BUDGET WEEK DIARY

May 2, 2009 

By State Representative Don Humason, Jr.

It’s Monday; budget week in the House of Representatives.  Legislators have to debate and vote on the 1,000 plus amendments filed to the House Ways & Means Committee version of the state spending bill for the next fiscal year beginning July 1.

That means I move to Boston for the week.  I bring my cell phone and my laptop and I rarely leave the House Chamber.  My Chief of Staff, Sarah Latour, sends me emails and calls me to let me know who is contacti ng my Westfield District Office and what they are saying about the various amendments and budget-related matters.

Instead of waiting until Thursday night to write my column as I usually do I thought I would write a sort of play by play of the process and call it my “Budget Week Diary.”

Monday, April 27.  House budget debate slated to start at noon.  Everybody’s talking about Swine Flu.  First category of amendments to be considered is Revenue.  Members spend hours playing hurry up and wait as the Speaker and Chairman of Ways and Means meet with Democrat members to see what tax they would be more likely to support.  Turns out it is the sales tax.  It is nearly 11 PM when the House takes the vote to raise the sales tax from 5 to 6.25%.  Vote is 158-51.  I spoke against the increase and voted no.

Tuesday, April 28.  It’s hot.  Members are a little edgy because Governor Patrick has been all over the news criticizing legislators who voted for a sales tax increase without first reforming government.  He says he may veto it when it gets to him.  There is a unanimous vote to increase local aid to cities and towns by $205 million.  That increases Westfield’s unrestricted local aid by over a million dollars.  It’s not much.

Sarah has prepared a detailed spreadsheet of contacts from more than 160 constituents about dozens of key amendments/budget items/outside sections of interest that they want me to track.

Republicans offer an amendment under the category of Constitutional Officers to eliminate the $403,000 line item for the Governor’s Washington office since we already have 12 Democrat Congressmen and US Senators to “bring home the bacon.”  I take the rostrum to speak in support of the amendment.  Although the amendment fails Republicans are joined by many Democrats who vote for it.  We recess a little after 9 PM.

Wednesday. April 29.  First quorum roll call at 10:30 AM.  Several categories of consolidated amendments come up for vote.  Pace is slow.  Not much debate.  Many votes are along party lines as Democrats vote to increase the funding using money they say they’ll raise from the sales tax increase.  GOP members like me vote no, regrettably, citing the weak economy and a lack of tax revenue.

The Boston Chamber of Commerce gives legislators their March 2009 Massachusetts Jobs Update.  It reports Massachusetts lost 20,300 jobs last month; posted 3.2% job loss last 12 months, slightly better than U.S. job loss rate of 3.5%.  State falls to 189,300 jobs below previous peak; lowest employment since June 2004. All 12 regions shed jobs last 12 months.

We took up the final category of the night, a consolidated amendment in the category of Labor & Workforce Development, at 11:15 PM before recessing.  Although most categories are passing along party line votes, talk on the floor is that this budget is terribly out of balance due to avalanching revenues.  Rumor has it that the Senate will release a budget that is even smaller than the House, and may include even more in tax increases.

Thursday, April 30.  Noon.  Republicans make a motion to recess debate until Monday at which time we will have a better picture of April tax receipts and could judge how much our revenue projections were off.  There were only 5 fiscally conservative Democrats who joined us.  The vote was 21-135. 

It’s after 9 PM.  The House rules say we have to vote to go past 9.  I always vote no because I believe the people’s business should be conducted by the light of day when they can watch and not in the wee hours of the night.

So far this week we’ve taken over 40 roll call votes.  And nearly $500 million has been added back in through passage of consolidated amendments to the bottom line of this budget.

We’re told the House will not finish the budget debate by midnight tonight.  Bad news.  I’m up against my deadline to submit my column to the Westfield Evening News so you’re not going to be able to read here how I vote on the final budget.