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The house does list the withdrawn amendment, as well as supplying links to each of the consolidated amendments, and the "further amended" amendments that were eventually adopted.

Day 2 of House Floor Debate

Day 2 is now in the books as well. Today was focused primarily on Local Aid. The House took the eleven Local Aid related amendments and consolidated them into one amendment. Introduced by HW&M Chair Charles Murphy, the amendments added $201,518,000 to the total Local Aid amounts, which represents a 9.85% from what was recommended in the House Ways & Means Budget.

Municipality          HWM           HFA      Difference   Percent
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Boston           $381,036,934  $419,732,904  $38,695,970  110.16%
Springfield      $308,828,796  $314,936,638   $6,107,842  101.98%
Worcester        $232,138,653  $237,690,023   $5,551,370  102.39%
Cambridge         $27,415,591   $32,758,350   $5,342,759  119.49%
Fall River       $113,777,201  $118,737,443   $4,960,242  104.36%
Somerville        $40,986,924   $45,903,924   $4,917,000  112.00%
Lynn             $138,213,147  $142,423,920   $4,210,773  103.05%
New Bedford      $134,076,565  $137,771,923   $3,695,358  102.76%
Lowell           $144,817,216  $148,449,150   $3,631,934  102.51%
Quincy            $36,576,805   $40,202,290   $3,625,485  109.91%
Lawrence         $159,656,619  $163,039,138   $3,382,519  102.12%
Brockton         $153,099,146  $156,098,062   $2,998,916  101.96%

Click here to see a complete list of the House Floor Amendments for Local Aid, compared to what House Ways & Means recommeded.

The biggest winner by far was the City of Boston (see above), which added a whopping $38,695,970 to their total. Of course, the city had also seen it's biggest decrease in the HW&M budget from last year. Percentage-wise, the biggest winner was tiny Aquinnah (a.k.a. Gay Head), which saw a 132.98% increase in it's Local Aid contribution.

Day 1 of House Floor Debate

So, day 1 of the House Floor Debate is in the books.  What was accomplished today?  Not much other than the on-going debate on the sales tax increase.  Our guys are a little boxed in on income taxes, of course, given that in the last couple of election cycles the electorate almost repealed the income tax altogether.  The electorate at least has signaled a clear desire to get the income tax back down to its original 5%.

The Governor sent a letter to the Legislature yesterday telling them that he would veto the sales tax increase if the Legislature was not serious about the reform agenda that the Governor has proposed, including reform of the state pension system and, most importantly, the Commonwealth's transportation system.  On this point I have to agree with the Governor.

So, last night the House used Rep. Carl Sciortino's proposed sales tax amendment (see amendment #717) as the vehicle for raising the sales tax from 5% to 6.25%.  They apparently counted enough votes to get a veto-proof majority of 108 votes (one more than the 107 needed) to go for the increase.  The roll call vote has, of course, not yet been made available. but we'll post it when it is.  Other than that, and no surprise here, the House didn't accomplish much.  If the 1003 amendments, they've so far dealt with thirteen: two adopted, two rejected, six withdrawn, two precluded because of other action, and one laid on the side.

How many Amendments did Representatives File?

The House posted the floor amendments yesterday and the good news is that they came in just under a thousand.  Last year House members filed 1512 amendments, this shows unusual restraint on their part.  With 160 members filing just under a thousand amendments, that means the average member filed 6.25 amendments.  Still, some were more aggresive than others.

The table below sets forth a list of House members and the number of amendments that they filed.

Benjamin Swan heads up the list, having filed 40 amendments all by himself.  Bradley Jones, William Lantigua, Cheryl Coakley-Rivera (last year's champion), Gene O'Flaherty and Martin Walsh all hit the twenties.  On the other end of the spectrum, a half dozen Representatives only filed one amendment apiece.  Now that's restraint.  Or maybe indifference.  Who knows?

The Budget Amendment Process

So, how does the amendment process work anyway.  In a nutshell, once the Ways and Means Committees report the budget on the House and Senate side, the other members of the House and Senate get their crack at the budget.  There are 160 Representatives and 40 Senators.  During a typical budget season, the House will debate the budget on the floor for an entire week, normally the week after House Ways and Means has released the budget. The 160 members typically file between 1000 and 1600 amendments, or about a half dozen to ten apiece.  Some file more, some file fewer.  

On the Senate side the numbers are lower, as the Senators typically file under a thousand floor amendments.  Of course, with only 400 of them, that means that they can each put about twenty in the can.  One of the perks of being a Senator.  The Senate Floor debate is usually a little shorter, often wrapping up after three days (as opposed to five for the House).

Now, it is axiomatic that neither body can really debate 1000, let alone 1500 amendments. That would take more like a year than a week.  As a consequence, what happens in practice is that amendments get bundled.  Especially on the House side, probably 95% of the amendments get thrown in a bundle, and only 5% actually get debated.  On the Senate side, the number that gets debated is a little higher.

The Ways & Means Committees, with some input from the individual members, put together the bundles.  The way it used to work is this:

• The Ways & Means Committee put together "yes" and "no" piles.
• A member could pull a cherished amendment from the "no" pile and have it debated individually.
• Most of the time, these individually-debated amendments were voted down.

I don't know if it still works this way.  What the House now does is to take the bundled amendments, rewrite them (often with a different number for the earmark or the increase) and simply propose the bundle as one "consolidated" amendment.

House Ways & Means Budget Recommendations

The House Ways & Means Committee reported it's budget for FY 2010 today.  Your intrepid budget watcher has run the numbers, and here's how they look:

FY09:  $29,669,583,970
GOV:   $30,872,229,255
HWM:   $29,345,431,975

Click here to see a full spreadsheet with a complete comparison of every line-item from FY09 (Chapter 182 of the Acts of 1988), House 1 (the Governor's recommendation), and House 4100 (the House Ways & Means recommendation).

This means the following:

• The Governor proposed a budget that was $1,202,645,285 over the level of the FY09 Budget.  This amounts to a 104.05% increase from FY09.

• The House Ways & Means Committee has proposed a budget which is -$324,151,995 less than the FY09 budget.  This represents a decrease of 98.91% from the FY09 levels.
  

However, keep in mind that these numbers are BEFORE the Governor's 9C cuts, which he made in October of 2008 and January of 2009.

Here is my question: I keep hearing that the sky is falling, and that the Commonwealth needs to make drastic budget cuts from previous fiscla years.  Honestly, I don't see it.  I'm not sure I understand how these proposals reflect a drastic reduction in the size of state government.

Tone Deaf on Wall Street

Speaking of being tone-deaf, nobody seems to have a harder time hearing the pulse of America than the executive at AIG. Okay, I get that AIG had legally binding contracts with these executives and that these contracts required them to pay these guys "retention" bonuses. I get the legalities of that . . . although I don't quite get how those retention bonuses can apply to executives who've already left the company.

But here's a question: why don't we ask these executives to waive their rights to these bonuses and not insist on the fulfillment of their contracts. Mayor Menino has asked City of Boston employees to take unpaid days off, and state employees routinely take furloughs in a financial crisis. There are stories in the news about companies whose workers have given up pay so that their colleagues won't be fired. And we can't ask these AIG execs to waive their bonuses voluntarily?

I mean, I'm not surprised that Congress is looking at solutions, like trying to tax these specific bonuses at a 98% tax rate. Cute idea if it works. but I'm not sure that's constitutional . . . and apparently neither is the Congress. Ex post facto problems? Potentially. Wouldn't it just be simpler for the Execs to volunteer to give the bonuses back. That would buy them at least a little bit of good will for the next round of begging with the American people.

Tone Deaf in the State House

The Boston Globe had a story today about how Transportation Secretary James Aloisi's sister had a "no show" job in the State House for six months. According to the Globe story, former Speaker Sal DiMasi assigned Carol Aloisi to former State Representative Rachel Kaprelian, who is now the Registrar of Motor Vehicles in Governor Patrick's administration. According to the story, the incoming Floor Leader, Garrett Bradley of Hingham went to his new office, he literally "found" her there.

My question is simple: how tone deaf are these guys? Why would anyone with any common sense give that much ammunition to the Howie Carrs and Mike Barnicles of the World. Why didn't Carol Aloisi ask to be reassigned to somebody else?

This kind of stuff makes me crazy. Because state government is actually an honorable enterprise. Because most folks working for state government put in an honest day's labor, and many of them are actually underpaid. And this kind of story ruins it for all of them. I don't get it.

When will 2009 Info be Available on the General Court Homepage?

Here's a question: we're already half-way through March, and yet there's still no information about the 2009-10 session available on the General Court's homepage. For example, the bill histories page only has bill histories from last session, and treats that as if it were current.

See: http://www.mass.gov/legis/ltsform.htm

Or, the Session Laws have links back to 1997, but no links for the 2009-10 session.

See: http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/seslaws.htm

Hey Gang, we have enacted legislation already for the 2009-10 session that people would like to see! Okay, so far it's only one piece of legislation. It's Chapter 1 of 2009, relative to expanding the Governor's Authority to Address Deficiencies in Revenue. (How do I know this? Because I'm subscribed to the InstaTrac system.)

However, last night the House and Senate enacted House Bill 3415, a supplemental appropriation providing an additional $96.8 million in spending for this fiscal year. It's been laid before the Governor. It might be nice to see the enacted version of that on the Legislature's homepage before it becomes yesterday's news.

Comparing Gov. Patrick's FY09 and FY10 Proposals

For those who argue that the sky is falling, or that the bottom is falling out of our economy, it's interesting to compare what Governor Patrick proposed in his FY 2009 budget last year to what he's proposed in his FY 2010 budget this year. The initial evidence suggests that Governor Patrick is proposing to spend about the same amount overall, with a very slight uptick. Here are the overall numbers:

Type	FY09	FY10	Difference	Percent
Direct Appropriations	$26,794,198,689	$27,499,508,518	$705,309,829	102.63%
Chargebacks	$295,092,747	$519,562,340	$224,469,593	176.07%
Retained Revenue	$1,369,666,331	$473,627,971	($896,038,360)	34.58%
Subtotal	$28,458,957,767	$28,492,698,829	$33,741,062	100.12%
Federal Grants	$2,168,024,888	$2,379,530,426	$211,505,538	109.76%
Subotal with Grants	$30,626,982,655	$30,872,229,255	$245,246,600	100.80%
Trust Spending Total	$12,420,884,159	$12,551,727,618	$130,843,459	101.05%
Grand Total	$43,047,866,814	$43,423,956,873	$376,090,059	100.87%

The first subotal ($28,458,957,767) is a little higher than the Governor's FY 2010 subtotal ($27,973,136) listed on his website.

See: http://www.mass.gov/bb/h1/fy10h1/brec10/ga/hdefault.htm.

I'm wondering, why the discrepancy? My numbers were all derived from the Governor's house1.xls spreadsheet, which can be downloaded off his website.

See: http://www.mass.gov/bb/h1/fy10h1/dnld10/hdefault.htm

Maybe the difference is due to rounding errors, since the Governor is rounding all his summary figure to the nearest thousands -- i.e., the "752,034" figure for the judiciary should really be read as "$752,034,357" (which is the actual figure when you add up all his Judiciary accounts).

Now I'm curious why the posted numbers and the ones I added up from the house1.xls spreadsheet don't match. Stay tuned, campers, as I try to sort this one out.

More on the Brian Mooney Article

With respect to the previous post (Legislature's Use of PAC Money) I contacted Brian Mooney from the Globe and asked him if he knew in which line-item accounts the reserve was stashed. His response was that that the prior-year appropriations are merely carried forward into the same accounts, which are then supplemented by annual appropriations for estimated operating expenses. Mr. Mooney reported that these accounts function as reserves but are technically part of a single amount in the respective line items.

Legislature's Use of PAC Funds

In case you missed it, the Boston Globe had an interesting article on how the Legislature has apparently been squirreling away money in a reserve account which they're now using to offset cuts they claim to have made. The Globe article claims that for the first round of 9C cuts in October, the Legislature announced $9.1 million in cuts and that for the second round in January, they announced an additional $1.6 million in cuts. The article further claims that not many cuts are actually being made because the Legislature has a little-publicized reserve fund of $32 million, the result of surpluses accumulated over a number of years.

If the legislature has a $32 million reserve fund, it really is well-hidden. The legislature historically used 65 different line-item accounts which, for the 2003 fiscal year, they consolidated into two: one for the House and one for the Senate. (Click here for a full list of Legislative line-items from FY 2000 through FY 2010, as proposed in House 1)

The total amount of legislative appropriations in the last decade look like this:

• FY00: $51,815,807
• FY01: $56,975,326
• FY02: $58,591,135
• FY03: $54,260,572
• FY04: $56,067,472
• FY05: $54,300,572
• FY06: $57,771,907
• FY07: $59,231,814
• FY08: $59,603,655
• FY09: $59,603,655
• FY10: $59,659,898

I'm not quite sure how the Legislature was able to squirrel away $32 million in a reserve account from those figures, but I'd be interested to know from anyone who has any insight into that question.