Gov. Deval Patrick is growing into the role of a manager during tough times. At the unveiling of his fiscal 2012 budget today, he made a solid case that some areas of state government need to be cut or dramatically restructured to pave the way for funding his priorities of job creation, education, health care, and youth and urban violence.
He proposed a $30.5 billion budget that relies on increased tax revenues from a recovering economy, a series of largely one-time revenue initiatives totaling $630 million, and $570 million in spending cuts, including the elimination of 900 more jobs across state government. He says this budget will eliminate a structural budget deficit the state has struggled with for years without raising taxes.
But there are a lot of moving parts to this budget. Patrick is pushing a lot of reform initiatives, including a merger of the parole and probation departments within the executive branch, the closing of two prisons, sentencing reform, pension reform, a state takeover of public counsel services, a drastic reduction in the use of homeless shelters or hotel stays, and municipal health care relief.
What follows is a breakdown of some elements of the budget. To read the entire budget, click here.
Municipal health savings – The governor has proposed forcing municipal workers into the state’s Group Insurance Commission unless they negotiate savings with their cities and towns that match or exceed those available through the GIC. Patrick said municipal workers will be part of the decision-making process because they bargained for the health benefits they may be forced to give up. He said he envisioned a truncated bargaining process where municipalities and their workers would negotiate health care coverage and then, if no agreement is reached that matches or beats savings from the GIC, the workers would be rolled into the GIC. Asked if workers will continue to have some control over the process, Patrick said the employees will not have the veto power they do now. “No, I’m done with that,” he said. Even so, many details were sketchy. Jay Gonzalez, the secretary of administration and finance, said it’s possible municipal workers might agree to health care savings but then have some of those savings returned to them by their municipality to offset higher premiums and copays. “The governor has said labor needs a meaningful role. The extent of that role is to be determined,” Gonzalez said.
Health care – Patrick is pledging to rein in the cost of the state’s health care programs, holding most of them at level funding in fiscal 2012 while taking steps to avoid $1 billion in expected new costs.
Prisons — Last September, the governor pressed hard for a spending bill to avoid having to close two prisons and to cut Medicaid and homeless services. Just four months later, the governor is now saying he has to close the two, as-yet-unnamed prisons anyway. “Despite our best efforts, we can’t afford to keep all our prisons open,” Gonzalez said. The prison closings coincide with a push for a proposal that would toughen sentences for repeat violent offenders while repealing mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes.
Public counsel services – Even after hiring 1,000 new state lawyers and 400 support staff, Gonzalez says he expects the state to save $60 million a year by taking over the currently privatized process of providing legal defense to defendants who can’t afford it. (Earlier estimates pegged savings at $45 million.) At one of today’s press conferences, The Boston Globe’s Scot Lehigh called it a “reverse Pacheco,” a reference to the law limiting what services the state can privatize.
Film Tax Credit – As expected, the governor didn’t tinker with the state’s film tax credit in this year’s budget. Last year, he proposed a cap on the credit. It didn’t pass, yet nevertheless it scared some Hollywood producers away. Asked where he stood on the credit this year, Patrick gave an odd response. He said the tax credit is included in the budget. He then noted he had read a recent Revenue Department report that said two-thirds of the film spending was flowing out of state. Finally, he said he wasn’t ruling out working with the Legislature to make the tax credit better. Asked if making the tax credit better meant making the 25 percent tax credit bigger, he said no. Possible translation: Patrick knows the film tax credit isn’t generating much bang for the buck, but won’t do anything with it unless the Legislature agrees. That’s not likely, given that House Speaker Robert DeLeo issued a press release today hailing the 16 Oscar nominations for locally produced films. “These movies, filmed right here in Massachusetts, are a good reminder of how important the film tax credit has been to our state’s economy in these challenging times,” DeLeo said. “As we strive to put folks across Massachusetts back to work, the film tax credit continues to stimulate local business and job growth throughout Massachusetts.”
Judicial branch – The governor is already trying to take probation away from the judicial branch and pushing for sentencing reform. Now he wants the Supreme Judicial Court to manage itself better. Patrick is calling for the hiring of a “professional court administrator” who would replace the chief justice for administration and management, Robert Mulligan. Gonzalez said the proposal, included in a supplemental spending bill, was culled from recommendations made by two commissions and was not requested by court officials. A court spokeswoman had no immediate response.
Bottle deposit law – Patrick is calling for expanding the reach of the bottle deposit law to include waters, iced teas, coffee-based drinks, and sports drinks. He expects the expansion to divert lots of containers away from landfills, but he’s counting on lots of people paying no attention to the 5-cent deposit and continuing to throw their containers in the trash. Patrick’s budget assumes some $20 million in unclaimed deposits will revert to the state.