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
The homesless initiative seems intriguing and thanks for the post….
The funding for line item 0321-1510 is almost full – that is, the funding in the FY 09 proposed budget by the House is equal to the actual amount spent in FY 08, less only a couple of million.
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p>While this is not “full funding” this is an enormous improvement, because in the past the line item was routinely underfunded by 20-25% percent – leading to the need for a large supplemental budget to pay for work already done and a long, long LONG delay in payment that really hurt court appointed attorneys.
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p>By funding FY 09 at more than 95% of the expenditure for FY 08 while a supplemental budget will still be needed, it will be a smaller amount, one that should be more manageable and which will not leave the majority of the hard working private attorneys who depend on being paid just as everyone else does waiting for 4-6 months to be paid [as happened last year].
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p>My thanks on behalf of my brothers and sisters of the Sixth Amendment* Bar.
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p>*The Sixth Amendment guarentees a right to counsel for all who face the loss of their liberty, but cannot themselves afford to hire an attorney. In our state this also includes certain liberty interests, such as involuntary commitment and loss of one’s children to the state.
Thanks AmberPaw, I’ll make sure your comments are passed along.
The recommendations include a $1.3 million increase for the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC) line item, which funds civil legal aid (including family law, housing law, etc.). While the House Ways and Means Committee included an increase for the MLAC line item, it is less than the $2.4 million increase that Governor Patrick had recommended, and far short of the $5 million increase MLAC had proposed.
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p>Given the large numbers of eligible legal services clients who cannot be served due to the lack of funds, and the growing need for civil legal aid due to the mortgage foreclosure crisis and other factors, the House should at least match the recommended $2.4 million increase recommended by Governor Patrick.
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p>The House could have done more to tighten mortgage lending standards and increase enforcement beforehand; now it should do everything it can to help folks out who got defrauded or otherwise taken advantage of. Many people were outright lied to about the amount or terms of their mortgage, and without help from legal aid attorneys, they will have virtually no recourse other than to walk away from their homes.
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p>The lawyers who do this important work also do not earn that much money, but the House should do what it can to support them as best it can.
Right on, AmberPaw! I hope you’ll speak out for a judicial salary hike, too (see my comment below). All the pieces of the puzzle (judges, bar advocates, the private bar) need to be adequately funded for our ocurts to keep doing justice. The private bar: check. Bar advocates: check-minus, based on your comment. Judges: judges’ salaries are nothing to sneeze at, but not competitive with salaries in other states or even with the salaries of the most inexperienced lawyers in private practice.
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p>TedF
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p>Deval and Gabrieli wanted a $13 million increase, considering that the number of schools requesting funding for more learning time is expected to quadruple over the next two years. Considering the per-district spending commitment from the state is the same, this “increase” is throttling Gabber’s pet issue by effectively turning away almost all looking to use it.
Thanks for the comments Sabutai. Expanded learning and universal pre-K are two great ideas, ideas the Legislature has supported and is continuing to support. This year, we felt a $2.5 million increase on top of the $13 million in the current year, is what we could afford. Keep in mind that funding for this initiative has doubled over each of the previous two years. Would we have liked to do more? Yes. But it was a balancing act this year, like it is every year. And considering the number of programs cut or level-funded throughout state government – and, indeed, in education, we think a $2.5 million increase is a good start.
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p>Mr. Guarino,
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p>Thank you for you post and your efforts to keep us informed. It is much appreciated.
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p>I must preface my remarks with an observation that this budget proposal is, frankly, more of the same. While I disagreed with the Governor on casinos (and indeed, on gambling in general, it seems) I do give him props for creativity in his attempts to solve problems. I am much impressed with his recent speech at MIT and the stimulus package he outlined therein. I am compelled to ask why your budget differs, in many significant respects, from his proposals? Most specifically, the divergence, it seems to me, is greatest in terms of education funding.
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p>As far as I am concerned education requires and justifies every last penny we can possibly throw at it: there is not a sacrifice to great, no deficit too deep, no balance nor equilibrium so important that they should stand in the way of providing a quality education to our children. Nor is this simply a moral issue: In plain economic terms, nothing Absolutely Nothing beats skilled workers.
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p>There are children entering the first grade right now who will spend their lives, in a very real way, according to the dictates of this budget you’ve laid out. A relatively small outlay of expense and effort on your part now could ensure more doctors, lawyers, merchants and engineers in the future… or you could fail to fund adequately and ensure a steady supply of low-wage, low skilled and illiterate surfers of the poverty line. The skilled pay taxes. The illiterate end up costing more. The choice, so it seems, is in your hands. What will you do?
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p>Please don’t insult my intelligence. Cutting funding is always the easiest decision and making lots of little cuts (or, ‘level-funded’, if you like) across the board is the easiest decision of all. If the legislative leadership were at all about making difficult decisions there would be little or no discussion about corporate tax rates and even less about panicking in the face of “worsening fiscal outlook”… Or do you think that “the kinds of deep program cuts we experienced in the last two downturns” were not the result of expedience and have little or nothing to do with our present situation? If we had spent then, we wouldn’t be hurting now. Leverage, you see, works in both directions…
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p>The Governor laid out a plan for stimulus and borrowing that makes a great deal of sense to me. I wish he’d fought harder to make the corporations pay more in taxes, but I think it’s a good start. Why aren’t you following his lead with your budget?
A gov’s borrowing initiatives are never included in a fiscal budget, those are always done as seperate bills, and as far as I have read the house and senate have been moving them…wasn’t a transportation bill done just a couple of weeks ago?
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p>What economic stimulus are you talking about….I have not heard of nay new legilsation that has been filed….life sciences has been passed by both the house and senate, but what other econ stimulus bills has the governor offered besides casinos?
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p>I am sure everyone agrees that education is extremely important, but not evrything can be funded to everyones desires, you may want early education spending, but what about higher ed? What about health care for my out of work brother? I want more police in my community! My aunt needs senior home care…..
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p>It looks like the Governor and the Legisalture are finnaly working together, and that means compromising, meeting half way and by all news reports it looks like they have done that with their respective budget proposals, as well as the passage of several initiatives that were detailed by Doug Rubin during the past couple of weeks….If this is more of the same,I like it.
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p>Perhaps you missed the part about ‘leverage’…?
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p>Education touches everything. You want your out-of-work brother to get healthcare. Fine. How about lifelong education so he won’t be out of work?
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p>You want more police? Fine. I want smarter police.
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p>You want senior home care for your aunt? Fine. Let’s hope she can get care that knows the difference between mg and gram dosages…
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p>Increase education and all these things will follow. Better education means everything gets better.
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p>Give me a lever, and a place to stand, and I can move the world.
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p>The Governor plans to trim discretionary spending and make wise investments. The lege proposes cuts where we most need increases. The Governor proposes bold and imaginative efforts. The lege wants to take the easy way out of their panic. The Gov goes to the offense, the lege goes into a defensive crouch.
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p> I don’t call that compromise. Neither should you…
Sorry Petr, my response to your first post was coming up right as your second one was…
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p>Cutting the budget is never easy, as the lawmakers who vote to do so will find out in the coming weeks of press releases, phone calls, letters, emails and visits to their offices. And I think fully funding the nation’s most far-reaching health reform law at $845 million, taking the first budgetary steps in a 10-year, $1 billion life sciences plan and allocating $10 million in an effort to try to end homelessness in the Commonwealth by 2013 are inarguably bold steps.
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p>But your advocacy on education is impressive. Thanks for the comments.
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p>dave
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p>These are bold and worthy steps. You ought to take them. I applaud your efforts in this regard. I am, however, compelled to point out that failing to properly fund education seriously undermines these efforts, particularly with regards to the life sciences initiative, and is a boldness of an altogether different stripe. It is, after all, only an ‘initiative’. What happens when we realize we are stuck with a billion dollars worth of initiative that we may or may not know what to do with… In 10 years you will have spent a billion dollars and my (now) 9 year old son will be out of high school and in college. Will he be properly prepared to make the most out of this initiative?
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p>Give me a lever and a place to stand… right? OK. Give me a billion dollars and a way to leverage it and I’ll turn it into a trillion dollars or more. Pretty soon, we’re talking real money…
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p>Take away that leverage and that billion dollars is just gonna sit there. OK. You’ve taken a billion dollars and turned it into… what?
Not only is there a solid budget on the table for such a horrendous economic period… also, you have way more patience than I would.
Thanks Petr, these are good points and hard to argue with … except that state government simply cannot do everything we want. We, like you, have to live within our means. We are encouraged by the support of our budget plan offered by Joe Landolfi on behalf of Governor Patrick in today’s Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/17/houses_28b_budget_banks_on_new_taxes_program_cuts/). We are pleased they embrace this as it was intended, a show of support for the good ideas in his budget and another increased investment in important programs.
I just want to echo what we have said publicly over the past few days – we are encouraged by the House budget, appreciate the House’s willingness to invest in many of the same priorities as the Governor, and look forward to working with the House and Senate over the next few months to produce a budget that makes targeted investments in our long-term growth while dealing responsibly with the fiscal realities of the Commonwealth.
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p>The Speaker, Chairman DeLeo, and their staff have made a concerted effort to reach out to us and work with us on the budget and other issues – including today’s joint signing of the transportation bond bill and announcement of significant reforms in how the administration manages construction projects.
Thanks Doug.
And glad to see both of you on the same page.
The options aren’t good. But this is better than trying to gamble your way out of it.
May I make a plea for a hike in judicial salaries? I’m sure this is a tough sell in a bad economy, but it’s really vital to the provision of justice.
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p>Our courts provide a very high quality of justice relative to other states. In the course of my law practice, I see all the time that litigants are willing or sometimes even prefer to try their cases in the Superior Court rather than in the U.S. District Court, even when they have the option to have the case heard in the federal court. And yet when adjusted for cost of living, Massachusetts ranks 42nd in trial court salries. The Chief Justice of our Supreme Judicial Court makes less than a first-year associate at a large Boston law firm. Our politicians have a bad habit of attacking even raises to keep pace with the cost of living, which is especially ridiculous when, like Kerry Healy in the last election, they are running on a law and order platform.
Despite this, relatively few Massachusetts judges have decamped for greener pastures, but the situation is untenable.
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p>There’s a larger separation of power issue here, too. The legislature should index judicial salaries to the cost of living, so that judges, the bar, and others interested in the quality of justice do not need to grovel in the Ways and Means Committee every year. Although it’s pretty clear that the Constitution (at leat the U.S. Constitution) doesn’t require cost-of-living adjustments for judges salaries, it’s not good policy for judges to be so beholden to the legislature.
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p>So, Mr. Guarino, if the Speaker of the House is interested in the administration of justice in the Commonwealth, let’s see some action on judicial salaries.
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p>TedF
Ted: Court appointed attorneys rates were set at $25.00 in 1984 or so. The current rate for court appointed attorneys, if “indexed for inflation” is now state of the art 1990.
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p>If judicial salaries were indexed, shouldn’t the other players who shoulder the weight of justice receive the same consideration?
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p>Assistant DAs – stuck at around $35,000 a year?
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p>Bar Advocates who pay all their own expenses and have a rate that lags far, far behind inflation?
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I find it so disheartening that after successfully fighting attempts be Republican Governors to balance the budget of the backs of state employees to have it enacted by a Democratic Governor and House. To add insult to injury the Speakers spokesman didn’t even to the guts to call the change was it is. Referring to it as “reforming employee contributions to their health care” instead of what it is, a pay cut. This proposal wipes out our meager pay raises for this year, and then some. I’m so disillusioned with Patrick over this slam.
A 15% contribution is completely out of whack with the private sector, which is usually 50/50 when healthcare is AVAILABLE! And I’m sure Patrick will enjoy it even more when the budget his his desk for signing, and SEIU and NAGE descend upon him, and it’s all HIS fault. Were I in his shoes, I’d consider vetoing, just to force the Lege to go on record with an override.
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p>That said – Mr. Guarino – the Speakers use of consolidated amendments to stifle floor debate is despicable.
and generally in the “other” direction. Perks? Edge to the private sector by a long shot.
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p>Government work isn’t private sector work. The hours, expectations, salary, and other compensation aren’t equal. It simply doesn’t make sense to pluck out one part of the entire package and observe that it’s “completely out of whack” without considering all the other parts too.
I’m content with this budget. I’d be happier if we could at least come to the table and openly debate raising income taxes to go directly towards our kids at a per-child basis. Raising the income tax by .5% would mean more than a billion dollars and $1,000 per child across the commonwealth. That would be spare change for the most of us, but would prevent my home town of Swampscott from having to cut all art classes, music classes, technical education classes and others. This, on top of the fact that we closed down an entire elementary school last year – which, by the way, was consistently one of the top 10 in the entire state in MCAS scores (and a Compass School), in a very blue-collar, middle-class neighborhood. Raising taxes by that tiny amount would be the responsible thing to do and, at the very least, we should hold hearings on it or have a house debate. If it’s strictly for educational purposes, and the money went to cities and towns on a per-child basis, I think many state representatives in the house would be pleasantly surprised at how popular such a measure would be.
Thanks for the props above and the thoughtful comments. I’ll be sure to pass them along.
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p>I’m sure you know the House had a lengthy debate on revenue just last week, where we changed the corporate tax structure (closing so-called “loopholes”) while lowering the overall tax rate for corporations. We thought this was a good balance to bring Massachusetts in line with the business climate in other states (both through the check-the-box and combined reporting proposals the Governor filed last year and by lowering the overall rate). Our research echoes the Governor’s – that the so-called loopholes will close mostly for large, out-of-state companies and the rate reduction will help mostly smaller, Massachusetts-based companies.
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p>And I’m sure you know that we raised the cigarette tax by $1, bringing Massachusetts to second in the nation for that levy but bringing in an extra $175 million dedicated to the new health reform law (which will then free up $175 million to be spent elsewhere). We believe our revenue changes, taken with the cuts and borrowing from the rainy day fund, offers a balanced approach.
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p>The Speaker does not think that approving broad-based tax increases like you suggest is the right move at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet. Are there some like you who want to do more? Absolutely, and they make good points. Are there some who wanted to do less? Absolutely, and they also make good points.
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p>As I’ve said before, it’s a balancing act. The Governor and the House have now offered their plans. Now it’s the Senate’s turn – we expect they will debate a revenue bill of some sort in the coming weeks. Then we will come together and offer a compromise for the Governor’s consideration.
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p>That’s where things stand at this point. Stay tuned …
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p>Broad based tax cuts are the conjugate of broad-based tax increases. As such, they are equally viable and no argument, be it moral, civic or economic, favors one over the other. It has only to do with the priorities of those imposing the cuts or raising the taxes: It’s either what you care about or what you fear that drives your choices.