It's what Deval left for him as he moved in and took office:
"Baker cites $765 million budget shortfall; Says budget gap is due to overspending; Advocates fear cuts to human services" by Joshua Miller, Globe Staff January 20, 2015
Before Deval Patrick departed earlier this month, he gave Charlie Baker, his gubernatorial successor, traditional gifts, including a pewter key, a gavel, and a 19th-century Bible.
He left a Massachusetts economy that is, by many measures, humming along.
So we are told.
But Patrick also left Baker something more pernicious: a midyear budget gap the new governor pegged Tuesday at $765 million.
The announcement raises the specter of painful cuts to services and begins in earnest the first true challenge of the Republican’s tenure: how to quickly bridge the fiscal chasm.
Baker argued that the shortfall is primarily the result of the state’s spending too much and underscored the importance of fixing it quickly.
How can that happen?
“This problem needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed now,” Baker said at a State House news conference.
The governor did not outline any budget reductions, but given his pledge not to raise taxes or fees, nor to draw down the state’s “rainy day” fund, addressing it will almost certainly mean making cuts, specialists said.
That "rainy day" fund is $acro$anct because it reassures bond holders and banks.
“I think if you rule out everything else, there have to be cuts,” said Noah Berger, president of the liberal-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, as he bemoaned how much many items in the state budget have already been reduced over the years.
?????????????
With all due respect, I've been told my governmental leaders have improved education, expanded health services, etc, etc, etc. Then you come back and say it's been cuts all around as $80 million is shoveled to Hollywood in one year alone?
Andrew C. Bagley, who directs research at the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said there is “no way” the administration will be able to find $765 million “in new revenues and fees. They’ll have to cut spending.”
Given that a large chunk of the budget is taken up by items considered nondiscretionary costs, such as Medicaid, he expected hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to be aimed at areas such as “higher education, human services, and public safety.”
That prospect has left some advocates on edge.
“Community groups, social services agencies, and unions are bracing for possible cuts to programs so many need and care about,” said Lewis Finfer, a longtime advocate on Beacon Hill and director of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network.
“There’s some level of anxiety related to a number that large,” said Michael Weekes, president and chief executive of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, which represents health and human service agencies in the state.
Weekes added he wanted see specifics from the administration before commenting further.
At the press conference, Baker said he would work with his Cabinet and the Legislature to craft solutions to the gap with “great sensitivity and careful judgment.”
They will need to move quickly.
Because the state’s fiscal year ends in June, each day that goes by means that any potential cuts will have to be spread over a shorter period of time, which could increase how painful they are for the agencies affected and the people they serve.
The top two legislative leaders, both Democrats, said Tuesday they will work with the GOP governor on bridging the gap.
Baker said tax money coming into state coffers so far this fiscal year, which runs from July 2014 through June, has essentially met expectations. Tax revenue is on track to grow fiscal year to year, but spending is poised to grow even faster, Baker said. “And therein lies the $765 million problem.”
If it met expectations why were the outlays so large? What kind of crooked incompetents were running the place?
Contributing to the problem, according to the administration: higher than anticipated government employee and retiree health care costs, more cases at the Department of Children and Families, a greater need for public defenders, and more homeless families needing shelter than were budgeted for.
Yeah, all stuff that has already been cut before they added back on(???), and once again blame it on the local yokel public servants (after they already gave back a bunch).
Bagley, one of the budget specialists, said those accounts are often underfunded each year, so it did not surprise him that there are shortfalls in those areas.
WTF?!!!!
Overly optimistic predictions for some types of revenue, such as fees and fines, are another piece of the puzzle, according to Baker and his aides.
Arrrrggghhhh!!!!
It means someone was basing things on bull$hit!!!
But Medicaid costs, including fallout from Massachusetts’ bungled health insurance website, are the most significant part of the spending side of the deficit, the administration found.
Thank you, president Obummer.
That spending includes paying for health care of people newly enrolled in Medicaid, who had previously been in a temporary Medicaid program instituted after the state’s health insurance website failed, the administration said.
The temporary program was instituted to make sure people would not lose coverage after the website — for people who do not get insurance through their employer — did not function.
It was never able to determine whether people were eligible for assistance, and more than 300,000 people were placed in the temporary program.
The failure came after the site was changed in 2013 to comply with the federal health care overhaul.
Baker beat Attorney General Martha Coakley, a Democrat, and three independent candidates in the November gubernatorial race.
After the election, the Patrick administration announced a shortfall it pegged at $329 million. It pressed for legislative action, which did not occur, and put some unilateral cuts and savings into place.
Doesn't that timing look damn political, and did holding it back help the people they are supposed to be serving?
According to the Baker administration, those actions solved $252 million of the gap, leaving a $765 million problem to figure out.
That means we were over a billion bucks in the hole! Thank you, governor Patrick.
In December, the Taxpayers Foundation estimated a budget gap almost identical in size to the one outlined by the Baker administration Tuesday.
The Patrick administration vociferously disputed the outside group’s estimate both in December and on Patrick’s last full day in office.
They were the only ones.
On Tuesday, Baker never directly took aim at his predecessor for the gap in the more than $36 billion state budget. And, in an earlier interview, neither did his budget chief, Secretary of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance Kristen Lepore.
“This is our problem to solve right now,” she said. “I’m the person in charge of the budget; it’s my problem to solve right now with the governor.”
That's called class.
Will they be able to do it?
Lepore did not hesitate: “Yes.”
You know, I really hope they can. As much as I rail against this state, it is my home and I do love it.
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Related: Mass. economy outpaced nation in 2014
Yuh-uh. Says who?
State officials estimate 4.8% revenue growth
Honestly, after what you read above why would you believe them?
"Massachusetts ended 2014 with another month of strong job gains, pushing the unemployment rate to its lowest level since 2008 and posting the best year for job gains since the dot-com boom."
And yet we have a billion dollar budget hole halfway through the year.
Globe will explain that:
"If economy is humming, why does Mass. show a deficit?" by Joshua MillerGlobe Staff January 22, 2015
Massachusetts unemployment is down.
State tax revenue is growing.
Cranes dot the metro Boston skyline.
So why does a state with an economy humming along face an urgent budget gap pegged at $765 million? Wouldn’t good economic times insulate the government from cuts now seen as imminent?
On one level, it’s basic. As Governor Charlie Baker explained in a Tuesday press conference: state spending is poised to grow by 7.3 percent this fiscal year, while tax revenue is set to increase only by about 4.4 percent.
My question from above still stands: if they only expected so much, why.... wouldn't they have erred on the side of caution?
“Spending seems to be the primary issue here,” Baker said.
Now add the nuance.
That's another word for picking up a shovel and starting to fling $hit.
Specialists say the deficit results from pitfalls that have undercut revenue and demands that have slapped the state with higher than expected costs.
Spending on Medicaid, the state-federal health program for poor and disabled people, is coming in much higher than expected, in part, due to the failure of the state health insurance website, the Baker administration says. Unbudgeted Medicaid costs are the biggest single spending-side issue contributing to the gap, according to the administration: $230 million.
Like most years, funding for certain programs, such as public defenders and emergency help for homeless families, is budgeted at a level that often requires supplemental money as the fiscal year unfolds, analysts said. Government employee and retiree health insurance was also underfunded and now requires an infusion of cash.
Yeah, but the debt interest payments to banks and the corporate welfare is all doled out in time, no problem. Your government serving you, Massachusetts citizens.
While overall tax revenue is about on target, money coming into the state from fines, fees, and the like is much lower than expected, crimping the bottom line to the tune of $179 million, the administration says.
Then how can the tax payments be meeting expectations? If that were true, fine and fee collections would also be up due to sheer activity. WTF?
And the budget relies on at least one volatile stream of income, tax-related settlements — such as those hashed out between the state and corporations. The administration estimates that gap alone to be $100 million.
Oh, great!
Noah Berger, president of the liberal-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said that this year’s budget — as many budgets have in the past 15 or so years since voters backed big income tax cuts — relied on a lot of short-term solutions and “some wishful thinking,” which helps explain the deficit.
One example of wishful thinking, he said: funding for public defenders.
He said providing lawyers for indigent defendants is not a political popular item, so it is often funded at a level that means it will need more money later in the fiscal year.
“That’s just the kind of strategy that means you end up with midyear deficits unless good things happen,” he said. What’s good? Tax revenue coming in above expectations.
Well, I was told.... never mind.
The Baker administration cited a $35 million shortfall in funding for the Committee for Public Counsel Services — public defenders — in its outline of the gap this fiscal year, which runs from July 2014 through June.
State Representative Brian S. Dempsey, the House’s budget chief, said during the year certain accounts are always supplemented, and that’s to be expected.
What a $hitty way to run a state.
Another area of wishful thinking, Berger said, is the Group Insurance Commission, which oversees health insurance for state and some municipal employees, retirees, and their dependents.
The commission issued a warning in May 2014, before the current budget was signed into law, that it would need at least $100 million more for the 2015 fiscal year than the governor and the House had proposed. The extra money was never added. This week, the Baker administration said commission spending represents a $155 million hole that needs to be filled.
Berger believes that a longer-term reason behind this and other budget gaps in recent years are income tax cuts put into place more than a decade ago, undermining key state programs.
Yeah, except the legislature left the rate in place for years once the Grand Depression began, and we had a huge sales tax increase that never went away -- and yet here the mouthpieces are crying poverty yet again!
Other analysts say the state’s budget issues wouldn’t be solved by higher taxes, but rather a more efficient and effective government.
That's all they know how to do here.
More contributing factors to the current gap cited by the administration include greater than budgeted caseloads at the troubled Department of Children and Families ($41 million) and underfunding for emergency assistance for homeless families ($45 million).
Again, you can $ee who they don't give a $hit about despite all the rhetoric from our miracle-worker state agencies.
But the single biggest underbudgeted category cited by the administration in its outline of the gap is spending on Medicaid.
That spending includes paying for health care of people newly enrolled in Medicaid, who had previously been in a temporary Medicaid program instituted after the state’s health insurance website failed, the administration said.
The temporary program was instituted to make sure people would not lose coverage after the website — for people who do not get insurance through their employer — did not function after it was changed to comply with the federal health care overhaul.
The site was never able to determine whether people were eligible for assistance, more than 300,000 people were placed in the temporary program, and the cost associated with it has not yet been fully sorted out.
“Until we get our arms around what this temporary Medicaid issue looks like, we won’t really know the size of the problem and we could be in for even worse surprises,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of the conservative-leaning Pioneer Institute.
The Baker administration’s $765 million gap figure takes into account $252 million in cuts and savings instituted by Governor Deval Patrick shortly before he left office.
A$$hole.
At a broader level, this year’s budget is squeezed by tax revenues that, while going up fiscal year to fiscal year, are growing at a slower rate than in previous economic recoveries.
And yet we are back in the dot com boom days, blah, blah, blah!
In the 1990s and again for much of the 2000s, annual state revenue growth averaged about 6.5 percent, according to an analysis from business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
But since the middle of 2010, average tax revenue has grown about 4.7 percent each fiscal year, meaning the Legislature and governor have a pool of money that grows at a slower rate than in the boom years, stretching budgets.
“If we had really robust revenue growth on a great recovery, some of these problems disappear,” said Andrew C. Bagley, who directs research at the Taxpayers Foundation. “But we haven’t seen it.”
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Then the Globe must either be seeing things or lying:
Mass. home sales jump nearly 10 percent in Dec.
Still not all that good, but maybe you can live out of your car.
Related: Charlie Baker should use state money to buy at-risk shoreline homes
Forget the fraudulent argument regarding global warming, that's mostly rich folk's homes.
So what else does the Globe have to say?
"Put the brakes on BCEC bond offering" January 31, 2015
CONFRONTED WITH an alarming $765 million gap in the Commonwealth’s
current budget, Governor Charlie Baker and his newly installed economic
team have wasted no time applying the good sense of the First Law of
Holes: when in one, stop digging.
Last week, Administration and Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore prudently ordered a delay
in the $1 billion bond offering for the expansion of the Boston
Convention and Exhibition Center. The new bonds, originally scheduled to
be issued on Monday, will add significantly to the state’s debt load,
saddling taxpayers for years to come with hundreds of millions of
dollars in increased financial obligations.
Yes, folks, fa$ci$m is alive and well in little old Ma$$achu$etts.
A 60-day postponement giving
a new administration the chance to study the fine print before
borrowing such a great sum would have made sense in any case. With so
many concerns about the convention center expansion still unresolved,
the delay is not just prudent, but essential.
Legislation authorizing the enlargement of the convention center,
including the construction of a major new hotel at public expense,
sailed through the House and Senate last summer. It was signed by former
Governor Deval Patrick, notwithstanding serious red flags
identified by fiscal watchdogs like Gregory Sullivan, the former state
inspector general who is now research director at the Pioneer Institute.
Among those red flags:
highly unrealistic revenue forecasts for the hotel taxes that will be
needed to secure the bonds; a sweeping exemption from the state’s
public-records law; and the explicit exclusion of the Division of
Capital Asset Management and Maintenance — the state agency that
constructs and manages major state buildings — from jurisdiction over
the project.
Troubling, too, are wrong-way national trends in the convention industry:
While attendance has been declining for years, the construction of new
exhibition space has soared. The results almost everywhere have been
rosy predictions that have failed to materialize.
Where have we $een that before?
Baker has
already signaled that he intends to look hard and skeptically at one
vast project greenlighted by the outgoing Patrick administration — its
plan to sell off the state Department of Transportation’s Park Square headquarters
and relocate the agency to an empty parcel in Roxbury. The convention
center authority’s grandiose billion-dollar expansion would benefit from
similar close scrutiny. The Commonwealth and its taxpayers are in a
distressingly deep fiscal hole as it is. This is no time to blindly keep
digging.
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Related: Governor Baker chides T for reaction to Quincy mishap
"It appears that the future of late-night rides may ultimately come down to a lack of state funding. Transportation officials have hinted that they could push the program to the chopping block to help cover a $765 million deficit in the state’s budget. And so far, the corporations that could ultimately benefit from the service by retaining young talent have largely failed to help cover the costs of the $13 million pilot program. The state doesn’t appear to be strongly championing the program’s continuation either. This new pilot program was supposed to be different: Yet while riders responded with enthusiasm, private partners that could offset the costly program didn’t. Even though MBTA officials offered extensive corporate sponsorships, fewer than a half-dozen companies provided financial support."
And most of what did came from The Boston Globe and the Red Sox.
Also see: The Rotten Reverends of Boston
Maybe they should be committed to a hospital:
"Judge to open inquest into Bridgewater State Hospital death" by Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff January 23, 2015
Re-opening a case that local officials long ago closed, a special prosecutor has taken the unusual step of calling for a judicial inquest into the 2009 death of a young mental health patient at Bridgewater State Hospital, who died as prison guards forcibly strapped his wrists and ankles to a bed.
Judge Mark S. Coven, the first justice of the Quincy District Court, will oversee the seldom used review process. He called a meeting for Friday to review a list of possible witnesses and to schedule the inquest. Coven previously has overseen two such fact-finding reviews, including the 2010 inquest into the shotgun death of the brother of former Braintree resident Amy Bishop.
Special prosecutor Martin F. Murphy asked for the judicial inquest, essentially setting aside an earlier decision by Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz not to pursue charges in the death of Joshua K. Messier, who had been sent to Bridgewater for a mental competency evaluation.
The state attorney general appointed Murphy to review the case after a Globe story showed that guards manhandled Messier while clinicians delayed medical care for several minutes as his face turned blue. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
“It was my judgment that the best way to get at the truth about what happened to Joshua Messier is to take testimony under oath before a judge,” said Murphy, a former Middlesex County prosecutor who supervised more than 100 homicide cases.
If Coven decides that Bridgewater prison guards or clinicians were criminally responsible for Messier’s death, it would be up to Murphy to present the case to a Plymouth County grand jury, Murphy said....
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Related: Bridgewater State Hospital patients sue care providers
Everything clear now?
