Given that the Governor has ten days to review whatever budget the Conference Committee creates, and the House and Senate pass, and that a new budget needs to be in place as of July 1, 2011 – or interim budgets must be passed to avoid embarassing shut downs…6/20/11 seems to be the outer limit for completing that budget and today is 6/16/11.
Remember House One, and the idea that the Commonwealth could save money by hiring 1000 lawyers and support staff (lets say 1500-1700 state employees)? No matter that this would put small law firms either out of business, or force them to layoff 100s of privately employed people like secretaries, clerks, and paralegals.
No matter that legislation was never filed to dismantle an agency that has done the job well for more than 20 years. No matter that there was not a single hearing. No matter that there was never any public comment. No matter that there has not been any economic impact study or testimony. Just who is behind this sudden, secretive plan, really?
Anyway, so the Governor’s proposal for line item 0321-1510 is “1500+ jelly beans in the Jar”.
The House proposal is “200+ jelly beans in the jar.”
The Senate doesn’t tell us how many jelly beans in the jar, only that someone needs to guess how many jelly beans are needed to handle 80,000 cases (about 1/3).
Smart Senator Gale Candaras said “Wait a minute; lets count the jelly beans, lets not guess” and added an amendment to study and hold hearings before unleashing a demolition derby on indigent defense.
So, inquiring minds want to know, “How many jelly beans in the jar labeled 0321-1510” and why wasn’t there legislation filed, and open public hearings before dismantling a program viewed as one of the most effective in the nation in ensuring that innocent people don’t do jail time just because they are indigent?
And never mind that passing the Uniform Probate Code created a new right to counsel, or the case In Re Hilary created a new right to counsel for parents who lose custody of their kids over truancy. Nope. Must be the lawyers fault for driving up costs – not unfunded, unstudied mandates from the legislature or Governor…just like the game of “How many jelly beans in the jar” as a vast proposed but unstudied staff expansion looms that would concentrate new government lawyers in urban areas, and starve small law practices that would not be able to provide jobs and ancillary services any longer in smaller cities and towns like Athol or Haverill or Palmer.
Remember when legislating by secretive outside sections went out of fashion? Lets all watch what they tell us about how they counted the beans in line item 0321-1510 behind closed doors come June 20th, or so.
Cross posted at RedMassGroup
Lots of jars, Amber and not enough jelly beans to go around to fill any of them.
Not any of them.
So the conference committee will be moving a handful of jelly beans from one jar to another depending sometimes, on the orders of leadership, and some times on the demands brought by very vocal supporters of the particular jelly bean jar who have persuaded the leadership (it’s called lobbying) to “do the right thing”, as Sal used to say. .
We need more jelly beans but we ain’t gonna get them this fiscal year, unless and until the Governor proposes more taxes. Or rather when the Governor feels that the more taxes crowd has built enough public support for him to feel comfortable, as a lame duck, to propose new taxes.
Here’s an invitation to work together over the summer to document the cuts and make the Governor comfortable proposing new taxes and fill the jelly bean jars.
(I know I’m supposed to offer bold, witty, incisive comments here and I probably stretched the jelly bean metaphor too far, but it was fun. )