JOHN VELIS
BOSTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled Massachusetts House approved yesterday the bulk of a plan offered by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker to close a projected $768 million shortfall in the state budget.
The deficit-reduction package was passed on a near unanimous vote without floor debate and sent to the Senate, where it could come up for action within days.
Baker applauded the House vote, the first on a major bill submitted by the governor since he took office Jan. 8.
“We look forward to swift action by members of the Senate and to working closely with both houses in the future on a commitment to craft a fiscally responsible and sustainable budget plan for next year that continues to protect local aid and Massachusetts taxpayers,” Baker said in a statement. “I want to thank Speaker Bob DeLeo, members of leadership and the House of Representatives for acting quickly on a responsible plan to close this fiscal year’s budget deficit.”
The governor and legislative leaders had ruled out new taxes or cuts in state aid to cities and towns as means of reducing the deficit.
The House did eliminate from the plan one Baker proposal that lawmakers said would have given the administration more power to restructure benefits for some Medicaid recipients.
The plan includes a $40 million cut in state transportation spending, of which $14 million would come from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. House leaders assured members that the reduction would not cause further headaches for the MBTA, which has been plagued by equipment breakdowns and service disruptions during the recent spate of severe winter weather.
Rep. Brian Dempsey, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the cuts would be achieved through a hiring freeze and by reducing administrative overhead at the T.
The deficit-reduction plan also calls for a 1.5 percent reduction in the budgets for state colleges and universities, and a similar reduction in funding for non-executive branch agencies. Baker had already moved to trim $145 million in executive branch spending, cuts that did not require legislative approval.
The bill would also create a tax amnesty program for Massachusetts businesses with overdue tax debts and use $131 million in anticipated capital gains tax revenue to reduce the deficit. Those funds would otherwise have been deposited into the state’s rainy day fund.
The shortfall in the state’s $36 billion budget has been blamed on a number of factors, including the breakdown of the state’s health connector website and less than anticipated revenue from non-tax sources such as state fees.
State Rep. John Velis of the 4th Hampden District applauded the efforts of the House, especially regarding the decision not to implement any new taxes.
“In today’s frazzled economy, it’s not the time to impose new taxes,” said the Westfield Democrat, adding that he was proud that the House opted not to touch the Commonwealth’s rainy day fund and that no additional cuts were made to local aid funding for cities and towns.
“As my friends on the city council and the mayor can attest to, local aid levels have been cut significantly, so we’ve protected that,” said Velis.
The House’s decision to make smaller, uniform cuts across the board was another aspect of the budget discussion Velis felt good about when he left the chamber yesterday.
“There was no state agency that had their budget for Fiscal Year 2015 decimated, as we tried to mitigate a little bit from each agency to minimize the impacts of all agencies,” he said. “This fiscal year is getting ready to wrap up, so to deprive them of funds more than three quarters through the fiscal year would be grossly unfair.”
Velis did say that funding cuts made to the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities is an issue “near and dear to his heart.”
“I’m one of nine state representatives who have a state university in their district,” he said. “But we’re talking a 1.5 percent cut to their FY15 budget, so if you spread that out among all the universities and colleges, we were able to minimize it.”
Gov. Baker’s attempt to give himself the authority to make what Velis called “unilateral Medicaid cuts” was the only point of contention among House lawmakers.
“We collectively told him ‘No, sorry, that’s not going to happen,'” said Velis. “We are going to keep that and we’re going to fight tooth and nail to keep the legislator as the one who makes the decision of when you can cut. That absolutely has to be a vote of the legislature.”
