$352 Million in Cuts Across State Government
The Governor is using his statutory authority to make $277 million in cuts across Executive Branch agencies. Additionally, he is seeking expanded 9C authority to make $75 million in cuts to non-executive branch agencies including the Legislature, Constitutional officers, the Judiciary, Sheriffs and District Attorneys. He asked the Legislature today to act swiftly to grant him this authority in order to achieve immediate savings and ensure shared responsibility throughout all of state government.A full list of reductions can be viewed at http://www.mass.gov/bb/gaa/fy2…
Personnel Impacts
The Governor has directed agencies to prepare plans for additional personnel reductions to achieve an additional $35 million in savings. The Governor asked unions to agree to contract revisions to reduce the number of layoffs required. Without union compromises, the Governor will direct agencies to begin implementing their layoff plans once approved. In total, the Governor expects a personnel reduction of up to 2,000 positions over FY10.The Governor is also requiring the approximately 4,000 managers within the executive branch to take up to nine furlough days through the remainder of the fiscal year in order to achieve additional savings.
State employees have contributed significantly to solving the budget deficit. To date, the Governor has eliminated 1,680 positions over FY09 and FY10, and in FY09 required executive branch managers to take up to 5 days of furlough. Additionally, the Governor and the Legislature agreed in FY10 to increase employee health care contributions, saving the Commonwealth $50 million.
$102 Million in Tax Amnesty and Other Departmental Revenues
Included in the Governor’s plan to close the budget gap is a proposal to offer a tax amnesty program, estimated to generate $20 million. The Commissioner of Revenue will promptly develop and administer the program. The Governor’s plan also includes $82 million in anticipated departmental revenues.Additionally, the Governor is including $24 million from the proceeds of the development of surplus land and a surplus in the Smart Growth Housing Trust Fund.
FY09 Surplus Funds and ARRA
As a result of the Governor’s tight fiscal management and the personnel controls he imposed in FY09, the Commonwealth ended the year with a modest surplus of $60 million. The Governor’s applying the surplus to avoid making deeper cuts to core services and programs. The Governor has protected the Commonwealth’s Rainy Day Fund, not drawing on the current balance to help close the current gap.Additionally, to avoid reductions to higher education, the Governor is using $62 million in available American Recovery and Reinvestment Funds.
Efficiencies, Reforms and Management Tools
In addition to proposing solutions for immediately closing the budget gap, the Governor filed several proposals that will improve the efficiency of state government and give agencies the ability to better manage their budgets.In the last year, the Patrick-Murray Administration has achieved significant reforms that will improve the way services are delivered and taxpayer dollars are managed including an historic consolidation of transportation agencies, pension reform and strict new ethics laws.
He has also consolidated Information Technology services, making government more efficient and secure.
Among the efficiencies and management tools proposed by the Governor are:
Reducing by $5 million the so-called Quinn Bill program. The Governor has simultaneously filed a proposal that establishes a commission to identify a new method for supporting educational advancement of law enforcement officers.Elimination of Bunker Hill and Evacuation Days, paid holidays granted only to state employees working in Suffolk County;
Providing for shared administrative services within Secretariats;
Allowing limited transferability of funds between accounts
Additionally, he has asked agencies to submit to him by December 15th new consolidation proposals such as combining human resource functions and consolidating economic development agencies to consider as he prepares for Fiscal Year 2011.In addition to tools for managing the state budget, the Governor is also calling on the Legislature to promptly pass the Municipal Partnership Act II, which contains tools that will save municipalities millions of dollars through changes including health insurance reforms.
The Governor’s full proposal can be viewed at http://www.mass.gov/anf
what all this “holding harmless” means?
Although Chapter 70 is intact, Chapter 71 is gutted. This is a disaster, and one that I suspect may have to be resolved in the courts.
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p>Why should the students of regionalized towns be disadvantaged by dint of the fact they live in a regionalized district? Why should 1/4 of the state’s students bear a disproportionate burden of the budget shortfall? This is an equity issue that must be addressed.
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p>Chapter 71 Regional Transportion is the state’s portion of the transportation costs for regional school districts. The state is legally required to pay 100 percent of these costs but has never lived up to its end of the bargain. The Commonwealth should have been sued years ago.
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p>Now comes the ultimate kick in the teeth. Municipal school districts fund their transportation through Chapter 70. Guess their transporation costs aren’t similarly at risk. Regions, however, are now being required to pick up these expenses on their own. What does that mean? In effect, Chapter 70 funds are likely to be used to offset the transportation expenses incurred. The district where I live just suffered nearly a $1 million cut in transportation reimbursement.
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p>Nearly $1 million. That cut has the potential to result in the layoff of a lot of teachers (budgeted at $55K on average a pop).
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p>To claim that the Patrick administration is living up to its promise to preserve education funding through Chapter 70 funding is disingenuous at best. Indeed, it’s bullshit.
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p>Disadvantaging students who live in regions is unfair and unethical–and probably illegal from an equal protection perspetive. The Patrick administration ought to be ashamed of itself. The only school districts that are going to feel any real pain here are the ones who volunteered to partner–for cost savings, no less–with the state. Woe to any town that thinks regionalizing is a good idea. Run. Run as fast as you can, Ayer, Lunenberg, and Shirley. It’s a scam that your students will pay for dearly. And if you have children in a regionalized district, I recommend you think about moving. Your kid’s education just got gutted, and is unlikely to be restored any time soon.
The state ordered busing for desegregation in Springfield in the 1970’s. It was supposed to pay 100% of this cost. The most the state ever paid was 57%, in 1978. When Romney cut it all in 2003 the state had been paying 20% of the $15 million cost of the busing plan.
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p>Over the course of 30 years, the state shirked tens of millions of dollars in busing money to Springfield. Maybe even topping $100 million.
“We didn’t cut Chapter 70” makes a great soundbite.
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p>What they should have said is “We didn’t cut Chapter 70 for students who attend school in municipal districts. For students who are unlucky enough to live in a regionalized district, however, we have effectively gutted your Chapter 70. Have a good day.”
Shouldn’t all local school districts receive state funds based on the same formula regardless of how many communities are in the district? In other words shouldn’t, for example, Groton-Dunstable be for the purposes of these provisions be considered a single “town” and funded in the same proportion as another individual community with comparable enrollment figures and economic factors?
If I understand the original post, the state cut the reimbursement for busing students to the regional schools. The poster is claiming that this will result in money that previously was used for education to be used for busing — so it would be a Chapter 70 cut only in the sense that the money is fungible, and bus costs would now have to be paid for out of the same pot.
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p>Chapter 70, to my knowledge, does not contain money for busing within municipal districts. So the removal of the regional busing really just puts regional districts on par with non-regional districts.
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p>If you have a 4-square mile town versus two 2-square mile towns, why should the two 2-square mile towns get money to bus students while the 4-square mile town does not?
The cuts to transportation reimbursement to regional schools districts is $18,000,000 state-wide as you can see here: http://www.mass.gov/bb/gaa/fy2…
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p>I don’t really understand the governor’s reasoning here, considering that because the districts are regional many students have to travel farther to get to school than their counterparts in non-regional districts, and in most regions they do not have the option of public transportation.
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p>Using your $55,000 number, that equals 327 teacher lay-offs to counterbalance this. While I do not have the time right now to go through line items, I’m sure there is somewhere else they can cut $18 million without risking 327 more teaching jobs.
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p>As I remember this plan was initially pitched as a re-organization of state agencies, where exactly is the re-organization? Seems more like downsizing, not combining and streamlining.
but students in grade 7-12 have to pay out of pocket to ride the bus. It’s $210./year. We’ve been doing this for many years, I would say at least 7 years. The town I live in always seems to be in a budget crisis. It’s a very small town, with a very small village center. There are at least 5 empty store fronts that I can think of. The bowling alley closed a few years ago. There is a huge building that was an indoor firing range, that is closed. One of our manufacturing plants is closed, has been for quite some time.
This is one of the reason I support the resort casino in Palmer. I hope such a large employer nearby would bring people and small/large businesses back to this area.
No way. That’s a tremendous lowball. You’re telling me that:
* salary
* health insurance
* pension
* assorted other perks
* payroll taxes
cost a total of $55k per teacher? Not a frickin’ chance. The total budgeted cost per teacher is waaaay higher than that, as it should be.
Word is floating around some of the EOEEA agencies that about 145 positions are being eliminated from the agencies within than secretariat. How will they do that? Elimination of programs is something that’s being considered. Privatizing some functions is another – could be scary in a fox/henhouse sort of way.
You’re subsidizing the fat cats
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p>Raytheon and Fidelity barely pay taxes at all. The likelihood is that you have paid a far more significant income tax than they have. Your Democratic Party legislature gave huge tax breaks to Raytheon and Fidelity, created monstrous tax loopholes enabling the largest of corporations to dance around paying their fair share of the burden, and afforded monstrous tax breaks – to no one’s surprise – to their largest campaign contributors. Your total tax burden is quite likely greater than 8% of your paycheck, while for the wealthiest that figure’s only slightly more than 4%. Politicians and their fat cat contributors are having a rip-roaring party for themselves – and you’re the folks that are buying their meals and picking up their beer tab. It is time to decline the tab.
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p>Repealing the Raytheon and Fidelity tax breaks would generate more than an additional $220 million in revenue for the state. Closing corporate “combine reporting” loopholes would generate over $97 million for the state. Applying a transfer tax to sales of higher end real estate would generate over $500 million for the state. Repealing the sales tax exemption on services such as lobbying, legal and accounting services, engineering services, business consulting, public relations and financial management would generate over $530 million for the state. Implement a 30 cent per pound tax on the top ten carcinogens, and over $115 million in revenue would be raised. An intangible property tax on financial instruments of $2 per $1000 with a $50,000 deductible would generate nearly $500 million for the state. This yields nearly $2 billion in revenue raised without raising your taxes.
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p>Raise income tax to 6% and lower sales tax to 4%, and – through that alone – a very large portion of the voters in this district would know tax relief while overall revenue would be raised. Earmark but 20% of revenue raised by the sales tax to cities and towns, and your communities would have incentive to give tax relief as well. Raytheon paid only $456 in state taxes in the year 2000. How much did you pay? How much less could you pay with an efficient and fair tax plan? Payoffs for layoffs are killing public education, health care, police and fire departments. You’re being priced out of your homes to pick up the burden. There’s just no rational excuse for that.
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p>Allow me to also note:
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p>Commonwealth would save over $27,000 per consumer to provide for community based health care services rather than imprisoning consumers in nursing homes. Freedom for the more than 8200 wrongly deprived of freedom and liberty when community based services would quite nicely suffice would result in savings for the Commonwealth in the realm of some $221,400,000 per year.
good fact based comment.
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p>See what happens folks, when you take a look at the tax expenditure budget.
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p>As Martha might say ” “a little tax amnesty” is a good thing, even if it is one time revenue.
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p>And good luck to Revenue Commissioner Navjeet Bal who is charged with devising the tax amnesty system quickly that might yield $50 million aides said. Language regarding the amnesty program in his legislation.