[Note: Links and materials referenced in an archived posting may have expired.]

It doesn't add up

The budget that Governor Mitt Romney released on Wednesday, January 28, will not provide the funding that is needed to continue the progress that has been achieved under education reform or undo the damage of three years of severe cuts to public higher education.  House 1 continues funding well below the FY03 level.

Early press accounts indicated that he is increasing funding for public education.  However, a closer look at the figures shows that while the governor proposed some new initiatives and a few nominal program increases, many important programs were level-funded, which, because of inflation, means these programs are actually cut. Funding falls woefully short of the more than $1 billion needed to restore the cuts of the past three years.  Recent studies show that Massachusetts cut public education, both pre-K-12 [1] and higher education [2], by a larger percentage than any other state in the nation.

Focusing on the long term, House 1 does not attempt to solve the structural imbalance of the state budget.  The governor's budget relies on one-time savings or one-time revenue sources to fund ongoing programs.  If the state does not create new revenue sources, not only will the Commonwealth severely under-fund public education this year, but it will continue to do so for many years to come.

Included in House 1 are several provisions that impact employee rights and benefits.  Romney is again proposing to undercut collective bargaining rights, a step that the Legislature wisely rejected last summer.  Romney also is proposing changes to the pension system to get at what he has termed "loopholes that allow certain insiders to take advantage of the system [and] gain unfair benefits." 

The next step in the FY05 budget process is when the House Ways and Means Committee releases its version of the budget.  This is likely to occur in April.

_______
[1] Reschovsky, Andrew, University of Wisconsin – Madison, "The Impact of State Government Fiscal Crises on Local Governments and Schools." The report shows that the change in real per-pupil state aid dropped by 14.3 percent from FY02 to FY04 in Massachusetts, the largest decrease of any state in the country.

[2] Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 16, 2004, citing study by James C. Palmer at the Center for the Study of Education Policy, Illinois State University: "Among the states that cut higher-education appropriations
this year, the hardest hit were Colorado, South Carolina, and particularly Massachusetts, which had the highest percentage decrease in the nation."