authorized
to borrow or regardless of whether or not there
is a cap, climate adaptation in the next 20 to
30 years is going to require more funding than
we can imagine and it's going to require a
diversity of funding sources," Long said Monday.
"There may be times when our economy has its ups
and downs when bonding might not be as available
as it is now."
Since 1989, the state has had a statutory limit
in place to cap the total amount of outstanding
direct state debt. The limit automatically
increases by 5 percent each year and is fixed at
$25.2 billion for the current fiscal year. As of
Feb. 28, the state had approximately $27.44
billion in outstanding direct debt, according to
state financial statements published in April,
about $21.61 billion of which is subject to the
debt limit.
"I believe that it should be through bonding, by
and large, because I think it's a good
approach," House Bonding Committee Chair Antonio
Cabral said. "It doesn't mean I will not
entertain other ways to find other sources of
revenue to continue working on this and to
expand the work, but I think it's a solid
approach as long as we are serious about looking
at the cap and what can be spent outside of that
cap."
Rep. David Vieira, the ranking minority member
of the House Bonding Committee and a member of
the state's Capital Debt Affordability
Committee, said he would not be OK with
exempting $1 billion of borrowing from the
state's bond cap unless the Legislature also
implements a way to generate an equal amount of
new revenue.
"I would be comfortable allowing a general bond
cap exemption for up to a billion dollars here
if we had an identified revenue source for an
additional billion dollars," the Falmouth
Republican said. "Otherwise, I think that we
should authorize these programs but have them
subject to existing bond caps if we don't have
the new revenue identified."
Vieira then invoked the state's late fiscal year
2020 budget -- the fiscal year began last Monday
but legislative leaders have not agreed on a
consensus spending plan -- and questioned the
financial prudence of simply not counting the $1
billion in borrowing against the state's debt
allowance.
"I mean, here we are a few weeks after the
deadline, being the last state in the country to
approve a budget. Moody's smacked us a few years
ago because we weren't making the consolidated
net surplus transfers into the stabilization
fund and now we're looking at potentially
exempting a billion dollars worth of bonding
without a revenue source to support it," he
said.
DeLeo has said he wants a vote on his bill in
the House before lawmakers take a summer recess
at the end of this month. The governor's bill,
if it emerges from committee, could be bound for
the Senate. Asked Monday, Senate President Karen
Spilka did not show her cards on the
bonding-versus-tax increase question.
"We will take a look, I will discuss this with
my chairs and the other senators," she said.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
DeLeo, chairs huddle to talk transportation
fixes
By Colin A. Young
House Speaker Robert DeLeo met with the House
chairmen of the ways and means, revenue and
transportation committees for about two hours
Wednesday morning to sketch out the broad
transportation financing package expected to get
a vote in the House this fall.
As congestion on the roads and unreliable
service on public transportation test the
patience of commuters and residents, DeLeo has
indicated that he is open to tax hikes or just
about any other policy prescription to address
the state's critical transportation needs.
After Wednesday's meeting in the speaker's
office, Revenue Committee Chair Mark Cusack and
Transportation Chair William Straus said the
House's transportation revenue package will
touch upon all modes of transit: the MBTA,
regional transit authorities, road and bridge
funding and more. The details, including
potential approaches to raising revenue to fund
transportation projects, have not yet been
decided.
"There are different options we're constantly
looking at, we're not taking anything off the
table at this point. Clearly, transportation,
it's in crisis," Cusack, a Braintree Democrat,
said. "It took me over an hour to travel 11
miles this morning and the T would have been no
better. We are in a real crisis for
transportation. No one's commute has gotten
better unless you retired."
The eventual transportation revenue package,
Cusack said, will be "a multi-pronged solution
here, revenue solution, to really improve
transportation throughout the commonwealth."
Straus said it is important, as lawmakers begin
to shape their transportation package, that
business groups and others chime in with their
thoughts, concerns and desires.
"We had a broad discussion with options out
there. We want that broad discussion, but I
think part of it now requires that we hear from
the public. That includes different segments of
the public, the business community -- they need
to weigh in in the channels that are available
as to what they want from the transportation
system," he said. "This is a good time, an
important time, for the public to weigh in as
well."
Business groups have increasingly decried the
Boston area's public transportation woes as a
hindrance to economic growth. Traffic and
congestion on the roads make for long and
frustrating commutes by car, and the
unpredictable nature of public transportation
frequently makes workers late to their jobs.
In April, two dozen business groups banded
together to promote a statewide agenda for
transportation as the Massachusetts Business
Coalition on Transportation, including the
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Worcester
Regional Chamber of Commerce, Cape Cod Chamber
of Commerce and Western Massachusetts Economic
Development Council.
Some members of that group, including Worcester
chamber head and former Lt. Gov. Tim Murray,
were at the State House on Wednesday to meet
with House and Senate leadership about
transportation issues.
In February, A Better City released a report
detailing an $8.4 billion shortfall in revenues
needed to ensure state roads, bridges, and MBTA
infrastructure are in a state of good repair
over the next 10 years.
The current debate over transportation comes six
years after Beacon Hill Democrats passed their
last tax plan to pay for transportation, which
was supposed to bring in $805 million for the
system by fiscal year 2018 and generate $500
million in new revenue each year.
"This bill meets the real and immediate needs of
our transportation system while minimizing the
impact on our businesses and families," DeLeo
said on June 26, 2013. "I am confident that we
now have the resources to fund a healthy
transportation system and build our economy."
Key components of the package were soon
stripped. The Legislature later that year
repealed its tax on software services, and
voters in 2014 rejected a provision that indexed
the gas tax to inflation. Straus said Wednesday
that the House's consideration of a new
transportation financing bill is not an
acknowledgment that the 2013 law was
insufficient.
"There's never a year we're not in need of
discussing transportation. A few years ago we
dealt with it as we thought we could. Part of
the initiative at that time was rejected by the
voters, that's the automatic indexing of the gas
tax, but the transportation needs are still out
there," he said.
Though the Senate's timeline for considering
transportation financing is unclear -- Senate
President Karen Spilka has appointed a working
group to recommend sweeping tax policy changes
for the 2021-2022 session -- Straus said
Wednesday that the House will take up its own
plan before the calendar flips.
"Certainly this year," he said when asked about
the timing for consideration of the bill. "It's
a two-year session, but the speaker has been
clear that this is going to be dealt with this
year, at least in the House." |
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