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of whose amendments were adopted, how much they cost, and some statistics around the percentage of adopted, rejected, withdrawn and bundled amendments.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  Sections 52, 53, 54 and 55 of Chapter 7 of the General Laws are hereby repealed.”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:

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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.”

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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.