This just in, from Patrick HQ:
Governor-elect Deval Patrick today announced that he will restore $383 million in cuts made recently by Governor Romney, including significant cuts to public higher education, social service programs, public safety, and early education and care.
“After a comprehensive review of the current budget and recent revenue performance, I have decided to restore the `9C cuts’ in their entirety when I take office next month,” Governor-elect Patrick said. “Overwhelmingly, these broad-based cuts, especially coming mid-year, have a serious negative impact on thousands of Massachusetts residents who have planned for the relief and relied upon the services these programs provide.”
And can we afford it? Here’s the current answer:
“As we near the end of this fiscal year, if revenues and reversions prove inadequate to fund the items restored, I will recommend, as a last resort, that the Legislature transfer funds from the stabilization fund to cover any deficiency. Should that occur, I do not believe the Legislature will be required to transfer as much as anticipated when the budget was enacted,” Governor-elect Patrick said.
Tax revenues for the year are currently up $306 million to $326 million over the original estimate for FY 2007, when the Legislature and the Governor approved a budget that relied on a $550 million withdrawal from the Stabilization Fund. If growth continues on pace, revenues may be sufficient to cover the cost of the original FY 07 budget without drawing down on reserves. If not, Governor-elect Patrick will ask the Legislature to draw from the Stabilization Fund for the balance. That withdrawal, however, is expected to be dramatically less than the $550 million the budget was originally balanced on.
So, um, is the gazebo back in?
I figured he’d pick and choose. Restore the agencies but refuse to restore the pork. My wishful thinking.
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Looks like an astute political move in response to the heat from Sen. Moore, et al.
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Oh well. Nothing says hope like a well built gazebo.
…that the gazebo will be well built?
here we go again with the infamous gazebo. For one, it makes sense that Patrick would restore all of the 9C cuts and not cut out the gazebo or punching bags like it, because it would have been quite interesting trying to decide what “pork” is versus other “non-pork” appropriations.
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After all, is reparing a road “pork” or is it an investment in infrastructure? Is money to a home for the elderly “pork” or a social service? An appropriation for a museum “pork” or support for the arts? You see my point. I doubt Patrick needed to get into that semi-philosophical dicussion right now.
The problem is, though, that any earmark can be justified along the lines that you’re suggesting. It’s like Sal DiMasi just said — it’s not pork, it’s legislators’ priorities. Ah.
Though it is important to draw some sort line between “pork” and “non-pork” if we are to say the former is unacceptable.
There, I said it. A line has been drawn.
If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.
And right after that, he’ll eliminate the bond cap.
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It’s the only way he can cash the checks he handed out to various and sundry during the campaign. Even casinos will take a year or so to bring on line.
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Wait and see, and remember – you were warned.
Is there any spending cut Patrick actually supports?
I think that this needs to be viewed in a different light than regular pork. Remember, this was in a budget that had been passed, and — please correct me if I’m wrong — signed by the governor. This money was a done deal before Romney pulled the plug. It had successfully made the journey from “proposed” to “reality”, and I’m sure the people whose proposals were included had already moved forward as though the money was there.
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I still have a sour taste in my mouth from the last round of Romney budget cuts back in 2003. Remember those? He says that he cut local aid by “only 5%”, yet he did it when the fiscal year was 8/12 passed by, meaning that the impact of the 5% cut was a 15% cut, and he didn’t account for the fact that when you cut 15% from a town that has 10% of their budget made up of local aid, that amounts to an overall 1.5% budget reduction (which is minimal), but when you cut 15% from a city of which 50% of the budget is made up of local aid, that amounts to a overall 7.5% budget reduction (which is significant).
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Romney skillfully portrayed this spending as “legislative pork”, but the fact is, the money was promised, signed, sealed, and nearly delivered, and that is why it was right to restore the cuts. Romney shouldn’t have had a second bite at this apple.
…that some of the budget restorations are, essentially, kosher pork?
The Legislature can send any porked up version of a budget a hundred gazillion dollars – they want to the Governor, secure in the knowledge that the GOVERNOR has to make all the cuts to comply with the balanced budget amendment, aka 9-C. THAT is why the budget gets revisited – if receipts fall, more needs to be taken out. Also, the Lege CHOOSES to shield various programs, and leave social services exposed to 9-C (remember, they had to vote Jane Swift ‘enhanced’ 9-C powers so Medicaid wouldn’t be WIPED OUT?).
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Curiously, gazebos often fall into protected lines. What a coincidence.
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I will enjoy seeing how future Gov. Patrick handles his 9-C responsibilites once he has squandered the rest of the Rainy Day fund – and you better hope we don’t have a bona fide recession any time soon, since he just lifted $500 large to make the Lege happy!
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Indeed. I’m sure it was a coincidence that Romney chose just the time when he’s out of the state campaigning as the “true” conservative in the Presidential race to make his largest 9C cuts in his tenure. I’m sure it had everything to do with the “best interests of the Commonwealth”.
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I know you’re not that naive, PP.
But that’s just my opinion.
Which facts are you referring to?
This really isn’t about the gazebo, or the victorian lights, or the park programs in varous small towns that were lucky enough to get earmarks. But, it’s about a governor who cut funding to programs half-way through the year when some had already expended the funds and were waiting for reimbursement. I don’t know if that gazebo contract had been issued, but some towns spent money expecting state reimbursement and were then told that they were not going to get it.
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It isn’t fair to anybody doing municipal finance if they have to wonder if the state will live up to their side of a deal.
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But the gazebo and similar earmarks are a part of a larger problem with the setup of the legislature. Improvements to the quality of life in our cities and towns can no longer be afforded through simple property taxes. Furthermore, communities that can’t go back to the “2 1/2 override well” everytime they need more money have been left stretched. If they have the good connections in the legislature it just makes sense that they ask for the earmark to get the job done. Should it happen: no. But, it is legal and it’s part of the legislative funding process as it currently exists. Patrick and the legislature should find a way to maybe set aside funds for these sort of improvements and provide the funds to communities in a fair way.
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Don’t just write of a gazebo as pork: many times these earmark programs are part of larger economic development and neighborhood improvement plans that have some larger well-constructed goals. What we need is a fair funding program to allow communities to have the tools they need to improve themselves.
Why should the state pay for a gazebo in Braintree?
A better question would be: is this any way to create a fair economic stimulus bill?
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The state already pays for many items like the Braintree gazebo, but it’s usually done through open space and park funding, like the Self Help Grant programs administered by the Governor’s agencies. Programs like the Self Help Grant, the Urban Self Help Grant, administered through EOEA, allow communities to compete on an equal playing field for limited state money.
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The problem is that there isn’t enough funding for such programs, and there certainly isn’t any local money for any parks and recreation programs any more, so communities rely on their legislative leaders to provide earmarks to pick up the slack.
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The Gazebo is actually to serve as a perminent bandstand for concerts on the lake near Braintree’s downtown. It is actually included in the ‘economic stimulus bill’ as a form of economic development for Braintree’s downtown.
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In the long run it is better to appropriate funds overall for programs (say, lets put aside $5 million for an ‘economic stimulus grant prgram’) and allow communities to compete for limited funds based upon the merits of their programs. Maybe other communities have ideas that are better than Braintree’s idea of how to spend the money. It is unfortunate that the earmark process limits the ability to have those sort of discussions. But, we elect legislative leaders to make some of these decisions about how to spend state tax dollars, and it is legal for them to do this.
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But, in the long run, I don’t think it is a problem for the state to pay for the occasional gazebo or victorian lights or other local improvement projects. We should be doing more of that, not less. Local government no longer has the resources to improve themselves. State government needs to make the investment to ensure that there is a quality to our park systems, our town centers and our communities that continue to make people want to live and work here.
But you could also ask: why should the state pay for bridge construction in Pittsfield? Or why should the state pay ANY local aid, since that goes to individual communities?
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It’s nice to try to make this into an easy “gazebo” issue, but it’s not quite that simple.
…when we had to tell people that MassHealth dental would cover an extraction, but not a painful cavity – until it abscessed and needed to be extracted. Or that there was no money for new prosthetic limbs. Or that broken dentures could not be replaced. You have no idea how bad the budget can get – WAY beynd the lack of the 3% increase in funding, as describled in the Old Testament, which every state agency is entitled to.
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Victorian lights, my left eye!
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NO municipality should spend money for a reimbursement program UNTIL THEY HAVE WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION THAT THE MONEY IS ENCUMBERED. Not that the grant has been awarded, but that a specific bid has been approved, for a specific dollar amount. THEN, when a written approval is issued by an agency, the Comptroller’s office is on the hook for that cash that the agency has OK’d. Merely being DISAPPOINTED that the awarded grant is now not being funded is trivial. And if they were simple enough to spend the money upon the receipt of the award letter, instead of the authorization, then they are prime examples of WHY we need to be careful in sending blank check fiscal aid to feckless communities that can’t plan their way out of a paper bag.
PP, you have a lot more experience here. But coming from a common sense perspective (which I would agree sometimes doesn’t apply to government) what does Romney’s signature on the FY 2007 budget is mean? Is his signature meaningless.
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Municipalities cannot budget for a fiscal year when a fiscal year budget has been approved?
…by Mass. Municipal that cherry sheets are NEVER in time for them to set their tax rates at spring town meeting. To me, that’s not a bad thing. They can use the former year as a projection, NEVER plan on an increase, and set their own budget accordingly.
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A budget is NOT a contract – it is a spending PLAN, emphasis on PLAN. Best recent example I can cite are the unexpected heavy snowfalls of 2004 on Cape – over 5 feet. NO town had budgeted that kind of money, which is why they try to have a free cash pool, the equivalent of the Rainy Day fund for the state (which we just took gazebo money out of….). In the town BUDGET, it called for a new carpet at the senior center – come spring, that money had been spent on plowing, no matter WHAT the budget said. So foolish is the Senior Center that bought the carpet before authorization for the cash came through.
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It’s no different at the state level – if revenues don’t meet projections, if there is an unexpected incident requiring MEMA aid, if formerly authorized projects have costs rise unexptectedly (the price of asphalt hot mix for roads went through the roof after Katrina, because the plants in Mobile, AL that processed the residue from fuel refining were wiped out, and road rebuilding became more expensive, even thoguh the road was already ripped up) – all these factors can mean the delay or even cancellation of a budget item.
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When the House, Senate and Governor all sign the budget (not just the Governor, you know) it means one thing – this is what we think we’ll have, and this is our agreed upon spending plan. IF we have the money.
In business you have a budget as well, but for whatever reason you have a bad quarter, things are going to change. You might hire less than initially expected or hold off on expenditures. Probably something the admin should review.
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But in this case Romeny signed this budget in the summer, I don’t believe that massive amounts of money needed to be spent elsewhere that required the need for the 9C cuts. Romney’s reason for the cuts were that he didn’t want to take money out of the rainy day fund, I don’t recall any other reason given. But that’s what he signed on for a few months earlier.
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The case you make to budgeting and spending practices is a good one and something that should be followed up on. But from what I can see it’s not the case of Mitt’s cuts.