Local Aid comparison for FY 2010

We've also been running some numbers comparing Local Aid from FY 2009 to the various proposals made in FY 2010. As you can see, the Local Aid numbers will definitely be going town from the $5.26 billion that was allotted in FY 2009. While the House is now at $5.2 billionm the Senate stayed at $4.9 billion, virtually assuring a real decrease for FY 2010.

           Actor   Local Aid Totals for FY 2010
           ====================================
           FY09 .................$5,262,370,332
           GOV ..................$5,042,908,473
           HWM ..................$5,022,107,434
           HFA ..................$5,213,217,134
           SWM ..................$4,879,765,707
           SFA ..................$4,914,765,707

Click here to view a comparison table of Local Aid from FY09, the Governor, House and Senate.

Comparative Analysis of Appropriations

The spreadsheet below sets forth a comparative analysis of appropriations. Our analysis is that the budget is still hovering around $30 billion, and that with the sales tax increase to 6.25% (and other revenue enhancements), it looks like the Senate restored more that $2.5 billion in spending.

           Actor ...Total Appropriation for FY 2010
           ========================================
           FY09 ....................$29,666,643,801
           GOV .....................$30,870,923,459
           HWM .....................$29,351,895,971
           HFA .....................$29,826,460,083
           SWM .....................$27,415,699,490
           SFA .....................$30,019,374,638

The detailed analysis is set forth below.  Keep in mind that the columns here represent the following "actors" in state government and the budgets that they have recommended:

• FY 2009 enacted budget
• Governor's House 1 recommendations
• House Ways & Means recommendations
• House Engrossed (HB 4101), printed as amended
• Senate Ways & Means recommendations
• Senate Engrossed (SB 2060), printed as amended

Please note also that for "ATP" (or Approrpiation Type) the following applies:

• 1C: direct approrpriation
• 1I: chargeback between agency
• 1R: retained revenue (by agency generating the revenue)
• 4F: federal grant

Click here to see the comparative spreadsheet in its entirety.

MBPC review of the Senate Budget

The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (must reading for any serious budget wonks) has done a preliminary analysis of the Senate Engrossed budget.  Their report notes that:

• the increase in sales tax from 5% to 6.25% (and elimination of the sales tax exemption for alcohol) should generate approximately $730 million in FY2010;
  
• the Senate used this revenue to restore about $550 million of the $3 billion that the Ways and Means Committee had recommended in budget cuts;
  
• the Senate allocated $275 million to avert a toll increase on the Massachusetts Turnpike, to address the budget crisis at the MBTA and to support other transportation programs.
  

Senate President promises Transporation Reform

Boston.com reports that the Seante President has promised to enact transportation reform before the budget hits the Governor's desk.  That would avoid toll hikes -- currently scheduled to kick in on July 1st -- and blunt the Governor's threatened veto of the Sales Tax if he didn't see some reform first. Given that Transportation is the "big money" reform -- i.e., the one that could end up saving the state the most amount of money -- let's hope that the Senate President can deliver on this promise.

Senate Printed Budget Just Released

The Senate Budget, printed as amended, now has the bill number SB 2060.  The text of the document has been published, and is shown below.  Needless to say, we'll be doing some analysis fo the budget, and should have various numbers to you all over the next few days.

Another Thing that Might have Escaped your Attention

Another thing that might have escaped your attention is the fact that the Senate gave new document numbers to three amendments.  They are:

1. Amendment #1 (Municipal Finance), reprinted as SB 2053
2. Amendment #46 (Sales Tax Increase), reprinted as SB 2054
3. Amendment $62 (Local Aid), reprinted as SB 2055.

How do I know this?  Somebody told me.  It's not because there is anything on the Senate website that would allow me or any other reader to know that.  And, it turns out that the text that is posted on the website for Amendment #46 and #62 is pretty much the same as in the printed amendment, but not so with Amendment #1, which has been completely rewritten in the amended form as SB 2053.

Among the little changes that they made is to change the Chapter 64L from a chapter relative to Taxation on Meals to one which is now concerned with "TAXATION OF DIRECT BROADCAST SATELLITE SERVICE."  That's a change worth noticing.

The Senate was Changing Results without Notice

If you weren't paying attention you may have missed the fact that the Senate was changing actions between Wednesday and Friday of last week without giving the rest of us any notice of that fact.  The table below represents six different actions with respect to amendments where it turns out that what the Senate posted on its website on Wednesday (May 20th) was not the same as what was posted on the website on Friday (May 22nd).

ID	Sponsor	Title of Amendment	5-20 Actions	5-22 Actions	Changed
10	Richard T. Moore	State Government Accountability, Economy, and Efficiency	Rejected	Adopted	TRUE
54	Sonia Chang-Díaz	Closing to Tobacco Loopholes	Rejected	Withdrawn	TRUE
56	Richard R. Tisei	Wage and Hiring Freeze	Pending	Rejected	TRUE
56.1	Stephen M. Brewer	Wage and Hiring Freeze Further Amendment	Adopted	Withdrawn	TRUE
237	Thomas M. McGee	E Team Machinist	Withdrawn	Rejected	TRUE
419	James E. Timilty	EOPS Administration	Withdrawn	Rejected	TRUE

 

Senate Floor Amendment Results

The final results are in -- with the caveat that the Senate website is still missing a handful of outcomes, and, they've been known to change results on their website after the fact -- and the're listed below.  As the day proceeds we should have more detailed analyses of whose amendments were adopted, how much they cost, and some statistics around the percentage of adopted, rejected, withdrawn and bundled amendments.  So stay tuned.  Here are the results as best we know them now:

Only in Massachusetts

I think only in Massachusetts would we have a bill entitled "Repeal the Pacheco Law" while Pacheco is still in the room.  And this debate was a predictable canard for them to take on.  On the other hand, I have to say that I'm surprised to here Fred Berry get up and argue against the Pacheco law.  And maybe he has a point.  In any case, the text of the amendment is set forth below:

Repeal of Pacheco Law

Mr. Tisei moved that the bill be amended by inserting after Section 7 the following new Section:
“SECTION 7A.  Sections 52, 53, 54 and 55 of Chapter 7 of the General Laws are hereby repealed.”
And moved to further amend the bill by inserting after Section 61 the following new Section:-
“SECTION 61A.  Section 5 of Chapter 268A of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2000 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out in lines 29 through 40, the following words:- “or (f) a former state employee whose salary was not less than that in step one of job group M-VII in the management salary schedule in section forty-six C of chapter thirty, and who becomes an officer or employee of a business organization which is or was a party to any privatization contract as defined in section fifty-three of chapter seven in which contract he participated as such state employee, if he becomes such officer or employee while the business organization is such a party or within one year after he terminates his state employment, unless before the termination of his state employment the governor determines, in a writing filed with the state ethics commission, that such participation did not significantly affect the terms or implementation of such contract.”

And moved to further amend the bill by inserting after Section 64 the following new Sections:-

“Section 64A.  Section 274 of chapter 110 of the acts of 1993, as amended by Section 3 of chapter 296 of the acts of 1993, is hereby further amended by striking out the last two paragraphs. 
Section 64B.  Section 4 and Section 5 of chapter 296 of the acts of 1993 are hereby repealed.”

Now it's on to Public Employees

Now that we've done taxes, local aid and gambling, it's on to public employees.  (When are we going to get around to religion and sex?)  The Republicans want to impose a wage freeze on public employees and a hiring freeze on the state in general.  The text of the bill is set forth below:

---

Mr. Tisei moved that the bill be amended by inserting, after Section __, the following new Section: -

“SECTION __.  Notwithstanding any special or general law to the contrary no department or agency of the commonwealth may increase the compensation of any employee in excess of an employee’s compensation rate as of June 30, 2009.  In addition, no department or agency may fill any vacancy, unless said vacancy is deemed critical to public safety, and a letter to such effect is transmitted to the secretary of administration and finance prior to the hiring of any new employee and said communication is returned with a signed approval by said secretary.  This section shall expire on July 1, 2011.”

---

A wage freeze is, by the way, probably the right call on the merits. The pro-labor division of the Democrats want the issue to be resolved through collective bargaining, which I think is also correct. Most of the public employee unions have already agreed to a wage freeze.  In any case, a wage freeze would be largely cosmetic, as it saves very little in relationship to the magnitude of the budget deficit.  It should go without saying that the right thing to do here is for all the unions to simply agree to a wage freeze for FY 2010 immediately and render this issue moot.

No Slot machines at the Tracks

This morning has been all about gambling, but the Senate has defeated an attempt to raise revenues through gambling by allowing slot machines at race tracks.  The Senate is also just about to defeat extending the deadline by which the greyhound racetracks must close, pursuant to the winning ballot iniative from last November.  See the Boston.com article on the same topic below:

What did the Governor Say (to Tweak them so?)

I don't quite know what the Governor said, but it's clear that he really upset the Senate with an email that he sent from Atlanta today.  It sounds like more of what the Governor had already been saying -- that he would veto the sales tax increase if the Senate didn't pass some of his recommended reforms first -- but whatever he said, it got the Senate collectively to have their knickers in a twist.  They unanimously passed an amendment, with the Republicans on board and Tisei even speechifying in support, proposed by Senator Tarr, that would require the Governor to develop a report detailing what actions he's taking with respect to FY 2009 and post it on the State website.  Here's the full text of the amendment:

Mr. Tarr moved that the bill be amended by inserting, after Section X, the following new Section:-

“SECTION XX. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the Governor shall, through the Secretary of Administration and Finance, develop a report detailing all action undertaken by the Executive Branch in Fiscal Year 2009, and those planned to be undertaken in 2010, to reduce the costs of employee compensation. Said report shall also include an itemization of any and all stuffing reductions, furlough and salary wage reductions in addition to any salary and wage increases and any increases in staffing levels from 2008 to 2009 to those projected for 2010.

Said report shall be filed with the clerks of the House and Senate and the House and Senate Committees on Ways and Means and posted electronically on the official website of the Commonwealth not later than three months following the passage of this act.”

Withdrawn Amendments added to redrafted #46

Not only did the Senate enact 93 line-item increases along with the redrafted sales tax amendment (#46), but they also took care of the substance of some of the amendments that had been withdrawn.  So for, example, there is an emdnemtn which increases the appropriation of the Massachusetts Legal Assistance corporation by $5 million and change.  

JUD 94

RELATIVE TO MLAC

Ms. Creem moved that the bill amended, in Section 2, in item 0321-1600 by striking the figure “6,000,000” and inserting in place thereof the figure “11,070,424”.

On the state website, that amendment is listed as having been withdrawn.  However, in amendment #46 it shows up in the following format:

And, in Section 2 in item 0321-1600 by striking the figure “$6,000,000” and inserting in place thereof the following:- “$8,000,000”

So yes, the amendment was withdrawn, but in substance it has been taken care of.  Not for the full $5 million, but for $2 million nontheless.

Click here to see a small table of all the amendments that were technically withdrawn that were actually taken care of in the redrafted sales tax amendment (#46).

Analysis of the 93 line-items in Section 46

We've completed our analysis of the 93 line-items added in the redrafted Section 46, and the end result is that the amendment adds $531,359,170 to the bottom line just from line-item increases alone.  

The larges increase is $82,916,451 added to the MassHealth Managed Care account. The MassHealth Fee-for-Service Payments account also gets a $59,503,373 shot in the arm.  DMA MassHealth Senior Care gets an additional $49,322,782 and the DOE Circuit Breaker for Special Education Residential Schools adds another $36,000,000.

Click here to see a table with all 93 line-items amended by the redrafted Section 46.

Senate Didn't Just Enact a Sales Tax

The Senate didn't just enact a sales tax last night.  Instead, in their redrafted amendment #46, they also took care of 93 line-items in what was, in effect, a consolidated amendment.  You can see the full text of the sales tax amendment in the frame below.  It's substantial.  Not only does it raise the sales tax and add 93 line-item increases, it also enacts an entirely new chapter, a state sales tax on meals (Chapter 64L of the General Laws).

The Sales Tax was a Foregone Concolusion

It seems that it was a foregone conclusion that the Senate was determined to follow the House's lead in raising the sales tax to 6.25%.  Any other tax ideas were off the table, and although freshmen Senators Sonia Chang-Diaz and Jamie Eldridge made a nice run at the income tax -- even lowering their sights from 6.3% to 5.9% -- that one wasn't going to happen.  The Governor's 19¢ gas tax idea was obviously a dead letter from the start.  So the sales tax it is.

Is this a good idea?  I'm not so sure.  Somehow I see an initiative and referendum sales tax rollback (if not an outright sales tax repeal) in our future.

Thoughts anyone?

Tax Proposals going Down (if not the Taxes themselves)

Well, the income tax went down, as expected, and so did an 11¢ increase on the sales tax.  On the other hand, the Senate voted down a proposal to freeze the corporate tax rate, which was scheduled to go down via legislation passed last year.  That proposal was also soundly defeated, along with the provisions that would have repealed combined corporate reporting of state income taxes.  Guess we're heading for a sales tax increase before too long.

Starting off with the Income Tax

Well, it's just past noon on the 1st day of the Senate floor debate, and we're already debating an increase in the income tax.  It doesn't seem likely that this is going to have much in the way of legs. It may be less regressive than the proposed sales tax increase, but it's unlikely to get traction given the recent history of income tax referendums.

Second set of Senate Amendments

For those of you who were watching, it seemed like the Senate had posted the amendments it was going to debate this weekend.  The final tally was 647 amendments.  And for those of us who spend time processing amendments, we were busy this weekend and today sorting and anlyzing amendents, so that we would know the scope of the upcoming Senate floor debate.

Then, around 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, the Senate suddenly posted an additional 47 amendments. The same trick, by the way, that the House had turned just a few weeks earlier.

I'm sorry, but how hard is it to get a complete set of amendments and post it on the website?  It's not like they aren't going to have withdrawn amendments, redrafted amendments, or in the case of the House, completely new amendments that suddenly appear in the bundles.  This is an exasperating way to do business for those of us who are depending on reasonably complete information to do our analyses.

Click here to see the initial list of Senate floor amendments.

Click here to see the additional list of Senate floor amendments.

How Many Amendments did Senators File?

Curious about how many amendments the Senators filed?  It turns out quite a few.  First of all, as most of you know there are only 40 Senators, while there are 160 Representatives. This year the house filed about a thousand floor amendments -- just shy of a thousand at first, then a few more in the end -- which works out to be a little more than six amendments per representative.

On the other hand, the Senators filed 647 amendments -- before the additional 47 that were posted on the Senate website late this afternoon -- which works out to be a little over 16 amendments per Senator.

Still, some were greedier than others.  The table below sets forth the number of amendments per Senator, including those filed jointly by combinations of Senators.

As you can see, John Hart leads the pack with 56 followed closely by Tisei at 51.  McGee, Creem and Tarr are in the thirties, with Spilka and Tolman following close behind.

Senate Amendments Posted

The Senate posted their amendments this weekend.  The Senate has a bit of an awkward way of doing this. Instead of publishing an entire list of amendments which links to the individual amendments -- as the House does -- the Senate publishes their amendments bundled into thirteen topic areas.  This might be seen like the consolidated amendments acted on in the House during floor debate, only that the Senate doesn't do multiple consolidated amendments the way the House does. The Senate allows much more debate on individual amendments, and usually bundles the remaining amendments together in one big bundle at the end of the session.  At least that's what they did last year.  So what is the purpose of the bundles?

In order to get a list of the Senate amendments, you have to agglomerate each of the bundles together and then try to sort them on amendment number.  It's a lot more work than it should be, frankly, to get a clean picture of what's going on.

Senate Ways & Means Budget Appropriations

The Senate came out with it's budget today, and it seems to have been the first body to take the budget crunch seriously.  As you can see from the table below, the Senate's numbers are significantly lower than those of the Governor and House, and last year's enacted budget.

FY09 as Enacted .........................$29,666,643,801
Governor's House 1 ......................$30,870,720,678
House Ways & Means ......................$29,351,895,971
House Engroseed .........................$29,826,325,083
Senate Ways & Means .....................$27,415,399,490

The chart below demonstrates this graphically,  including the portions devoted to direct appropriations, chargebacks, retained revenue and federal grants respectively:

That means that what the Senate has proposed is:

• $2,251,244,311 less than last year's enacted budget
  
• $3,455,321,188 less than what the Governor proposed in House 1
  
• $1,936,496,481 less than House Ways & Means
  
• $2,410,925,593 less than the House Engrossed budget
  

Click here to see the entire spreadsheet of SW&M appropriations and how they compare to previous versions of budgets.

What's with all the Secrecy?

On Tuesday we all were waiting for the Senate Ways & Means budget to come out, as it had been rumored it would.  What happened?  Nothing, nothing at all.  Although I refreshed my browser every hour, nothing happened all day long.  One of my colleagues even called the committee, but they refused to divlulge the time or even date the budget would be released.

What's the big secrecy?  I thought we were now in the era of budget transparency?  In my day, when I was at the Committee -- which admittedly was a while ago -- we had a grand unveiling of the budget.  We would schedule an executive committee hearing, print up charts and graphs, invite the press, and actually present the budget.  The Ways & Means committee would actually taken questions from the press.

How about that as an idea?

Who had the most Amendments Adopted?

Now that the voting and debating is over, let's see who scored well in terms of getting amendments passed and additions made to the budget.

First of all, with respect to the number of amendments that were adopted, the runaway winner was Charlie Murphy himself, although that statistic is deceptive.  Murphy, who barely filed any amendements himself, was listed as the lead sponsor on thirteen of the items in the "consolidated" floor amendments.

Next in line were John Scibak, Liz Malia, Harold Naughton and Alice Wolf, who each managed to have eight of their amendments adopted, albeit in modified form.  The table below only lists Representatives who had at least three amendments adopted.

Action  Sponsor                Count
------------------------------------
Adopted Murphy et al              13
Adopted Scibak, John               8
Adopted Malia, Liz                 7
Adopted Naughton, Harold           7
Adopted Wolf, Alice                7
Adopted O'Flaherty, Gene           6
Adopted Smizik, Frank              5
Adopted Costello, Michael          5
Adopted Jones, Bradley             5
Adopted Guyer, Denis               4
Adopted Webster, Daniel            4
Adopted O'Day, James               4           
Adopted Reinstein, Kathi Anne      4
Adopted Peisch, Alice              3
Adopted Khan, Kay                  3
Adopted Rodrigues, Michael         3
Adopted Pedone, Vincent            3
Adopted Walsh, Martin              3
Adopted Spellane, Robert           3
Adopted Scaccia, Angelo            3

Final House Floor Amendments

Now that the numbers are in, it appears that the House was unusually restrained in it's floor debate. Speaker DeLeo had said in his closing remarks that he doesn't know anybody who "enjoys saying no" more than new House Ways & Means Chairman Charles Murphy. Well that's a good thing because the House needed to be restrained and it looks like they actually succeeded. Our numbers indicate as follows:

• The House adopted only 172 amendments
• Of these only a paltry 44 amendment were earmarks
• The total number of earmarks adopted is around $137.9 million
• The total increase in the budget appears to be around $475 million

Click here to bring up  a spreadsheet with the complete list of adopted amendments from last week's house floor activity.

Which Amendments made it into the Bundles?

If you're like the rest of us, you might think it would be useful to know which of the 1003 odd House floor amendments -- not counting the half-dozen or so brand new ones that were adopted on the House floor -- actually made it into one of the 23 bundles (or "consolidated" amendments).  Damn if you would know by looking at the House website, however.  Here's what you can see from the House website:

Notice that the first House amendment, Puppolo's "Springfield Business Improvement District" earmark is indicated as having been "Consolidated "V" Economic Development".  The unsuspecting reader might believe this meant that was adopted.  Not so, my friends.

If you want to know which amendments really were adopted (and which were excluded through the "non-action" of having been "disposed" of in one of the consolidated amendments without any of the language from the amendment showing up in the amendment, you'd have to go to a different source, like ours.

Click here if you want to see a complete list of what happened to all the House floor amendments, and which ones actually made it into one of the bundles.

How do we do this? The old fashioned way: we know which subject matter each amendment was assigned to, and we can get the consolidated amendment in PDF format when it's posted on the web.  The House is good enough to post these, usually within half an hour of voting on them.  And you can find them youself here, by clicking on this link.

The house does list the withdrawn amendment, as well as supplying links to each of the consolidated amendments, and the "further amended" amendments that were eventually adopted.