| Today, we released a balanced budget that makes wise but limited investments across state government. Among other things, the $27.9 billion House budget:
• Provides a significant increase in local aid funding, including a $223 million increase in Chapter 70 school aid (a 6 percent increase while state government is expecting to grow by only 3.8 percent).
• A $24.2 million increase to the University of Massachusetts and a $13.4 million increase to community colleges
• $10 million in new funding for the unparalleled effort to end homelessness by 2013
• Full funding for the $1 billion life sciences bill approved by the House and Senate, which amounts to about $45 million in funds and tax breaks this year
• Full funding for the health care reform law at $845 million
• A $2.5 million increase to extended learning time grants to serve an additional 1,500 students with a longer school day
Much of the attention, naturally, will be on areas where the Ways and Means Committee cut from the budget or where we decided we couldn't expand as quickly as we would have liked. The Speaker and Chairman were clear that education - the extended day effort and universal pre-Kindergarten - are two areas where we wanted to fund more but simply could not given the constraints and the need to provide essential services first.
The Ways and Means budget includes $109 million in direct cuts from the fiscal year 2008 budget. We also adopt $253 million in savings and reforms put forward by Governor Patrick.
The budget adopts the Governor's proposal to save $51 million by reforming employee contributions to their health care through the Group Insurance Commission and adopts the Governor's proposal to save $202 million from a combination of constrained growth in agency and program spending and Medicaid cost controls.
There are 86 line items that are cut, line items that were chosen because the committee felt they could be sustained with less funding. Among the cuts:
• $39 million from reserve accounts under the administration or Treasurer's purview, including $10.4 million from the Central Artery/Tunnel funding shortfall remediation the Commonwealth is no longer obligated to pay and $8 million for sewer rate relief.
• $32 million from accounts under the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, including $15.8 million from the Office of Travel and Tourism.
• And $17 million from accounts under the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, including $2.9 million due to projected cost reductions for the Prescription Advantage program.
These figures don't take into account departments and line items that were level funded from last year, which is essentially a cut because most departments are growing at a level of at least 3 percent.
The Speaker and Chairman have stressed that there were no easy decisions in this year's budget and they are well aware that every cut represents a program that is important to someone in the state. But they know restraint is critical in these times and have stressed that this budget goes a long way toward preparing for a worsening fiscal outlook without the kinds of deep program cuts we experienced in the last two downturns.
My email box is already buzzing with amendments being offered by members. We expect many will be filed by the deadline of Friday at 5 p.m. They will all be analyzed carefully and considered by members as part of the budget debate starting Monday, April 28.
Be sure to watch the debate unfold on our web broadcast here - http://masslegislature.tv/?l=h...
Hope this brief briefing helps start the conversation here. As always, we appreciate the thoughts, comments and, yes, even the polite critiques.
All the best,
David Guarino
Communications Director for Speaker DiMasi |
