State House
News Service
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
With two minutes to spare,
leaders file $22.25 billion FY '02 budget
By Craig Sandler
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, NOV. 21, 2001 ... Legislative leaders filed their compromise budget for Fiscal Year 2002 last night at the 11th hour -- well, make that the 3,431st hour.
That's how late the budget was when staffers finally handed it in to the House clerk's office at 11:58 pm. But for all the time spent negotiating the House-Senate conference committee report, and its deep spending cuts, the membership will have less than one day to review the budget before taking a vote on this last day of scheduled formal sessions.
The budget has a bottom line of $22.25 billion; makes $650 million in spending cuts and taps $700 million worth of reserves; and contains no significant language on, or funding for, the Clean Elections system.
Had the budget not been filed by midnight, members would not have been able to debate it today, the last day of scheduled of formal sessions under legislative rules.
Handing the 500-plus pages over to House Clerk's office manager Jimmy Twomey, House Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers joked, "Ah, we got an extra minute to kill!"
He and Senate Ways and Means Chairman Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) know there
won't be much laughter about this budget as the impact of its spending cuts is felt. "When they reverberate around the state I think there'll be a lot of real pain," Montigny told reporters who gathered outside the House Clerk's office on the first floor of the State House's Brigham Extension.
The cuts include $50 million from higher education; $30 million from the court system; $32 in local road repair money; $74 million in the plan to pay down the state's pension debts; and cuts in dozens upon dozens of programs such as adult basic education, assistance to people with AIDS, and care for the mentally ill. Throughout the budget, conferees first went to the lower of the House or Senate spending level for a given line item, then went back and cut again. Nevertheless, the two leaders said they were happy to have preserved most local aid and the senior pharmacy program.
They said the budget contains no specific directives for personnel reductions, but acknowledged payroll cuts are likely as agencies manage with less money.
The pair did not know offhand if the Legislature takes a budget cut. Montigny said legislative accounts were level funded, but Rogers said there was a 2 percent cut in legislative accounts, and the issue was not resolved at their midnight appearance.
The fiscal year began at 12:01 am back on July 1. Even with all that time to negotiate, lawmakers could do no better than meet the very last possible deadline to allow the budget's consideration by members today under legislative rules. Today, the day before Thanksgiving, is the final day of formal sessions for this Legislature, though a special session likely will be held next month to consider budget vetoes.
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The Boston Globe
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
Legislative leaders set their cuts
for budget vote today
By Rick Klein
Globe Staff
House and Senate leaders were poised last night to release a long-overdue $22.5 billion state budget that calls for scaling back funding for higher education, human services, and local aid in an effort to come to grips with the worsening economic reality.
Although the budget would increase spending by 2 percent over last year, many accounts would be level-funded, and some agencies that were counting on increases of 5 percent or more would see only modest expansions.
Legislative leaders were forced to drastically rewrite spending plans approved in the spring after revenues abruptly dropped, starting in July. They said they tried to make the reductions as painless as possible, but the ax fell on a range of programs, including $12 million for AIDS outreach and patient care, $12 million to help the mentally ill, and $15 million for adult education, including job training.
The $1 billion higher education budget would be reduced by $50 million, which could mean layoffs and higher tuition and fees at state universities and community colleges. State courts would lose $30 million, which would probably force a hiring freeze and could increase the wait for trials.
"There is no way to project this budget as good news," said Senate Ways and Means Committee chairman Mark C. Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat. "We tried our very best to protect the most vulnerable, but there is no way to cut $650 million and not have, across the accounts, bad news."
In a major blow to election reformers, the legislative leaders were apparently unable to settle one of the most explosive issues before them -- whether to fund the voter-approved Clean Elections Law. Their budget does not appropriate any money for the law this year, but also does not spend $23 million set aside earlier for the campaign system.
The law's backers blasted the leaders for indecisiveness and said the move amounted to killing the law, since the legislative session ends today.
"What incentive do they have to get anything out? The session is over," said David Donnelly, director of Massachusetts Voters for Clean Elections. "It's just cowardly. Mr. Finneran and Mr. Birmingham are acting like law-breakers, not law-makers."
The budget, which was being finalized by House and Senate leaders late last night -- more than four months into the fiscal year -- cuts $650 million from proposed spending plans and taps state reserves for another $700 million. The state is facing a $1.4 billion budget gap as a result of the slowing economy.
House and Senate members were to cast a yes-or-no vote on the full budget today, the last scheduled day of the regular legislative session. Most lawmakers would be voting barely 12 hours after seeing detailed cuts for the first time, and yesterday many of them said they knew very little about its details.
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham were unavailable for comment last night.
A highly placed House aide said that some some details could still be changed before the vote.
Under the final budget, adults with mental disabilities who have been waiting for slots in group homes would probably not get their promised services, since House and Senate leaders opted to cut $22 million there. That means that their parents would be forced to care for them, at least for now, said Stephen E. Collins, executive director of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition.
About 17,000 health-care and social workers who are making less than $20,000 a year would get only a tiny sliver of the 2.5-3 percent raises they were promised, since legislative leaders chose to save $20 million from a salary account. The low-paid workers have been trying for years to get an upgrade in pay.
"It would do little to resolve the problems we face throughout social services," said Collins. "It proves the foolhardiness of not looking at real alternatives, like freezing" the voter-approved income tax cut.
House and Senate members ultimately decided not to pursue new taxes as part of the budget agreement. Still, a group of liberal lawmakers hopes to prevail on House members today to agree to take up a freeze to the income tax cut when they come back Dec. 5 for a special session on budget vetoes. A freeze could give state government an extra $200 million to spend this fiscal year.
The liberal lawmakers say the freeze would avoid reductions in aid to cities and towns. The $85 million that legislative leaders plan to shave from the local aid account represents a cut of only about 1.7 percent. But $32.6 million of the savings would be won by cutting the highway assistance fund, which communities depend on to maintain and patrol roads.
The Legislature would save $74 million by limiting the state's payments to the public employees' pension plan, and is saving $22 million from refinancing its debts. Savings would come throughout state government, where administrative budgets were squeezed and few programs spared.
Still, Montigny said that budget-writers were careful to save key priorities, especially K-12 education, the affordable housing trust fund, and the new prescription-drug insurance program for senior citizens. An infusion of an extra $50 million from the state's settlement with the tobacco companies helped save a school nursing program, hepatitis C screening, and smoking prevention programs, he said.
Ralph Ranalli and David Abel contributed to this report.
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State House News Service
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
On the eve of difficult budget vote,
Democrats appeal to colleagues
By Michael P. Norton
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON ... Liberal Democrats and party officials are holding out hope that once House and Senate Democrats see the depth of budget cuts they'll be asked to approve Wednesday, support for a plan to freeze the income tax reduction will solidify.
At a press conference in Nurses Hall, Democrats blasted Acting Gov. Jane Swift for suggesting last year that the income tax could be slashed by $1.2 billion over three years without cutting state services. Swift, as lieutenant governor, and former Gov. Paul Cellucci led the successful income tax cut ballot campaign.
"They were promises that were empty and have been broken," said Philip W. Johnston, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and a leading health and human services official under President William Clinton and Gov. Michael Dukakis. Johnston has so far failed to convince state House and Senate Democrats to protect programs that help the state's neediest citizens by delaying the income tax cut.
And Swift doesn't buy Johnston's reasoning. The economic downturn, exacerbated by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, is necessitating the budget cuts, said Swift press secretary James Borghesani. "To blame these budget cuts on the tax rollback is specious and false reasoning," he said. "It's just partisan sniping." States nationwide, including those that haven't passed tax cuts, are facing tough budget issues.
On Monday, Swift proposed cutting programs and services by $710 million and warned that thousands of state employee layoffs loom if lawmakers don't adopt her newly proposed plan to offer early retirement incentives. Swift maintains the tax cut is essential to economic growth and worth preserving even if it means more short-term budget cuts. With the state in a recession, Swift says the budget cuts are needed to keep state government from overspending. But the tax cut is causing revenues to fall faster.
Meanwhile, Democratic legislative leaders on Tuesday were putting the finishing touches on their own $650 million budget-cutting package, which will be unveiled Tuesday night for a vote on Wednesday -- the House is due to convene at 10 am, unusually early, to push the budget through.
Democrats overwhelmingly control the House and Senate and can easily defeat Swift when they vote along party lines. But Rep. Anne Paulsen said Democrats haven't been able to turn majority support into the two thirds necessary to override a promised Swift veto because House and Senate members still haven't seen the cuts they'll be asked to approve on Wednesday.
"Part of the resistance is the fact that we haven't seen the budget. There have been no specifics," Paulsen said. "Now we will see for the first time what exactly is going to happen in the year 2002. When we see the particulars that may make a big difference."
During a two-and-a-half hour private lunchtime caucus, House leaders outlined the cuts. Afterwards, Rep. Patricia Jehlen (D-Somerville), like Paulsen a liberal Democrat, said she's not certain the cuts will turn many votes in the tax cut freeze debate.
Jehlen said House members are aware though that local aid, while safe from cuts this year, might be on the chopping block next year. For now, with a $1.35 billion budget gap, saving $200 million by delaying the tax cut addresses a fraction of the problem, Jehlen said.
Rep. Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington), who supports the tax cut freeze, said it won't fly on Beacon Hill unless lawmakers hear support from lots of their constituents. The tax cut issue was discussed for an hour during the private meeting. Afterwards, Kaufman said he senses no surge in interest in taking a tax vote. "What I heard in many different voices was a fear of reprisal from the voters," he said, adding that the merits of the tax cut freeze were debated as well as the issue of whether the House will even debate it.
Steven Collins, president of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition, said lawmakers will be hearing from families who depend on programs that help the elderly, mentally ill and mentally retarded, as well as from low-paid workers who care for the needy. Noting that homeless shelters are already overcrowded, Collins said, "We are going to see an increase in human suffering if we do make these cuts."
While Johnston ripped Swift for her proposed budget cuts, he maintained cuts to be pushed by Democratic legislative leaders "will not be as onerous on the most vulnerable people in the state" and suggested Democrats are being forced to cut deeper than they would like because of Swift's tax position. Cuts to be proposed by Democrats will be painful, but will target "non-critical areas," Johnston said. "My hope and expectation is that they'll be more responsible cuts," he said.
Even though formal sessions for the year are due to end Wednesday, things were mostly quiet in the Legislature today. Both branches were in session, but spent most of the day in extended recesses. The House, by voice vote and without debate, did approve a three-page "fiscal stability" resolution that is essentially a non-binding statement of its collective approach to budgeting policies over the next few years.
According to the resolution, House members agree that:
· Job losses and declining consumer confidence caused a state revenue drop of more than $1 billion;
· The state can't anticipate infusions of federal assistance for health care, education and transportation;
· The softening economy is increasing health care, human services and unemployment costs;
· Cities and towns have amassed "record reserves" during the 1990s;
· The House should spend its $2.3 billion in reserves at a rate that will make them last four years;
· The House should spend half, rather than 30 percent of tobacco settlement monies for three years;
· The House will reduce its own budget by an unspecified amount and institute a hiring freeze;
Swift again urged lawmakers to just get the long overdue budget to her desk. She said she's looking for at least $650 million in "real reductions" in state spending. "It's got to be a budget that matches the fiscal and economic reality that's facing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and until I see the budget I can't determine whether or not they've met those parameters," Swift said. "I want to see the total budget."
After being grilled by reporters, Swift addressed supporters of school readiness recommendations intended to improve early childhood education services. Swift quickly touched on the state's fiscal problems, telling advocates to embrace improvements that can be made without requiring new funding. "Spending money is easy," Swift said. "Spending money better is difficult." The administration pledged to form a single strategy for disseminating information about the state's many early childhood offerings.
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The Boston Herald
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
Legislators cram to find budget cuts
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
The long-awaited state budget to be debated today slashes funding for services to children in state custody, racial desegregation, highway projects and human service workers, but protects education reform money and most local aid to cities and towns.
Lawmakers were burning the midnight oil last night, frantically rushing to hash out the details of $650 million in spending cuts so the budget could be available for the requisite 12 hours before a vote.
"When you're cutting $650 million off the budget, there's going to be some harm and pain," said one legislative source.
A partial list of cuts released around dinnertime included the total elimination of $17 million used to care for children in the custody of the state.
Spending for racial desegregation programs was drastically cut down, to $2.1 million from last year's $13.2 million.
PILOT payments -- special subsidies given to communities that host state agencies that don't pay taxes -- were reduced by $3 million, leaving $15 million.
Education seemed to fare the best, retaining an increase of more than $200 million. The budget boosts Lottery aid to cities and towns by $48 million, to $778 million.
Small increases were granted to regional libraries, police career incentive programs, and school transportation.
While some details leaked out throughout the day, the House and Senate Ways and Means committees were rushing to finalize the budget, so debate can begin this morning.
Meanwhile, anger simmered among the rank-and-file, who face the prospect of casting votes today without a clue as to what they're voting on.
House Minority Leader Francis Marini (R-Hanson) was fuming as the dinner hour arrived and today's session-ender deadline loomed.
"Here I am, sitting here at 6 o'clock the night before, and I haven't seen it yet let alone have a voice in formulating it," Marini said. "This is not the government that the founders envisioned."
While Marini said he was going home for the night, he instructed his staff to grab the budget the instant it was available and spend the whole night poring through it at the State House.
Yesterday morning, House members huddled in a private caucus where Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers (D-Norwood) made a verbal presentation on the spending plan, which is nearly five months overdue.
Lawmakers emerging from the caucus reported that legislative leaders also slashed $20 million out of a $25 million account intended to grant modest salary hikes to human service workers, sparking immediate criticism from advocates for the poorly paid workers.
The private House caucus also featured a heated, hourlong debate over whether lawmakers should publicly debate a proposed freeze on the income tax cut overwhelmingly approved by voters last year.
The issue is likely to resurface today, when the House debates what items to consider at a special session Dec. 5. The only definite item on the special session agenda is veto overrides, but there's a movement afoot to resurrect the income tax cut freeze proposal.
House members also reported that Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham have left clean elections funding unresolved, effectively killing the controversial measure.
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The Hampshire Gazette
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Legislature nears vote on budget
By Mary Carey
Staff Writer
Amherst Democrat Ellen Story was among a group of legislators who met with House Speaker Thomas Finneran for several hours Monday trying to figure out a way for the House to debate and vote on a temporary freeze of the income tax cut.
"It's not entirely dead," Story said, although acting Gov. Jane Swift has said she would veto any freeze on the tax, which is scheduled to be reduced from 5.6 to 5.3 percent next year.
Legislators supporting a freeze say it would prevent the loss of $200 million in tax revenue that could be used to reduce cuts in the state budget.
The leaders in the House and Senate have promised that a finished budget will be printed by midnight tonight so that members in both chambers can vote on the entire package and deliver it to Swift Wednesday. No amendments will be considered until Dec. 5.
Story said legislators who are reluctant to vote on a freeze now may be persuaded that it is necessary once they see the actual budget cuts and Swift has made her vetoes.
"I think this is a go-to-the wall issue for the Legislature," Story said. "If the Legislature doesn't take a stand on this, I don't know when we're ever going to take a stand."
Approved by referendum in 2000, the tax cut reduces revenues by $200 million this year; $400 million in 2002 and $600 the next year.
"Among at least some of us there is a strong sense that our constituents deserve to know where we stand on this issue," Story said. "My sense is if the budget comes out without a delay of the tax rollback and with the large cuts I expect in higher education and human services, then I will vote against it."
In a letter to legislators Monday, Swift chastised them for the nearly five-month delay in producing a budget and urged them to "do the right thing" by passing a spending plan.
And Swift filed her own budget proposal with the Legislature, two days before the session is scheduled to end and 4 1/2 months after the budget deadline.
The Swift spending plan, which is unlikely to be supported by the heavily Democratic Legislature, cuts $710 million and taps $440 million from reserves and $200 million from the state's annual tobacco settlement.
Swift's budget would make $23 million available for Clean Elections, and cut the Legislature's "administrative expenses" if it doesn't implement the law.
Members of Swift's administration have said she has had to step into a leadership vacuum created by the Legislature.
"It certainly didn't hurt to have her breathing down our neck," Story said of the budget proposal issued Monday by Swift. But Story took exception to the merits of the two-day sales tax holiday in December that Swift has proposed and touts in her letter.
"If you have any doubt as to the need for a sales tax holiday simply ask the merchants in your communities," Swift writes.
But according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, such a tax holiday isn't effective in increasing sales.
"Essentially, what it turns out to be is people who are going to make purchases anyway delay it until those two days," Story said.
Story praised Swift for including in her budget funding for the Clean Elections law, saying there appears to be a "small chance" the Legislature will follow suit in its budget -- the details of which are still entirely unknown to members, she said.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.
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FIRST CHURCH SHELTER
November 21, 2001
Contact: Jim Stewart - 617.661.1873
Activists call state's actions to balance the budget
on the backs of the poor a "Harvest of Shame"
Activists will gather tomorrow (Wednesday, November 21) at noon in the Great Hall at the State House to denounce the state’s plan to cut programs that serve low-income individuals and families, frail seniors, and other vulnerable individuals, in order to meet a $1.35 billion shortfall in the state budget. A slowing economy and the ripple effect of the impact of the September 11th tragedy has lead to a drop in tax revenues. The state income tax rollback, scheduled to take effect in January 2002, will push the budget to its breaking point.
The event, organized by the First Church Shelter, and co-sponsored by a coalition including Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, the Jewish Community Relations Council, Solutions at Work and Bread of Life, provides poor and homeless people with a thanksgiving meal and an opportunity to speak out about their concerns regarding state programs and policies. Those attending the event called it “shameful” that the state is only focusing on budget cuts to address this fiscal crisis.
“More and more people are losing their jobs and need the very programs they are looking to cut” said Tom Feagely,from the Malden based feeding program, Bread of Life.. “I don’t know why the legislature and the governor have refused to postpone the tax roll back. When it was voted on, people were told that it could be done without cutting any programs. I think, if asked now, voters would agree to delay the next phase of the tax cut if it meant that our most vulnerable citizens could get the help they need.”
Feagely will be cooking most of the turkeys for the meal.
While the budget crisis means that cuts are inevitable, the failure of the Legislature and Governor to freeze the next phase of the tax cut and to use more of the “rainy day fund” will require even bigger cuts; jeopardizing food programs, child care, cash assistance, emergency shelter and other programs that help people to meet basic needs. This will push even more people to the brink of homelessness at a time when both the family and individual shelter systems are bursting at the seams.
“Past experience shows us that these cuts, once made, will never be restored” said Leslie Lawrence,of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless . “During the last recession, the state slashed housing assistance programs, eliminated 7 out of 9 homeless prevention programs and made thousands of disabled individuals ineligible for monthly cash assistance. None of these cuts were restored during following years of economic prosperity.”
George Capronegro, a former homeless person who know works at First Church Shelter and will help serve the meal, said “Tomorrow, on the eve of Thanksgiving, we'll share a meal and stand together in our commitment to prevent this burden from falling on those who can least afford it. We commit ourselves to mobilize our friends, our communities and all who will listen to push our state leaders to develop alternative and compassionate solutions to this crisis.”
To balance the budget without drastic cuts, advocates are urging the state to use more funds in the FY’01 surplus and rainy day accounts in addition to delaying the implementation of the tax rollback for one year.
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Associated Press
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
Legislature files budget
three minutes before deadline
By Leslie Miller
BOSTON (AP) Legislative leaders strode into the House clerk's office three minutes before midnight Tuesday and nearly five months after the fiscal year ended, filing a $22.25 billion budget that cuts higher education, mental health programs and the courts.
The spending plan closes a budget gap that widened to $1.35 billion in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the sharp economic slowdown that followed
The two Ways and Means chairmen who negotiated the budget, Sen. Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, and Rep. John Rogers, D-Norwood, said the spending plan's delay at least allowed lawmakers to take into account the sharp drop in revenue.
"It took us almost a month to realize the fallout from those tragic events, and the recession that follows, and it took almost a month to come up with a responsible spending document," Rogers said.
The budget plan adds details to a general agreement reached by House and Senate budget writers last week. That deal called for the state to make $650 million in cuts and tap the state's savings accounts for another $700 million to balance the budget.
Lawmakers left it up to acting Gov. Jane Swift to decide how many of the state's 73,000 employees will be fired as a result of the $650 million in cuts.
The state's Clean Elections law was left to be decided separately. The voter-approved law offers public funds to candidates who agree to campaign spending and fund-raising limits. In her own budget proposal, Swift included $23 million for the measure.
House members were told about some of the proposed cuts at a closed-door caucus Tuesday. They include cuts of $50 million for higher education, $30 million for the courts and $32 million for local road repair programs. The Legislature level-funded its own administrative budget, Montigny said.
The full legislative budget plan was not released online at midnight, as had been promised.
Lawmakers are expected to debate and vote on the budget Wednesday, with little time to review the spending plan. The Legislature's own rules require the budget to be filed by at least one calendar day before a vote is taken.
"It's an absolute joke that it was filed three minutes before the deadline," said Dominick Ianno, a Swift spokesman. "The members are going to vote on it by lunch tomorrow. It's ridiculous."
Legislative leaders failed to rally enough support for a proposal to avoid some of the cuts by postponing the next installment of the $1.2 billion tax cut approved by voters last year.
"Legislators will have the budget dumped on their desk with no chance to consider to delay the next round of income tax cuts," said Rep. James
Marzilli, D-Arlington.
On Monday, Swift filed her own budget plan, which would cut $710 million and tap $440 million from reserves and $200 million from the state's tobacco settlement.
The fact that lawmakers are given little time to review a budget that is five months late shows how powerless most lawmakers are, said Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
"The rank and file essentially have no voice on producing the state budget, which is the legislature's key policy document," he said. "They're cut out of the process."
Swift has 10 days to review the budget and make vetoes.
The legislative session ends Wednesday, and lawmakers are expected to return briefly in December to consider overriding those vetoes.
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The Telegram & Gazette
Worcester, Mass.
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Editorial
Toga season
Break out the togas, the solons of the Massachusetts Legislature are at it again.
In a scenario that has become distressingly familiar, the Legislature once again is racing the clock to complete a long-overdue state budget.
If the budget is completed at midnight tonight, as legislative leaders pledge, it will hardly have been a triumph of good government. Although several other states started the fiscal year in July without budgets, Massachusetts has the dubious distinction of being the only one that -- more than 4½ months into the fiscal year -- still lacks a financial blueprint.
To come up with a budget in time for an end-of-session vote tomorrow, thousands of spending items -- many with far-reaching policy implications -- will have to be gaveled through without having been debated, printed or even read before the House and Senate. As in previous budget free-for-alls, it will be weeks before most lawmakers even learn what it is they have voted for.
Although politics and leadership egos are, properly, blamed for the long-running budget impasse, responsibility must be shared by the rank and file members of both parties who have allowed themselves and their constituents to be disenfranchised.
Once again in 2001, togas are back in style on Beacon Hill. Regrettably, responsible budget procedures are not.
The budget debate this year has generated more than the usual quota of politicking, posturing and nonsensical blathering on Beacon Hill, but Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny's summary dismissal of Gov. Jane M. Swift's “recovery budget” as a sham takes the cake for self-serving hypocrisy.
As Senate Ways and Means chairman, Mr. Montigny has played a central role in the Legislature's dysfunctional budget process.
Equally self-serving are the leadership's complaints about the “painful decisions” they have had to make to balance the budget. Wherever possible they have taken the path of least resistance, tapping the fiscal 2001 surplus, tobacco settlement money and “rainy day” funds -- totaling an estimated $750 million -- to minimize actual belt-tightening.
Although Senate President Thomas M. Birmingham calls the budget “grim” and Mr. Montigny calls it “ugly,” that overstates the case.
Even the $22.5 billion spending plan unveiled by Ms. Swift yesterday, while comparatively frugal, hardly qualifies as an austerity budget. While it falls considerably short of the $22.9 billion spending wish lists the House and Senate compiled in the spring, the Swift recovery budget calls for increasing spending by $1 billion from the $21.5 billion spent in fiscal 2001.
Nothing is certain until the Legislature agrees on a fiscal 2002 budget and the governor exercises her veto pen on the final product. However, recent days have offered signs of progress.
The misguided reduction in local aid threatened by some lawmakers apparently will not occur. Cutting state aid, which accounts for more than half of the revenue of some communities, would create statewide fiscal chaos.
Also off the table, evidently, is the notion of underwriting higher spending by postponing the income-tax rollback enacted by referendum. There simply were too few votes in the House to override the veto promised by Ms. Swift, reflecting the realization by some rank-and-file lawmakers that Massachusetts' sluggish economy needs the stimulus of tax relief now more than ever.
Even if the current economic slowdown is short-lived, as many economists predict, producing a balanced budget will require discipline not only in the current budget year, but also in the fiscal 2003 budget the Legislature will begin work on just six weeks hence.
Massachusetts taxpayers got the message years ago that hyperinflationary growth in state spending could not be sustained. The current budgetary contortions will not have been in vain if they prompt lawmakers to reach that conclusion as well.
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The Patriot Ledger
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
BOSTON - The legislative session that formally ends tomorrow will be remembered more for what didn't happen than what did happen.
Critics say the Legislature's most glaring failure in 2001 was its inability for nearly five months to produce a budget for the state fiscal year that began July 1.
There will be a budget by the time the gavel is struck tomorrow, legislative leaders say, but the state has not gone this far into a fiscal year without a budget since 1965. It was Dec. 30 of that year before a budget was adopted.
But there were other major state issues that will go unresolved in 2001, critics say, including public financing of campaigns and anti-terrorism legislation. And despite tomorrow's formal recess, legislative leaders say they will call the House and Senate back into session next month for final action on the budget and congressional redistricting.
To date, 133 bills have been signed into law in 2001, about 100 of which are minor, local measures like naming buildings and validating local election results. That falls far short of the 428 laws enacted in 2000, or even the 181 laws enacted in 1999.
A few more bills are expected to be signed into law before year's end, but Beacon Hill watchers are already saying 2001 was one of the least productive years in recent memory in terms of legislation.
"It's puzzling," said Ken White of the watchdog group Massachusetts Common Cause. "We're one of only six states with a full-time legislature, yet we're the only state without a budget."
White faults legislators for not spending more time on Beacon Hill. Despite a base pay of $50,000 a year -- plus $7,200 expenses, travel and meal accounts, and $15,000 bonuses to committee chairmen -- one in three state lawmakers has a second job, White said. In addition, busy fund-raising schedules mean many lawmakers aren't working "full time," he said.
"You do the math," White said. "Either these folks don't sleep, or we don't have a full-time Legislature."
The budget was held up because of a dispute between the House and Senate over what was to be funded and how to pay for it. The decline in state revenues then created a $1.3 billion shortfall that had to be made up by spending cuts or new revenue. The budget will end up being around $22 billion -- $1.8 billion a month.
Gov. Jane Swift this week sent the Legislature her plan for a budget that called for $700 million in spending cuts and using $365 million for state reserve funds.
The Legislature's budget is likely to call for $50 million less in spending cuts. Legislators will have less than a day to study and debate the budget, and leaders said there will be a simple yes or no vote on adopting it with no possibility of offering amendments.
Among the things the Legislature will not do before going home is pass a Clean Elections Law. Voters approved public campaign finance three years ago in a statewide ballot, but the Legislature has failed to fund the law, which was supposed to take effect this year.
"It's a national embarrassment," said Clean Elections proponent David Donnelly. "The Legislature can't even get its act together to set aside a limited amount of money to make this law work, even when it's a constitutional obligation to do so."
Also left unfinished are bills on changes to the welfare system, new guidelines for sentencing criminals, $2.5 billion in bond authorizations, decreasing or freezing unemployment insurance rates, indexing the minimum wage to the consumer price index and addressing affordable housing.
The Legislature is notorious for putting off long-term, hard-to-solve problems such as rising Medicaid costs, said
Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
"Nobody's paying attention to the fact that as the baby boomers get old, it's going to be a major cost," Anderson said. "This is one of those long-range planning things the Legislature doesn't deal with. Unless there's a crisis, the Legislature does not act."
The Legislature did take action this year to rescue the state's dog and horse racetracks. Other action included revising the Uniform Commercial Code, putting $600 million of surplus money into escrow and redistricting state House, Senate and Governor's Council districts.
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The Boston Globe
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
A Boston Globe editorial
Legislative slumber
IN THE COLD DAYS last January when the House voted to scrap its rule limiting speakers to eight years in office, Thomas Finneran said he was not interested in longevity for its own sake.
"To say: 'Oh, he was the longest-serving speaker,' that is about the most hollow claim to a meaningful life," Speaker Finneran said then. "The question is: did you do something?"
Now, as the cold of another winter envelops Beacon Hill on what is supposed to be the Legislature's last day, the lawmakers' work product is embarrassingly puny. And the shameful delay in dealing with the state budget is only part of the story.
Apologists are already blaming the slowing economy and the terrorist attacks, but that is bunk. Sept. 11 did not slow anything down, because nothing was moving on Sept. 10.
Sentencing reform is a prime example. This long-simmering issue -- without a big price tag -- was identified by Finneran in February as a top priority, but he did not get it through his own branch until last month, and the Senate has not acted.
The list of bills passed by the Senate and stymied in the House is longer, including one to raise and index the minimum wage.
But the overall toll of inaction is appalling. There is wide agreement that an increase in unemployment insurance rates scheduled for January should be eliminated, but the branches haven't agreed on how, so the increase is still a possibility. A homeless prevention program and other nonbudget housing initiatives also had wide support but went nowhere. Efforts to pass a new distribution formula for education aid went nowhere. A proposal to expend health care coverage depended on an increase in the cigarette tax and died. State legislative redistricting was passed without proper public comment, and congressional redistricting is in limbo.
So far this year, there have only been 30 formal sessions of the House -- about three a month. Only 148 roll calls, many of them landtakings and other formalities, had been taken in the House, about half the rate of the 1999-2000 session.
The Legislature has been so dysfunctional as to inspire the civic-minded to devise a better way to choose its lawmakers. But of course the voters already did exactly that in November of 1998 when they approved the Clean Elections reform of campaign financing.
Now, along with practically everything else that seemed hopeful in the spring of this legislative year, Clean Elections is dead.
With this action, which discourages competition, and the elimination of Finneran's term limit, legislators may feel they have promoted their own careers.
But if the goal of legislators this year was not longevity but to "do something," they have failed utterly.
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The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Taxpayers, can you spare a dime?
By Taylor Armerding
Eagle-Tribune Columnist
I'm half expecting to see the Statehouse's two Toms, House Speaker Finneran and Senate President Birmingham, setting up shop on Boston Common wearing tattered topcoats and holding tin cups.
"Got any spare change?" they will plaintively ask hurried passersby. "Won't you help out a couple hundred poverty-stricken legislators? Every few million helps."
Indeed, to hear them and their colleagues tell it, starvation is just around the corner. The fundamental necessities that are the right of every member of the human family -- at least those who work for the state -- are in jeopardy. Even worse, cigars might be harder to come by.
All this because the river of tax revenue -- a swollen, raging torrent for the past decade -- has slowed.
It is still hard to say exactly what that decrease will be. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Association, considered one of the most reliable sources for state budget analysis, had estimated in the summer that the decrease would be only $13 million, a decline of less than 1 percent. Immediately after Sept. 11, it said the gap between revenues and proposed spending could approach $1 billion. Now, it says it could hit $1.4 billion, if economic conditions don't improve.
That, of course, is due in large part to the fact that Gov. Jane Swift and the Legislature, while lamenting the economic slowdown and wringing their hands over impending "service cuts," are still planning to increase spending by hundreds of millions. That, in the world of state budgets, is a cut. Even if the Legislature followed the recommendation of the taxpayers association, and "cut" $850 million from the current year's budget, it would still be at least $500 million more than the previous year.
That is largely because of programs begun or expanded during the "fat" years, based on the fantasy that the economy, and tax revenues, would continue their explosive growth forever. There was little or no thought to how fast the costs of those programs might expand. No real spending limits built in. And they are called nondiscretionary -- in other words, they theoretically can't be touched or cut. For example, state health-care costs are expected to increase at an annual rate of 10 percent a year -- four or five times the general rate of inflation.
So the Statehouse is filled with monumental hand-wringing after a decade of living in heaven without having to die first, fiscally speaking. Annual state spending increased by an average of nearly 6 percent per year, from $13.4 billion to $23.9 billion, all while increases in the cost of living have averaged about 2.8 percent. Yes, that's a rate more than double the cost of living. How many of you working stiffs who didn't cash in on the dot-com bubble can say that about your salaries?
This, even though last year's $580-million surplus plus the state's "rainy day fund" provide a $2.3-billion reserve -- a cushion that could be two or three times that if there had been even minimal spending control for the past 10 years.
This, while patronage jobs still abound as always, and while state workers still have health care benefits that are much more generous than those in the private sector.
With grim faces, they warn that the "responsible" thing to do would be to delay the gradual reduction of the "temporary" tax increase of 12 years ago. With grim faces, they tell us that we will all have to tighten our belts.
Memo to the Legislature: We already have. Now, it's time for state government to tighten its belt. After a decade of loosening it several notches every year, forgive us if we don't feel your pain.
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