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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
45 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
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their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Saturday, August 3, 2019
No-Veto
Charlie's $43.3B budget keeps pols "fat, happy, and satiated"
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Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday accomplished
something House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who joined the
Legislature in 1991, said he does not remember seeing happen
before: signing the annual state budget without issuing a
single spending veto.
Placing the bottom line at $43.3 billion,
Baker signed the annual budget just after 10 a.m. Wednesday,
nearly a full month after the start of fiscal 2020 on July
1.
The Republican governor also went along with
the Democrat-controlled Legislature's tweaks to a drug
pricing control measure he proposed in January, and its $5.2
billion in Chapter 70 aid to local schools, nearly $70
million more than he recommended in the budget proposal he
filed in January along with a series of school funding
reforms.
Responding to reporter questions after
signing the bill in his office, Baker revealed that he did
not slash any spending because "this budget's balanced." ...
DeLeo, who has been speaker since 2009 and
before that served four years as House Ways and Means
chairman, said he was "very pleased" to see a budget without
any monetary vetoes, and that he could not remember a
previous instance when a governor did not veto any spending.
"Quite frankly, that action I think says a
lot in terms of the type of budget we put forward," he told
reporters after meeting privately with House Democrats. "And
no governor is ever afraid to veto or make changes or
whatnot, so that's why I think we as a House are very proud
of the job that the chair did and all the members of the
House and their support."
The final budget increases spending 3.3
percent over fiscal 2019 estimates, and is built around a
projected $30.099 billion in tax revenue, according to the
Executive Office of Administration and Finance....
It assumes an income-tax rate reduction to
from 5.05 percent to 5 percent on Jan. 1, 2020, more than 19
years after voters approved a ballot question calling for a
5 percent income tax rate.
State House News Service
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Baker okays all spending in record $43.3 Bil budget
It wouldn't be July 31 at the State House
without a little bit of drama and a surprise or two. And it
wouldn't be August 1 at the State House without each side
blaming the other for what didn't get done. This year was no
exception....
Baker may have also made some gubernatorial
history this week. No one on Beacon Hill seems to remember
the last time a governor returned the Legislature a budget
without vetoing a single cent in spending. Baker signed the
$43.3 billion fiscal year 2020 budget Wednesday morning, 31
days after the fiscal year started.
Baker said he did not use his veto pen to
trim any spending because "this budget's balanced." Left
unsaid was the fact that House and Senate budget negotiators
revised revenue projections for the fiscal year upward by
$600 million, packing more spending into the final budget
than either branch had originally authorized.
State House News Service
Friday, August 2, 2019
Weekly Roundup
By Colin A. Young
“Only a besieged governor embroiled in so
many distractions, could not find a single cent of wasteful
spending that needed his veto in a bloated $43.3 billion
budget, an increase of almost $2 billion over last year’s
spending,” said Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation. “With a fiscal year
2019 ‘revenue surplus’ (over-taxation) bonanza of $2 billion
to squander, Charlie Baker, who needs to be loved at any
cost, had to keep all his friends in the Legislature happy
with him — fat, happy, and satiated.”
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Friday, August 2, 2019
No vetoes of funding in $43.3 billion state budget
By Bob Katzen
Gov. Charlie Baker has wielded his veto pen
every year since taking office in 2015, in part, to fulfill
his campaign pledges to reduce government spending and weed
earmarks from the state budget.
But this week, in an unprecedented move, the
second-term Republican governor signed a $43.3 billion
budget bloated with tens of millions of dollars worth of
earmarks — without vetoing any spending measures.
Lawmakers padded the budget with funding for
pet projects and programs in their districts during
protracted deliberations, which helped drive up the cost of
the final spending plan by $600 million.
Baker said he didn’t need to exercise his
veto powers to trim spending, as he has done in the previous
four years, because the state government is in “pretty good
shape financially.”
“There are no money vetoes in here,” he told
reporters at a budget signing on Wednesday. “Basically, we
came to the conclusion that this budget is balanced now.”
His decision was welcomed by lawmakers, but
panned by conservative watchdogs who accused the governor of
abandoning his campaign pledges of fiscal restraint and
responsibility....
Chip Ford, executive director of the
Citizens for Limited Taxation, said Baker should have
exercised his veto powers to trim some of the spending —
even if only to send a message to lawmakers.
“He’s a Republican governor, who’s supposed
to be fiscally conservative, and you mean to tell me he
couldn’t find any wasteful spending in a $43 billion
budget?” he said. “Something is wrong here.”
The Gloucester Times
Friday, August 3, 2019
Baker cedes in fight over earmarks
Governor Charlie Baker gave the equivalent
of a big green checkmark to the $43.3 billion state budget
hammered out by the Democrat-controlled Legislature, signing
it into law Wednesday without vetoing any earmarks or other
spending items.
Baker also accepted without complaint the
Legislature’s language on the most complicated and
controversial piece of the budget — a plan to cut
prescription drug costs — even though it was weaker than he
originally wanted.
“This budget is balanced,” said Baker, a
Republican who has not been shy in using his veto pen in the
past, when asked why he didn’t trim spending items. “From
our point of view, the budget’s in pretty good shape
financially.” ...
Baker’s decision to forego spending vetoes
was probably made easier by the extra tax revenues that
poured into state coffers this year. Tax collectors raked in
hundreds of millions in revenue above expectations, though
the Baker administration has not yet released a final number
on how large the fiscal year-end surplus is....
The Massachusetts Legislature was the last
in the country to finish its work on approving a final
spending bill, among states with a fiscal year that begins
July 1. State government didn’t shut down because lawmakers
passed a temporary $5 billion budget in late June.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Baker signs off on Legislature’s budget without any spending
vetoes
Police and fire, veterans services,
community programs and athletics are among hundreds of
beneficiaries of earmarks that made it into the $43.3
billion state budget signed by Gov. Charlie Baker on
Wednesday.
The spending package, approved nearly a
month into the 2020 fiscal year, includes more money for
local governments and public schools, transportation
upgrades and substance abuse programs. The final budget is
about $400 million more than Baker proposed in January and
will raise state spending by an estimated $1.6 billion or 4%
over the next fiscal year.
Baker, a Republican, didn't veto any
legislative pork barrel spending as he did in the previous
four years, saying the budget is "balanced" and in "pretty
good shape financially."
"We’re obviously going to pay a lot of
attention to what happens to revenues in the first two
quarters of the year, because we did have a lot of
volatility in the revenue base for 2019," Baker told
reporters at a budget signing on Wednesday. "So we’re going
to work pretty hard to pay attention not just to the revenue
side but also the spending side going forward."
To be sure, Baker vetoed $49 million from
the $41.7 billion budget he signed a year ago, including
about 300 earmarks. Lawmakers restored most of those
cuts....
Lawmakers defend the practice of using
budget earmarks as a means to get state money for local
projects, since the executive branch largely controls
statewide capital spending.
They also point out that
better-than-expected tax collections – roughly $1.9 billion
through the end of last year, according to the state
Department of Revenue – meant more money was available to
fund local projects.
The Salem News
Friday, August 2, 2019
Earmarks survive governor's veto pen
GOP hardliners criticize Baker for not axing money from
budget
These are the big-ticket items that
generated headlines when Governor Charlie Baker signed the
state’s $43.3 billion budget Wednesday. But buried deep
within the document are dozens of pet projects, some of them
obscure and each one the product of intense
behind-the-scenes lobbying by state lawmakers. Derided as
pork-barrel projects, the earmarks fund everything from
fireworks to fuel tanks. Given limited resources, critics
say such projects should be chosen according to need and
merit, not political influence. Here’s a sampling of a few
that made it through the gantlet on Beacon Hill....
Representative Nika Elugardo, a Jamaica
Plain Democrat who sponsored the [Daughters of Saint Paul]
earmark, said it was the only one of five local projects she
requested that was funded this year. Still, she said, she
was pleased. “It seemed to me that Ways and Means made a
strong effort to make sure everybody got something,”
Elugardo said, referring to the powerful state House panel
that oversees state spending.
The Boston Globe
Friday, August 2, 2019
Pet projects buried in the Mass. budget:
$227,610 for elevator maintenance and a trash-gobbling
‘watergoat’
Legislators this week broke for summer
recess and left Beacon Hill with a fiscal 2019 budget
surplus and a "credit positive" assessment of the fiscal
2020 budget from Moody's. However, House members, after
joining the Senate to advance a $2 billion income surtax on
wealthy taxpayers, are not content with the existing revenue
flow and are already planning a fall debate on other
revenue-raising options to invest in transportation.
State House News Service
Friday, August 2, 2019
Advances - Week of Aug. 4, 2019
As more and more Massachusetts residents cut
the cord and turn to streaming video services instead of
cable TV, a Dedham representative has filed a bill to charge
a fee on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu to support
community access stations.
On behalf of Massachusetts Community Media,
Inc. (MassAccess), Rep. Paul McMurtry [D-Dedham] filed a
bill (HD 4389) that would impose a fee on digital streaming
providers equal to 5 percent of the revenue those companies
earn in Massachusetts. Streaming providers that do not make
at least $250,000 in annual revenue in Massachusetts would
be exempted under the bill.
The money collected would be split between
the state's general fund (20 percent), cities and towns (40
percent), and local access cable TV stations (40
percent)....
The bill, which has not yet been referred to
a committee, was quick to attract attention and support from
other lawmakers. As of Thursday afternoon, a bipartisan
group of 85 legislators had signed onto McMurtry's bill as
co-sponsors.
State House News Service
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Lawmakers line up behind streaming service fee bill
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
So
Massachusetts has another record-breaking first.
The first budget in anyone's memory passed by a
Legislature with a super majority of Democrats and
signed by a governor (Republican or Democrat)
without a single veto. This also must be the first
budget in all of history — whether
Massachusetts or the world — without a single
cent of wasteful or unnecessary spending that
— if nothing else — should to be
highlighted for the public.
Barbara
Anderson idolized Charlie Baker since she first met and
got to know him back during the Proposition 2˝ campaign,
before he went to work as executive director for the
then-fledgling Pioneer Institute, then moved on as the
young wunderkind of the Weld administration. She
was his biggest enthusiast for decades, urging him to
run for governor then campaigning for his election when
he finally did. Upon Charlie's first election as
governor, in her column of November 6, 2014 Barbara
wrote ("One
for the win column"):
"I have waited a few
decades for Charlie Baker to become the governor
of Massachusetts, and here he is! ...
"This is personally
significant for me. I was 37 years old when
Citizens for Limited Taxation led the 1980
ballot battle for Proposition 2˝: Our ally was
the Massachusetts High Technology Council. In
order to help us keep this new statute, MHTC
hired a communications guy — Charlie Baker, just
out of college. It wasn’t long before some of us
began looking forward to his eventual
gubernatorial campaign.
"Now I’m 71 years old. When
I add up my career wins and losses, this one
rounds out the good news for me. And, someday, I
can relax into retirement, knowing that Charlie
will continue to protect Proposition 2˝. Will
feel safer if he gets the ability to sustain a
veto in the next election, though."
Before she
passed away in April of 2016, just seventeen months
after writing that column, Barbara had become disillusioned with Charlie.
He still had ignored his promise to Gerald Amirault, and
he'd begun selling out, at least trading off what many
of us thought were his core philosophical principles on
government. She once confided to me:
"Charlie's biggest problem is that he needs to be liked
too much."
Since she said
that I've watched and measured his every decision
through that lens. Barbara was as astute with that
observation as she was with so many. Charlie Baker
needs to be liked too much by those around him.
On February
14th of this year Chip Faulkner, before he too passed
away, told to me: "It
was bad enough that Charlie screwed Barbara on the Amiraults, but now he’s pushing not one but multiple tax
increases. Barbara would be going ballistic.
The only saving grace of her passing is that she's not
alive to witness this."
All I can add
to that is — Amen.
Continuing
with that thought, note that the budget which was
delivered to Gov. Baker was
reportedly $43.1 billion, but the one he signed was
suddenly reported to be $43.3 billion
— a $200 million increase
over what he reportedly received.
This is easily
explained using the above Barbara Anderson Axiom.
Charlie is again simply trying to please everybody in
his sphere.
You will
recall in the CLT Update of Thursday, July 25 ("Speaker's
$1.3 billion borrow-and-spend GreenWorks bill streaks
through House") I noted:
The "business-backed"
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation asserted that
the reported $43.1 billion budget now on the
governor's desk is actually half a billion
taxpayers' dollars more than claimed — $43.6
billion.
This is the sort of
accounting revelation that MTF does well, though
its history of future revenue projections are
less than reliable at best, often well off the
mark. Adding up budget spending line items to
reach a total is more straightforward than
prognosticating future economic activity and
predicting "anticipated revenue" using a crystal
ball, tea leaves, chicken bones, or whatever.
With over a billion dollars
of revenue "surplus" floating around on Beacon
Hill, my money's on the budget's bottom line
being closer to MTF's conclusion than that of
the Legislature.
Trying to make
all parties happy, as usual, Charlie merely split the
difference and called the budget $43.3 billion. (MTF
is standing by its $43.6 billion analysis.)
And nobody
thought to ask how that could have happened, or tried to
explain it — but here.
The good news
out of this whole mess:
[The budget] assumes an income-tax rate
reduction to from 5.05 percent to 5 percent on
Jan. 1, 2020, more than 19 years after voters
approved a ballot question calling for a 5
percent income tax rate.
It's too bad
that Barbara Anderson — and
now Chip Faulkner too — who
were both driving forces instrumental to the signature
drives (both of the two drives that it took) and the
overwhelmingly successful 2000 ballot campaign win
— didn't live long enough to finally appreciate
their and our success.
This is what
happens when an entire generation elapses between a big
victory by voters at the ballot box, and the
disrespected voters finally being heeded by an arrogant,
intransigent, greedy Legislature.
With a two
billion dollar "revenue surplus" (over-taxation) and an
additional two billion dollars in spending it sure would
be difficult — though in
Massachusetts certainly not impossible
— to dodge rolling back the
1989 "temporary" income tax hike's final
one-five-hundredths of one percent that remains
thirty years later.
QUOTE OF
NOTE:
Referring to the
powerful House committee that controls state
spending on the House side, Rep. Nika Elugardo
(D-Jamaica Plain) said: “It seemed to me that
Ways and Means made a strong effort to make sure
everybody got something.”
Oh everybody
got something alright —
and then some. Two additional billions
of dollars more than last year.
The State
House News Service reported in its Advances for next
week:
House members, after joining the Senate to
advance a $2 billion income surtax on wealthy
taxpayers, are not content with the existing
revenue flow and are already planning a fall
debate on other revenue-raising options to
invest in transportation.
Even on the
way out the door heading for "The Best Legislature Money
Can Buy's" long summer vacation one lawmaker couldn't
resist rubbing salt in the wounds of taxpayers with yet
another grab for their wallets.
In
rationalizing his bill (HD-4389)
to jack up fees on cable TV costs Rep. Paul McMurtry
[D-Dedham] said: "Fees charged to traditional cable
providers support our local community media centers
which are an important resource to local public,
educational and government news and information. As
consumers are offered alternative streaming methods we
need to modernize our law to assure that community media
centers are supported."
If McMurtry's
honest intent is to assist "community media
centers" then why does he propose they receive only 40
percent of the new revenue —
with the remaining 60 percent majority of it going to
state (20%) and municipal (40%) governments?
The bill
assaulting cable customers hasn't been assigned yet to a
committee but already has a bipartisan group of 85
legislators signed onto it. Bipartisan of course
means Democrats and Republicans. (See the
amazing
list of co-sponsors here.)
Message of
the Week: Isn't it so very nice when everybody
on Bacon Hill gets along and plays together so well?
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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State House News
Service
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Baker okays all spending in record $43.3 Bil
budget
By Katie Lannan
Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday accomplished
something House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who joined
the Legislature in 1991, said he does not
remember seeing happen before: signing the
annual state budget without issuing a single
spending veto.
Placing the bottom line at $43.3 billion, Baker
signed the annual budget just after 10 a.m.
Wednesday, nearly a full month after the start
of fiscal 2020 on July 1.
The Republican governor also went along with the
Democrat-controlled Legislature's tweaks to a
drug pricing control measure he proposed in
January, and its $5.2 billion in Chapter 70 aid
to local schools, nearly $70 million more than
he recommended in the budget proposal he filed
in January along with a series of school funding
reforms.
Responding to reporter questions after signing
the bill in his office, Baker revealed that he
did not slash any spending because "this
budget's balanced."
Governors often find spending to veto, often
significant amounts, and lawmakers are usually
quick to override those vetoes and restore the
spending. Baker last year vetoed $48.9 million
from a $41.7 billion budget.
"The lieutenant governor and I and the secretary
and a lot of our team spent a lot of time
talking about the line item stuff, and basically
came to the conclusion that this budget is
balanced," the governor said. "We're obviously
going to pay a lot of attention to what happens
to revenues in the first two quarters of the
year, because we did have a lot of volatility in
the revenue base for 2019, so we're going to
work pretty hard to pay attention not just to
the revenue side but also the spending side
going forward."
DeLeo, who has been speaker since 2009 and
before that served four years as House Ways and
Means chairman, said he was "very pleased" to
see a budget without any monetary vetoes, and
that he could not remember a previous instance
when a governor did not veto any spending.
"Quite frankly, that action I think says a lot
in terms of the type of budget we put forward,"
he told reporters after meeting privately with
House Democrats. "And no governor is ever afraid
to veto or make changes or whatnot, so that's
why I think we as a House are very proud of the
job that the chair did and all the members of
the House and their support."
The final budget increases spending 3.3 percent
over fiscal 2019 estimates, and is built around
a projected $30.099 billion in tax revenue,
according to the Executive Office of
Administration and Finance.
Lawmakers dropped Baker's proposals to tax
opioid manufacturers and extend the tobacco tax
to e-cigarettes from their final spending plan.
It assumes an income-tax rate reduction to from
5.05 percent to 5 percent on Jan. 1, 2020, more
than 19 years after voters approved a ballot
question calling for a 5 percent income tax
rate.
The budget uses $33.5 million in one-time
revenue and features a planned $476 million
increase to the state's stabilization fund,
which the administration said is on track to
reach a $3.3 billion balance by the end of
fiscal 2020.
The administration and the Legislature use
slightly different measures to calculate the
budget's bottom line. Budget conferees had said
their final report clocked in at $43.1 billion,
and Baker's $43.3 billion total includes some
money carried over from fiscal 2019. The two
also tally revenues differently.
During their negotiations, the conference
committee led by Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen.
Michael Rodrigues revised revenue projections
for this year upward by $600 million. Baker said
that "even with that $600 million addition," the
final spending plan relies on 1.4 percent growth
in tax collections.
The Massachusetts Legislature this year was the
last in the country to finalize a spending plan
and send it to the governor.
Baker returned six amendments to lawmakers, two
of which he said needed urgent action by
lawmakers set to break after Wednesday for their
traditional August recess. One would affect an
upcoming wind power procurement, and the other
specificies that the meals tax will still apply
during the sales tax holiday weekend set for
Aug. 17 and 18.
The budget aims to rein in prescription drug
costs by authorizing the Executive Office of
Health and Human Services to negotiate
supplemental rebates for MassHealth on the most
expensive drugs. The language differs from what
Baker originally proposed in January, and the
governor said that what lawmakers put forward
"is workable and implementable, and we'll pursue
it."
"I don't think the option, from our point of
view, was to re-engage a debate that was so
contentious and so intense over the course of
the budget process itself, and I think we all
respect where the Legislature landed on this
one," he said.
Though he did not strike any spending from the
budget, Baker did use his veto pen seven times,
knocking out language within line-items that
primarily proposed new reporting requirements
for studies by state agencies. His vetoes
include a feasibility study of using state
property as a "staging area" for micro-mobility
devices that could be used as transportation to
and from MBTA stations, and a report on
environmental justice policies and staffing.
The conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance
blasted Baker for not vetoing any earmarked
spending, as he did in each of the last four
budgets he signed.
"It's a failure in our democratic process when
the branch of government charged with reigning
(sic) in spending does not exercise its duty to
use the line item veto," MassFiscal spokesman
Paul Craney said in a statement. "Even Governor
Patrick regularly vetoed the excessive earmark
habits of the legislature."
Baker was joined for the budget signing by Lt.
Gov. Karyn Polito, Administration and Finance
Secretary Michael Heffernan and members of the
governor's Black and Latino advisory
commissions, who touted the inclusion of $20.3
million to support recommendations they made
last year.
Beacon Hill Roll
Call
Volume 44 - Report No. 31
July 29-August 2, 2019
By Bob Katzen
NO VETOES OF FUNDING IN $43.3 BILLION STATE
BUDGET – In an unusual move, Gov. Charlie Baker
signed the fiscal 2020 state budget into law
without vetoing any of the $43.3 billion in
spending approved by the House and Senate.
Beacon Hill Roll Call talked to several
Statehouse veterans and not one could remember
any other time in the last four decades that the
governor did not veto funding in the budget.
Just last year, Baker vetoed $48.9 million from
a $41.7 billion budget.
“The lieutenant governor and I and the secretary
[of Administration and Finance] and a lot of our
team spent a lot of time talking about the line
item stuff, and basically came to the conclusion
that this budget is balanced,” said Baker at the
signing ceremony last week. “We’re obviously
going to pay a lot of attention to what happens
to revenues in the first two quarters of the
year, because we did have a lot of volatility in
the revenue base for 2019. So we’re going to
work pretty hard to pay attention not just to
the revenue side but also the spending side
going forward.”
“Only a besieged governor embroiled in so many
distractions, could not find a single cent of
wasteful spending that needed his veto in a
bloated $43.3 billion budget, an increase of
almost $2 billion over last year’s spending,”
said Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation. “With a
fiscal year 2019 ‘revenue surplus’
(over-taxation) bonanza of $2 billion to
squander, Charlie Baker, who needs to be loved
at any cost, had to keep all his friends in the
Legislature happy with him — fat, happy, and
satiated.”
The
Gloucester Times
Friday, August 3, 2019
Baker cedes in fight over earmarks
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
Gov. Charlie Baker has wielded his veto pen
every year since taking office in 2015, in part,
to fulfill his campaign pledges to reduce
government spending and weed earmarks from the
state budget.
But this week, in an unprecedented move, the
second-term Republican governor signed a $43.3
billion budget bloated with tens of millions of
dollars worth of earmarks — without vetoing any
spending measures.
Lawmakers padded the budget with funding for pet
projects and programs in their districts during
protracted deliberations, which helped drive up
the cost of the final spending plan by $600
million.
Baker said he didn’t need to exercise his veto
powers to trim spending, as he has done in the
previous four years, because the state
government is in “pretty good shape
financially.”
“There are no money vetoes in here,” he told
reporters at a budget signing on Wednesday.
“Basically, we came to the conclusion that this
budget is balanced now.”
His decision was welcomed by lawmakers, but
panned by conservative watchdogs who accused the
governor of abandoning his campaign pledges of
fiscal restraint and responsibility.
“It’s a failure in our democratic process when
the branch of government charged with reining in
spending does not exercise its duty to use the
line item veto,” said Paul Craney, a spokesman
for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a
conservative watchdog group. “It’s sends a
signal to the Legislature that it’s OK to spend
as much as they want.”
Craney noted that every Massachusetts governor
in recent history — both Republican and Democrat
— has used their executive veto powers to reduce
budgetary spending.
To be sure, Baker has vetoed hundreds of
millions of dollars worth of earmarks and other
spending proposals added to previous budgets,
but lawmakers have overridden him to restore the
funding.
Chip Ford, executive director of the
Citizens for Limited Taxation, said Baker
should have exercised his veto powers to trim
some of the spending — even if only to send a
message to lawmakers.
“He’s a Republican governor, who’s supposed to
be fiscally conservative, and you mean to tell
me he couldn’t find any wasteful spending in a
$43 billion budget?” he said. “Something is
wrong here.”
Earmarks were virtually eliminated during the
recession to plug budget shortfalls.
But as the state’s economy improves, they’ve
made a comeback.
House lawmakers loaded their version of the
budget with 1,400 amendments ahead of
deliberations in April.
In the upper chamber, senators filed nearly
1,200 budget amendments.
Baker vetoed $49 million from the $41.7 billion
budget he signed a year ago, weeding out about
300 earmarks. Lawmakers, however, restored most
of those cuts.
Lawmakers say the requests are important to
their home districts as well as the state’s
economy.
They point out that adding earmarks to the
budget is often the only way to get money for
local projects and initiatives, because the
executive branch largely controls capital
expenses.
“These aren’t wasteful pork projects,” said
state Rep. Lenny Mirra, R-West Newbury, who
secured several local earmarks, including
$40,000 for a new bathroom facility on Plum
Island. “They are very much needed in our
communities.”
Lawmakers said better-than-expected tax
collections — roughly $1.9 billion through the
end of last year — freed more money to fund
local projects without impacting state finances.
Baker was also under pressure to sign off on the
spending package, which lawmakers delivered to
his administration on July 22, three weeks after
the start of the state’s new fiscal year.
Massachusetts was the last in the nation with a
July 1 fiscal year to deliver a budget to the
governor’s desk — for the second year in a row.
But Craney points out that using the budget as a
vehicle to approve earmarks circumvents the
checks and balances normally required for
government-funded programs.
Earmarks are not subject to the state’s
competitive bidding law or other fiscal
requirements, he notes, and decisions about
adding them to the budget are made in
closed-door meetings.
“It’s horse trading,” Craney said. “If a
lawmaker feels strongly that their district
needs something, (it) should be put in a bill
and debated on the floor of the House and
Senate.”
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts
Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s
newspapers and websites.
The Boston
Globe
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Baker signs off on Legislature’s budget without
any spending vetoes
By Victoria McGrane and Priyanka Dayal McCluskey
Governor Charlie Baker gave the equivalent of a
big green checkmark to the $43.3 billion state
budget hammered out by the Democrat-controlled
Legislature, signing it into law Wednesday
without vetoing any earmarks or other spending
items.
Baker also accepted without complaint the
Legislature’s language on the most complicated
and controversial piece of the budget — a plan
to cut prescription drug costs — even though it
was weaker than he originally wanted.
“This budget is balanced,” said Baker, a
Republican who has not been shy in using his
veto pen in the past, when asked why he didn’t
trim spending items. “From our point of view,
the budget’s in pretty good shape financially.”
Signed into law a month after the start of the
fiscal year, the budget plows nearly $270
million more into public school spending over
current levels, increases funding to the
University of Massachusetts without freezing
tuition, and provides more than $20 million in
programs recommended by black and Latino
community members including those for early
college and careers.
Baker’s decision to forego spending vetoes was
probably made easier by the extra tax revenues
that poured into state coffers this year. Tax
collectors raked in hundreds of millions in
revenue above expectations, though the Baker
administration has not yet released a final
number on how large the fiscal year-end surplus
is.
The Governor did propose changes to a handful of
policy sections, including asking lawmakers to
quickly pass amendments changing the law
governing bids for offshore wind contracts and
the treatment of meal taxes during the state’s
August sales tax holiday.
On the controversial prescription drug piece of
the budget, Baker first proposed in January the
measure intended to bring down the cost of the
most expensive medicines covered by the state
Medicaid program, or MassHealth. Drug costs have
been growing faster than other expenses in
MassHealth, which covers more than 1.8 million
people.
The new policy will require drug companies to
negotiate steeper discounts with state
officials. If a company doesn’t negotiate, the
state could post a proposed value for its drug
and hold a public hearing about that value. The
state Health Policy Commission also could demand
more detailed price information from drugmakers,
though much of that information would remain
confidential.
Baker’s proposal had also sought to refer
unreasonably priced drugs to the attorney
general’s office for investigation, but
legislators stripped that from the final version
approved July 22.
Drug companies had lobbied against Baker’s
original proposal but viewed the final language
as less severe.
“We knew when we filed the drug pricing piece
that it was going to be a controversial item —
and it was,” Baker told reporters after signing
the budget Wednesday morning. “I give the
Legislature a lot of credit for working through
that.
“We believe the version that they ultimately
landed on is workable and implementable, and
we’ll pursue it,” Baker said.
The Massachusetts Legislature was the last in
the country to finish its work on approving a
final spending bill, among states with a fiscal
year that begins July 1. State government didn’t
shut down because lawmakers passed a temporary
$5 billion budget in late June.
The
Salem News
Friday, August 2, 2019
Earmarks survive governor's veto pen
GOP hardliners criticize Baker for not axing
money from budget
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
Police and fire, veterans services, community
programs and athletics are among hundreds of
beneficiaries of earmarks that made it into the
$43.3 billion state budget signed by Gov.
Charlie Baker on Wednesday.
The spending package, approved nearly a month
into the 2020 fiscal year, includes more money
for local governments and public schools,
transportation upgrades and substance abuse
programs. The final budget is about $400 million
more than Baker proposed in January and will
raise state spending by an estimated $1.6
billion or 4% over the next fiscal year.
Baker, a Republican, didn't veto any legislative
pork barrel spending as he did in the previous
four years, saying the budget is "balanced" and
in "pretty good shape financially."
"We’re obviously going to pay a lot of attention
to what happens to revenues in the first two
quarters of the year, because we did have a lot
of volatility in the revenue base for 2019,"
Baker told reporters at a budget signing on
Wednesday. "So we’re going to work pretty hard
to pay attention not just to the revenue side
but also the spending side going forward."
To be sure, Baker vetoed $49 million from the
$41.7 billion budget he signed a year ago,
including about 300 earmarks. Lawmakers restored
most of those cuts.
Paul Craney, a spokesman for the conservative
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, criticized
Baker's decision not to veto the spending in the
current budget, calling it "a failure in our
democratic process."
For lawmakers, Baker's decision not to use his
veto pen means hundreds of millions of dollars
for local projects will get funded with a nod
from the governor.
Among dozens of local earmarks that made it into
the final spending package, a proposal by Rep.
Paul Tucker, D-Salem, will provide $2 million
for a new grant program that seeks to help
at-risk youth stay out of the criminal justice
system and former inmates ages 18 to 25 make the
transition back into society.
Rep. Ann Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester, roped
in $100,000 for The Open Door food pantry in
Gloucester, which helped Coast Guard families
and other workers affected by the partial
federal government shutdown earlier this year.
She also secured $200,000 for shellfish research
at the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute.
And Rep. Lenny Mirra, R-West Newbury, got
$40,000 for his hometown to build a public
safety and bathroom facility on Plum Island and
$30,000 for a youth community center in
Georgetown, among other amendments.
Lawmakers defend the practice of using budget
earmarks as a means to get state money for local
projects, since the executive branch largely
controls statewide capital spending.
They also point out that better-than-expected
tax collections – roughly $1.9 billion through
the end of last year, according to the state
Department of Revenue – meant more money was
available to fund local projects.
"We're spending it on good things," Mirra said.
"These isn't superfluous stuff. This is what the
voters expect and demand from state government."
Overall, Chapter 70 education funding for public
schools will amount to more than $5.1 billion –
a nearly $270 million increase over the previous
year.
Direct aid to local governments – money that
cities and towns use for everything from closing
local budget shortfalls to hiring workers – will
be more than $1.12 billion, a nearly $30 million
increase.
Most communities will see slight increases in
funding if Baker agrees to the final local aid
allocations.
Baker did use his veto pen to ax proposals to
study the use of "micro-mobility devices"
between MBTA stations, and a proposal to study
of environmental justice policies.
And the final spending plan does not include
more than 80 policy changes, including Baker's
proposals to impose a 15% tax on opioid
manufacturers, extend the tobacco excise tax to
vaping products and hike the tax on real estate
transactions by 50% to help fund climate change
preparations.
Lawmakers did agree to portions of Baker's
proposal to reduce prescription drug costs
through MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program
that serves about 1.8 million residents.
Under the plan, the Executive Office of Health
and Human Services is authorized to begin
negotiating supplemental rebates with drug
manufacturers to reduce the state's drug costs.
LOCAL PROJECTS FUNDED
Here are some highlights of spending in North
Shore communities included in the state’s fiscal
2020 budget. The list is not all encompassing.
Danvers rail trail expansion: $100,000
Polish Legion of American Veterans Post 55 in
Peabody (new elevator): $100,000
Peabody children's museum: $50,000
Peabody outdoor water recreational project:
$50,000
Essex National Heritage Commission (future
leaders program): $100,000
Route 1A upgrades in Wenham: $150,000
Marblehead Council on Aging (kitchen
renovations): $100,000
Beverly Police and Fire (dispatch system
software): $150,000
McPherson Youth Center in Beverly (repairs):
$40,000
North Beverly train station (traffic and public
safety upgrades): $100,000
Beverly Bass River dredging: $100,000
Swampscott Town Pier and Historic Fish House
repairs: $100,000
Salem Forest River Park upgrades: $25,000
The Boston
Globe
Friday, August 2, 2019
Pet projects buried in the Mass. budget:
$227,610 for elevator maintenance and a
trash-gobbling ‘watergoat’
By Michael Levenson
Record funding for public schools. More than $1
billion in local aid for cities and towns. A
controversial plan to cut prescription drug
costs.
These are the big-ticket items that generated
headlines when Governor Charlie Baker signed the
state’s $43.3 billion budget Wednesday. But
buried deep within the document are dozens of
pet projects, some of them obscure and each one
the product of intense behind-the-scenes
lobbying by state lawmakers. Derided as
pork-barrel projects, the earmarks fund
everything from fireworks to fuel tanks. Given
limited resources, critics say such projects
should be chosen according to need and merit,
not political influence. Here’s a sampling of a
few that made it through the gantlet on Beacon
Hill.
STATE HOUSE ELEVATORS: $227,610 to maintain the
State House’s 16 newly installed elevators. The
elevators, relied upon to ferry tourists and
politicians escaping the press, were recently in
the spotlight when WCVB-TV reported that they
feature bronze fixtures, dark cherry laminate,
marble-tiled floors, and state seals, and cost
$10,299,000 to install — $483,160 more than
anticipated. The latest round of state funding
will pay for an elevator mechanic, ongoing
maintenance, and emergency repairs, state
officials said.
SUDBURY RIVER WATER CHESTNUTS: $20,000 to remove
invasive water chestnuts that are choking the
river, despite efforts to remove them by hand
and with a water-chestnut harvesting machine
that resembles a giant floating tractor. “The
geese and the ducks can’t even move through it,
and fish can’t even come up for air,” said
Robert D. McArthur, Framingham’s conservation
administrator. The state funding, he said, will
help pay for a contractor to spray the water
chestnut leaves with herbicide three times a
year, in hopes of finally killing the plant.
STONE BARN ROOF REPAIRS: $50,000 to repair the
roof of a 19th-century stone building in Hemlock
Gorge in Wellesley, believed to be one of the
last remaining industrial structures on the
Charles River. The rustic “Stone Barn,” as it’s
called, might have originally been part of
Newton Iron Works. In recent years, it has been
maintained by the Friends of Hemlock Gorge,
which hosts twice-annual volunteer luncheons
there. John Mordes, the group’s president, said
if the roof is not fixed, the building could be
ruined, destroying a rich piece of local
history. “I was certainly someone who opposed
the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska,” he said. “But
this is a worthy project.”
MUDDY RIVER WATERGOAT: $12,000 to buy a
“Watergoat” to strain trash from the Muddy
River, the meandering urban brook that runs
through the Emerald Necklace, from Jamaica Pond
to the Fenway. The contraption — actually a net
attached to buoys and a long boom — will stretch
across the river and trap bottles, cans, and
wrappers without entangling turtles, birds, and
fish, said Caroline Reeves of the Muddy Water
Initiative, an environmental group. “It’s not a
farm animal but, like a goat, it gobbles up the
trash, and we are so excited about it,” she
said. The earmark will pay for the $5,900
device, two engineers to install it, and a
contractor to haul away the garbage, as part of
a broader effort to restore the river, Reeves
said.
THE DAUGHTERS OF SAINT PAUL: $15,000 to repair
the roof on the Jamaica Plain home of the
Daughters of Saint Paul, a group of Catholic
nuns who run a publishing house and spread the
Gospel through books, magazines, and other
media. The congregation, founded in Italy in
1915, counts some 2,000 members in 52 countries.
Representative Nika Elugardo, a Jamaica Plain
Democrat who sponsored the earmark, said it was
the only one of five local projects she
requested that was funded this year. Still, she
said, she was pleased. “It seemed to me that
Ways and Means made a strong effort to make sure
everybody got something,” Elugardo said,
referring to the powerful state House panel that
oversees state spending.
MARSHFIELD DOG PARK CLEANUP: $10,000 to help the
Friends of the Marshfield Dog Park, a citizens’
group, clean up the town’s first dog park, once
it is built. Steve Darcy, the group’s president,
said the park’s location has not yet been
announced and it may not open for another two
years. But the state funding, he said, will pay
for lawn-mowing, a contractor to clean up waste,
and a plastic-bag dispenser mounted on a post.
JULY FOURTH FIREWORKS SHOW: $50,000 to help the
Boston Symphony Orchestra produce the Boston
Pops Fireworks Spectacular, the annual July
Fourth extravaganza that draws an estimated
500,000 people to the Esplanade. The show
receives corporate funding from Eaton Vance and
Bloomberg, but the orchestra said it still ends
up with a nearly $1 million annual shortfall to
stage the event. Orchestra officials said the
$50,000 will be help pay for the television
broadcast and concert, guest artist fees,
installation of the sound towers and giant
screens along the Charles River, and the giant
fireworks show. In the future, the BSO said, it
is committed to finding additional private
funding.
LUNENBURG GAS TANKS: $165,000 to remove and
replace underground fuel tanks at the Lunenburg
Department of Works. The tanks, used to gas up
the town’s police cruisers, fire engines, and
school buses, are 25 years old and at risk of
leaking, Police Chief James P. Marino said. “We
want to prevent something from happening,” he
said. “It’s not something you want to take a
chance with.”
State House News
Service
Friday, August 2, 2019
Advances - Week of Aug. 4, 2019
Legislators this week broke for summer recess
and left Beacon Hill with a fiscal 2019 budget
surplus and a "credit positive" assessment of
the fiscal 2020 budget from Moody's. However,
House members, after joining the Senate to
advance a $2 billion income surtax on wealthy
taxpayers, are not content with the existing
revenue flow and are already planning a fall
debate on other revenue-raising options to
invest in transportation.
Until then, they can look back at a final work
product that's a tad underwhelming.
Over the first seven months of the two-year
session, the Legislature and Gov. Charlie Baker
agreed to 50 new laws. The new statutes include
15 that affect only one community and 20
authorizing state employees to donate sick,
personal or vacation days to ill colleagues.
The more notable new laws temporarily lift a
price cap intended to hold down offshore wind
costs, ban the use of conversion therapy to
change the gender identity or sexual orientation
of minors, and eliminate a policy that precludes
families already receiving welfare beneits from
getting additional benefits when they have
another child.
It's unclear how long lawmakers will wait to
wrap up work on a life-saving bill aimed at
cracking down on distracted driving or when they
will return to Beacon Hill to override Gov.
Charlie Baker's veto, issued Friday, of the
so-called Janus bill.
As lawmakers broke for their recess, they left
in their wake frustration among those who had
hoped for action on bills addressing education
funding and inequities, generating new housing
to meet people's needs and grow the economy, and
jumpstarting Baker's attempt to expedite MBTA
improvements with $50 million in emergency funds
sought by the T.
By Wednesday, forces who want any type of new
law in Massachusetts and are willing to do the
work to go to the ballot must file initiative
petition language with the state to keep their
proposals in the mix for November 2020.
The ability to spend August in their districts
comes as a relief to many lawmakers, who will be
able to find reprieve from the growing traffic
congestion that has made it more difficult for
anyone to get anywhere in Massachusetts. Delayed
arrivals have become more common, and the Baker
administration's study of the problem, and
solutions, has also been delayed, but is now
marked for release early next week. Its arrival
in early August, during a slower period on
Beacon Hill and around Massachusetts, may offer
those interested in the issue to spend a little
more time on it.
State House News
Service
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Lawmakers line up behind streaming service fee
bill
By Colin A. Young
As more and more Massachusetts residents cut the
cord and turn to streaming video services
instead of cable TV, a Dedham representative has
filed a bill to charge a fee on streaming
services like Netflix and Hulu to support
community access stations.
On behalf of Massachusetts Community Media, Inc.
(MassAccess), Rep. Paul McMurtry filed a bill
(HD 4389) that would impose a fee on digital
streaming providers equal to 5 percent of the
revenue those companies earn in Massachusetts.
Streaming providers that do not make at least
$250,000 in annual revenue in Massachusetts
would be exempted under the bill.
The money collected would be split between the
state's general fund (20 percent), cities and
towns (40 percent), and local access cable TV
stations (40 percent).
"This legislation is a much-needed update to the
way consumers receive digital entertainment
streaming services. Multimillion-dollar media
companies are using our public rights of way to
deliver their product, yet are not paying their
fair share for that use," McMurtry said. "Fees
charged to traditional cable providers support
our local community media centers which are an
important resource to local public, educational
and government news and information. As
consumers are offered alternative streaming
methods we need to modernize our law to assure
that community media centers are supported."
The bill, which has not yet been referred to a
committee, was quick to attract attention and
support from other lawmakers. As of Thursday
afternoon, a bipartisan group of 85 legislators
had signed onto McMurtry's bill as co-sponsors.
McMurtry and supporters say the bill would
"create parity" between cable providers, which
currently pay some revenue back to cities and
towns for local programming, and streaming
services. MassAccess said that most local access
TV stations "are seeing declining revenue from
cable franchise fees for the first time in their
histories" as consumers move away from cable TV
in favor of streaming options.
There were 2,193,384 cable TV subscriptions in
Massachusetts in 2013, but by 2018 cable
subscriptions had dropped off by almost 7
percent, falling to just more than 2 million
total subscribers, according to data from the
state's Department of Telecommunications and
Cable.
MassAccess said streaming providers rely on
local infrastructure to sell their product to
millions of Massachusetts residents, "yet pay
nothing to use that infrastructure." The group
said McMurtry's bill seeks to hold streaming
services to similar rules and regulations as
traditional cable providers.
"For decades, the funding provided by cable
companies has helped provide funding to support
vital programs at the municipal level --
including community media centers and PEG
[public, educational and government] channels,"
Melinda Garfield, president of MassAccess, said.
"Community Media centers and PEG channels serve
the community, they are an important and vital
resource that we need to protect. These new
streaming services should be held to the same
standards, accept the same responsibilities, and
make the same contributions as cable companies."
Other states have already imposed similar fees
on digital streaming services, including
Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North
Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and
Washington, MassAccess said.
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