The Boston Herald
Sunday, October 13, 2002
Swift threatens to whack budget again
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Acting Gov. Jane M. Swift is threatening to impose another
$65 million in devastating budget cuts on cops, nurses, seniors, the mentally ill and disabled poor - if lawmakers
"hide their heads under the blanket" about the state's deepening fiscal crisis.
The new wave of potential budget-slashing measures comes
immediately in the wake of $202 million in cuts Swift made this week, as the state struggles with a $300 million cash
shortfall and a structural deficit approaching $2 billion.
"The people impacted will be significantly and exponentially
worse because people failed to live up to their responsibilities," Swift said as she unveiled the cuts
Thursday.
With her unilateral budget-balancing powers limited to about
two-thirds of the $23 billion state budget, Swift plans to lay down the law with House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and
Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham when the trio huddle Tuesday in an emergency
summit.
Swift is asking lawmakers to reconsider their opposition to
revenue-raising proposals such as scaling back Lottery prizes or forcing higher-paid state workers to pay more for health
care.
Lawmakers also are being asked to kick 50,000 people off
state-sponsored health care two months earlier than planned, trim the welfare program and institute a second early
retirement program.
If the Legislature doesn't do its part to close the last
$100 million of the revenue gap, administration officials say, Swift is prepared to impose some "pretty bad stuff."
Swift is boring in on the $6 billion Medicaid program - the
largest and fastest-growing account in state government - which provides health care to nearly 1 million of the state's
poorest residents.
All 12,500 low-income disabled adults who receive health
care through the CommonHealth program would lose their pharmacy or hospital coverage under a $10 million cut Swift is
preparing.
And Swift is planning to save $5 million by freezing
enrollments in Medicaid's family assistance program, which provides health care to families marginally above the federal
poverty line - $1,665 of income per month for a family of three.
While public-safety programs have been held beyond harm in
the year since Sept. 11, Swift is eyeing a drastic cut in community policing.
The 40 percent reduction would yank $8 million away from
cops in urban areas, where crime has been on the rise during the last year.
Boston would lose $1.6 million under the potential cut.
Lawrence would lose $491,000, and $373,000 would be taken from Worcester.
Swift also is looking to slash reimbursements for the Quinn
law, which provides salary incentives to cops who go back to college.
The state currently picks up half the Quinn law tab,
splitting the costs down the middle with cities and towns. But Swift's $7 million cut would force cities and towns to pay for
60 percent.
Boston would take a $1.5 million hit under the Quinn law
cut. Springfield would lose $400,000, and Worcester would lose $290,000.
Swift also is looking to incinerate the state's $680,000
program to train 1,040 certified nursing assistants, who are in high demand for nursing homes struggling with severe staffing
shortages.
And nursing homes could face a major influx of patients
under a $6.5 million cut Swift is mulling for the elder home-care program.
That program, which serves 5,454 seniors, was spared during
the latest round of cuts after an aggressive activist lobbying effort.
Swift also is considering wiping out the $3.8 million
psychiatric day treatment program, which serves 3,000 people. Another 5,200 recovering addicts would lose follow-up services
under a $3 million cut that would blow up the state's entire post-detox program.
The single largest threatened cut would fall on welfare
mothers, as Swift prepares to slash cash payments by 10 percent - snatching back a cost-of-living increase lawmakers just
approved.
The $21 million cut would mean that 49,069 families would
see their payments scaled back to $449 a month, from $498.
Swift has not issued an ultimatum date, but administration
officials say she would impose the cuts on her way out of office if lawmakers haven't acted by the end of the year.
The deepening crisis is sparking cries for more tax hikes,
on top of last year's $1.2 billion package.
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino is agitating for a local-option meals-tax hike, and the
Massachusetts Mayors Association is likely to make a major push to raise the income
tax back to 5.95 percent - where it was before voters rolled it back in 2000.
"It's hard to imagine, based on the pain throughout the
budget, that you could do it without revenues," said MMA
President Ed Lambert, mayor of Fall River.
The rising tax-hike talk has prompted GOP gubernatorial
candidate Mitt Romney to argue that installing a Republican in the Corner Office is the only way to protect the economy from
tax-and-spend Democrats.
"We can't balance the budget the Shannon O'Brien way - by
raising taxes," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said. "That will only drive our economy deeper into recession."
Democratic hopeful O'Brien, meanwhile, pounced on Swift's
challenge to constitutional officers to voluntarily cut costs by 2 percent.
"We'll do everything that we can to accommodate the
governor," said O'Brien, noting that she voluntarily trimmed Treasury spending by 5 percent last year and squeezed $1
million out of the Lottery.
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The Boston Globe
Sunday, October 13, 2002
Swift urges budget session
But top lawmakers balk at new cuts
By Rick Klein
Globe Staff
With the state's political energy largely trained on the
contentious race for governor, Acting Governor Jane Swift is seeking to haul state lawmakers back into session to help deal
with a looming budget crisis.
But legislative leaders have thus far shown little interest
as Swift - a lame-duck leader with a diminishing number of allies - urges them to close a $100 million hole her
administration says remains despite the acting governor's slicing of $202 million from the state budget Thursday.
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran isn't commenting publicly
on the chances of returning to formal sessions before January, and he seems more focused on electing Shannon O'Brien
governor. Thomas F. Birmingham, Senate president - himself a lame duck
after his failed bid for governor - has questioned whether the fiscal situation is as dire.
In response, Swift's aides are circulating a list of $60
million in proposed cuts to popular programs - gutting home-care assistance for the elderly and shaving educational
bonuses paid to police under the Quinn bill program, for example - and sending the message that the
cuts will become reality unless the Legislature acts quickly to help her come up
with alternative ways to save money.
"We're prepared to do these things - we don't want to do
them, but the fiscal health of the Commonwealth supercedes everything else," a senior Swift administration official said.
"The Legislature needs to act, and they need to act now."
The cuts being threatened by Swift include a $20.9 million
reduction in welfare aid to families with children, which means some of the state's poorest families would get $50 less per
month; elimination of prescription drug coverage to lower-income adults with disabilities,
which costs $10 million; and a $6.5 reduction in the elder home-care program, which is
designed to keep seniors out of nursing homes. She is also eyeing a 40 percent cut in
community policing grants, to save $8 million, and a $8 million reduction in the Quinn bill
program, certain to upset the powerful police union.
Her top aides say she will make those cuts and others
unilaterally, perhaps as early as next month, if the House and Senate don't come back into session to address the budget
situation. The state Constitution permits Swift to invoke emergency powers to make cuts when she
determines that tax revenues will not be enough to cover budget obligations. She
used those powers Thursday when she imposed the $202 million in cuts, eviscerating the state's
antismoking program and eliminating eyeglass and hearing aid benefits for adult
Medicaid recipients, among other programs.
Swift is scheduled to meet with Finneran and Birmingham on
Tuesday. Her release of the list of proposed cuts is designed to increase public pressure on them to reconvene the session -
which ended July 31 - and adopt money-saving suggestions that Swift has offered to avoid
cuts. She wants them to reconsider ideas such as reducing the size of prizes awarded in the
state lottery and forcing better-paid state workers to contribute more to their health
insurance.
Swift's recent moves, and the reactions from Finneran and
Birmingham, reveal as much about the state's current political situation as its fiscal condition. The acting governor has
experienced a rocky year, having ended her campaign for governor and having been eclipsed
by the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mitt Romney. She is eager to be
relevant, and elevate her public standing before she leaves office, and her advisers are convinced that a
get-tough approach to the budget is not only responsible, it's politically smart. They say the
legacy she leaves will be a balanced budget.
Birmingham is on his way out - his failed bid for governor
meant he couldn't seek reelection to his Senate seat - and he and his colleagues may prefer that Swift handle it on her own.
But Birmingham is also questioning whether the state's
economic situation is really as dire as Swift is insisting.
Birmingham said last week that the budget gap Swift
describes is not an actual shortage of funds, but a projected deficit based on economists' recent predictions that the
Massachusetts economy will not rebound strongly early next year as expected. Indeed, the state collected
$91 million more than expected in tax receipts last month - up 2.5 percent over the
same period last year.
Finneran hasn't commented publicly on fiscal matters since
Swift announced the cuts, though his chief budget writer, John H. Rogers, the House Ways and Means chairman, sent a letter
that same day saying the budget gap could be far worse than Swift has said: from $500
million to $700 million this year.
Nonetheless, aides to Finneran and Rogers have said the
House is unlikely to embrace ideas put forward by Swift that members have already turned down, such as shrinking lottery
prizes.
Mark C. Montigny, the Senate Ways and Means chairman, said
none of Swift's cost-saving proposals can be ruled out, but he's not convinced that any of them are necessary. He said
he hopes that Swift will use Tuesday's meeting to convince legislative leaders - and, by
extension, rank-and-file lawmakers - that the situation requires immediate action.
"You must show, with significant factual and numeric
evidence, that this deficit is this sizeable and this troubling," said Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat. "That's the
only thing that requires drastic action when you've already cut the budget and the first-quarter revenue
numbers are above expectations."
Meanwhile, the Swift administration is hoping that advocates
and beneficiaries of the programs that are facing further cuts will contact their elected representatives and call on
them to act.
Other items on the list include a $3 million cut to programs
for recovering drug addicts and a $5 million reduction to Medicaid that would force the state to freeze enrollment under
the MassHealth family assistance program, which provides health care to families with incomes
133 percent to 150 percent above the poverty line.
The administration official interviewed by the Globe
stressed that the fiscal crisis is real and that Swift will make the cuts if she must.
"This is not an effort to bluff," he said.
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The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Editorial
Take your lumps and move on
OUR VIEW
If there is one hallmark of poor leadership it is the constant search for "plausible deniability,"
the ability to claim no responsibility at all for anything bad that happens.
If there is one hallmark of poor leadership it is the
constant search for "plausible deniability," the ability to claim no responsibility at all for anything bad that happens.
Politicians are masters of plausible deniability, of seeking cover for their actions.
We had a local display of this skill this week in North
Andover when a trio of state lawmakers came to take the heat off town and school officials for the scare tactics used in an
attempt to pass a $4 million Proposition 2½ override. The locals were eager to dive for the
cover offered by the state politicos as they have been taking quite a rhetorical beating
from anti-tax forces in town.
Superintendent William Allen had told voters that without
the override, 47 teachers would lose their jobs. Others predicted cuts in services. The predictions were based on an
expectation that state aid to the community would be cut 10 percent.
Almost immediately after the override failed by a 2-1
margin, town leaders announced there would be no jobs lost.
This week, state Rep. David M. Torrisi, D-North Andover, and
state Sens. Bruce E. Tarr, R-Gloucester, and Steven A. Baddour, D-Methuen, came to town to take blame for it all.
State legislators had failed to get a budget approved on time so the local aid figures were
uncertain. "You did the right thing" planning for a 10 percent cut, Torrisi said.
That is utter nonsense. It was apparent well before the vote
on May 21 that towns would not suffer great aid cuts.
"I think level funding is a good possibility, and possibly
even a slight increase," Tarr said in an Eagle-Tribune story published May 19.
This is all part of a little theater that happens every
budget season. The Legislature wails that vital programs are on the line. "And we'll have to cut state aid!" they shout.
This puts town budget planners into a frenzy and causes them
to issue dire forecasts of their own.
Once everyone is in full crisis mode, the Speaker of the
House steps center stage and says softly, "Well, I could prevent this disaster from happening ... but I'll have to raise
your taxes."
Then a great chorus of cheering arises from the public
employee unions and advocacy groups of every stripe. "Yes, please, raise our taxes. It's the responsible thing to do."
We've seen this show many times. It doesn't get better with
age. North Andover leaders who supported the unnecessary override would do well to take their lumps and move on.
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State House News Service
Advances - Week of October 14, 2002
With reserves at much lower levels and next fiscal year's
projected spending and revenue gap estimated at somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion, there's a sense in the
building that another major tax hike may be on the short-term horizon.
On the campaign trail, Democratic gubernatorial nominee
Shannon O'Brien says new revenues might need to be part of a solution, in addition to extricating wasteful spending and
advancing innovative savings plans.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney also is
intent on cutting waste and harnessing savings, but has pledged to fight any effort to raise taxes, although his opposition
won't matter if Democrats can muster the two thirds vote needed to override vetoes.
That's a big question right now. No one can intelligently
answer it. Democrats overwhelmingly control the Legislature and the political backlash over raising taxes does not
appear to be very severe this year. Few incumbents appear to be at risk of
losing their seats.
Will that embolden them to raise taxes again, or will they
view another tax hike as too politically risky and too damaging to the economy?
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Associated Press
Monday, October 7, 2002
State bracing for next welfare-to-work change
By Ron DePasquale
BOSTON - The next round of welfare reform ensures Massachusetts
- with the country's most generous welfare program -- will likely have to work harder than any other state to get
thousands more people working.
If a bill pending in Washington becomes law, Massachusetts
would have to drastically alter its work requirements, now the country's most liberal. Only about 9 percent of the state's
welfare recipients work, and that rate would have to increase to 50 percent in 2005 and 70
percent in 2007.
"It is very expensive to put people to work, especially if
it means creating public sector jobs," said Katherine Newman of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "There are many
benefits of course - people who work feel much better about themselves, they see a future
ahead. It's a laudatory ambition, but it's costly."
The House version of the welfare bill, backed by President
Bush, also has stoked a debate over whether welfare programs should be focused on work or education. The bill would
mandate recipients work 40 hours a week, including at least 24 hours of
actual labor, leaving up to 16 hours eligible for job training and schooling.
The debate also reaches the state level, and gubernatorial
candidates Shannon P. O'Brien and Mitt Romney differ on the issue. The state's 20-hour work requirement does not allow
for education or training. Romney, a Republican, supports the requirement, while O'Brien, a
Democrat, has called for allowing education to count.
The issue could become moot, however, as support for a
nationwide system grows in Washington.
A divided Congress has passed a three-month extension of the
current law, which went into effect in 1996. Members of the Democratic-controlled Senate have proposed a 30-hour
workweek and more money for child care, while the White House has threatened to veto
anything it deems too lenient and too costly. If an agreement isn't reached, the old law will be
reauthorized for at least another year, if not more.
In Massachusetts, no recipient in the state with children 6
or younger has to work. In 48 other states, the cutoff is 2 years or less; in Texas, it's age 3. Some states only give
mothers three months before they must return to work.
Options for meeting the new requirements won't be popular,
observers say. Groups that could have to work include parents with children aged 2 to 5, who make up 22 percent of
the state's caseload, and people who receive state disability benefits - but don't meet
standards to receive federal disability - another 12 percent of the state's rolls.
The average Massachusetts recipient receives $497 a month.
The amount depends on income and dependents.
Advocates for the poor, such as Jeffrey Haywood of the
United Way of Massachusetts Bay, agree that as many people as possible should be moved off welfare as possible, but say
during a down economy, former recipients with little to no training simply return to welfare.
Untrained workers may be off welfare but are collecting several other kinds of aid, such as
food stamps or housing assistance, Haywood said.
"If the goal is to reduce the caseload, congratulations,
you've done it," said Haywood, the agency's vice president of public policy. "But if the goal is to get people to the point
where they're self-sufficient, and don't need any benefits, then an intensive two-year investment in
education will benefit everyone in the long run."
Reform proponents such as Robert Rechter of the conservative
Heritage Foundation say the same arguments were made against the 1996 reforms, which he said have been an
overwhelming success. The failure of a quarter century of education-focused
programs provided the impetus for welfare reform, he said.
"Combining work and education can really communicate the
message that you're going to have to work to support yourself for the rest of your life, so you can really apply your
education," Rechter said.
Child poverty is at its lowest since the early 1970s, census
data show. The booming '90s economy played a role in lifting people out of poverty, but so did welfare reform, Rechter
said.
Pushing recipients toward either work or education is a
false choice, because one should amplify the lessons of the other, said John Wagner, the state's welfare commissioner. And
while many of the people left on welfare rolls have checkered work histories, along with
substance and domestic abuse problems, most would still prefer to work, he said.
"One thing we learned through welfare reform is when you
expect things from welfare recipients, they usually perform," Wagner said.
Riei, who is 23, pregnant and single, and didn't want her
last name used, said she would want to return to work by the time her child turned 2, but she knows going to school, working
24 hours a week and raising her child by herself wouldn't be easy.
"It's hard to manage around here, especially with how
expensive it is to live," she said. "A lot of people my age are living with their parents, because they can't afford
apartments. Or they're on some kind of assistance."
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