state budget

It's time to take a long, hard look at what we value in our state - and how we want to support it. Last week, we discussed some potential revenue options.

Do you have ideas on how we should build a sound fiscal foundation for Massachusetts?

The ONE Massachusetts Leadership Team is meeting on April 2nd, and we're interested in using your suggestions to build our agenda for the upcoming budget season.

ONE Massachusetts network members are encouraging their legislative delegations to build new revenue options in next year's budget. Are you ready to encourage your legislators to take a close look at how they will support our communities - and avoid drastic cuts - with revenue options?

Here are a couple of sample talking points that could get you started...

The things that make Massachusetts a great place to live - good schools, clean water, safe streets - are only possible due to our shared, ongoing support. Unfortunately, a decade of tax cuts and subsequent years of declining revenue have left Massachusetts with a multi-billion dollar structural deficit – forcing our elected officials to make difficult decisions in order to balance our budget. The well-being of our communities depends on us. It is time to decide whether we want more cuts or more revenue!

In Yawu Miller’s blog, “Bad Breaks,” NoPolitician rightfully said:

“I think we owe it to the governor to, when people complain about cuts or taxes, to make them tell us what they would do instead. For example, if you don't like the candy/soda tax, then tell us what you would get rid of to save the $61.6 million that will be lost by eliminating it.”

Based on NoPolitician comment, I would like to share some talking points that the team at ONE Massachusetts put together that can be used when calling or meeting your state representative or state senator.

These talking points are prospective revenue proposals that would promote a more adequate tax system in Massachusetts that minimize cuts and increase funding for our programs and public structures. We, as a community, can not afford to lose more funding for our programs.

Urge your state representative and state senator to take a balanced approach to filling the budget gap by drawing on federal stimulus funds, wise use of rainy day funds, judicious cuts and closing costly tax loopholes:

As we move into the season where state legislators will decide on what gets funded in the state budget and what gets cut, we wanted to share various organizing materials for your use.

The most important single thing you can do during the next 5 months when the budget decisions are made is to organize a local meeting with your state representatives and state senators. Here you can tell them why these programs are important to you, why their funding must not be cut and cuts made should be restored, and the tax and revenue options that could enable this.

Each of your legislators will be meeting 1:1 with the powerful House and Senate Ways and Means Chairman during the next two months to tell them what their budget priorities are.

So when you meet with your legislators, you have a specific "ask" or proposal for them, namely, will they make funding the specific programs and at what funding level you care about be one of the budget priorities they make in their meetings with the Ways and Means Chairman.

You decide, based on your priorities which specific programs you want to bring up at these meetings. For example, as a youth violence prevention and teen jobs advocate, I will be bringing up programs like Shannon, DPH Youth Violence Prevention Program, Teen Jobs--YouthWorks and School to Career, ASOST, and/or Mentoring.

Remember that potential allies may be wary of promising support for our priorities while our state operates under a $3 billion deficit. They are forced to build budget priorities in an environment in which many worthy programs are competing against each other to be spared.

If we come to the table with suggestions on how to face our ongoing budget issues, options like reforming our current tax breaks, utilizing our Rainy Day Fund, and raising new, progressive taxes, then our credibility in asking for programmatic funding, or rolled back budget cuts is vastly improved. 

We wanted to share these documents for your use from a statewide training we did at the beginning of February:

1. Understanding the State Budget: how we got a deficit, what combination of cuts, savings, taxes was made last year, and what could happen this year.
2. Organizing meetings with legislators: A guide to setting meetings with your legislators, talking to them about your budget priorities, and what you can say on revenue if they say, "there's no money".
   

As our community leaders and advocates look through the dramatic cuts being made to all manner of state structures and programs, we thought it would be good to look at one of our many success stories. This is just one example of a victory we can achieve if we work together to give it the proper support:

Drop in Smoking RatesState coverage for cessation programs hailed
Lower income Massachusetts smokers have dramatically abandoned their habit amid a major state campaign that vigorously promotes and pays for tobacco addiction treatment, according to a report scheduled to be released this morning.

Smoking rates among the poor plummeted 26 percent in the first two years of the ongoing state program, a striking result that is already drawing national attention to the effort. Officials targeted a population that historically had the highest smoking rates in Massachusetts. [Full Globe Article]

Although the study shows great success, including decreases in smoking-related health issues like  asthma and heart attacks - funding for Massachusetts smoking prevention and cessation programs has been decreased by budget and 9C cuts from over $12 Million spent in FY2009 to $4.5 Million for FY2010. [Funding Details]

Governor Patrick, in Wednesday's speech on employment for those with disabilities, announced that:

"There are going to be some programs, a limited number, that will be eliminated entirely." Patrick said his team was working with unions, and has previously said that up to 2,000 layoffs could result from the cuts... The governor's budget remedy package, including a request for expanded "9C" authority, is due tomorrow. "I've got a few more decisions to make. I'm close," he told reporters after his speech at the Westin Copley Hotel. "I'm going to do the very best I can, particularly to protect services for vulnerable people and education." [State House News Service]

And although tomorrow's 9C Cut announcement is being overshadowed by the great focus on Senate and Mayoral races, some community members and organizations are reaching out to the Governor and his staff, pushing for the programs they care deeply about.

Just one example is the push-back against Patrick's "plans to furlough workers and possibly cap staffing at the Massachusetts Disability Determination Services... a belt-tightening move that could worsen a Social Security backlog, leaving tens of thousands of disabled citizens desperately waiting for benefits." [Herald Article]

Another example is Tuesday's rally to protest cuts to Clubhouse services, with folks lining up from the plaza near the Department of Mental Health, proceeding to the front of the State House and ending at Governor Patrick's office.

In the past, these pleas have too often come in the form of "don't cut me, make cuts somewhere else!!" Thankfully, this is beginning to change.
Many of those mental health advocates are not only asking for their program to be spared cuts - they are joining ONE Massachusetts in our Virtual Rally - telling Governor Patrick to take a balanced approach to resolving our budget shortfall - closing the gap between shrinking revenues and the increasing need for services to in a time when all families have been hit hard in their own budgets!

This means not only making cuts, but looking to increase our state revenue in ways that are stable, adequate, and balanced. It also means taking a thoughtful, careful look at the loopholes included in our Tax Expenditure Budget.

Public officials are more likely to make decisions in the best interests of their constituents when they know they’re being watched.

The indictment of former House Speaker Sal DiMasi on federal corruption charges left many in Massachusetts wondering how this could have been prevented.

We at ONE Massachusetts have learned that people in our state will support government when they know that taxes and other revenues are raised in a manner that’s fair and spent in a manner that’s wise.

The Budget Conference Committee members are currently considering Senate outside section 7A – the State Budget Transparency web portal. This measure would require the state to create and maintain a searchable website open to the public detailing costs, recipients and purposes for all appropriations, including contracts, grants, subcontracts, tax expenditures and other subsidies funded by the state government. [Amendment sponsored by Senator Cynthia Stone Creem]

Making the state’s budget information more easily accessible would encourage private citizens, journalists and watchdog groups to assumer greater stewardship of our state government.

Yesterday, MASSPIRG sent a letter to the Budget Conference Committee members currently considering this measure: Senators Steven Panagiotakos, Stephen Brewer, Michael Knapik and Representatives Charles Murphy, Barbara L'Italien and Vinny deMacedo.

Now is a good time for you to weigh in.

Many Massachusetts Representatives have already been asked by their constituents to support an "adequate, balanced tax package."

They know that Massachusetts has worked for decades to build a system of public structures that keep our communities safe and healthy, educate our children, and draw businesses to our state.

The House has already passed its version of our State Budget. [Budget Process]

Now is the time to ask your Senator to support our public structures with an "adequate, balanced tax package."

 

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE VIRTUAL RALLY:

1. Contact your Senator. Tell your Senator that you support an adequate, balanced tax package that both addresses our structural deficit and stabilizes the public programs that we depend on!

   Customize your message, telling why restoring these public programs is important to your local community!

2. Pass this on to your personal and professional networks via Facebook, mailing lists, or dining room table - and recruit five of your friends and neighbors to do the same.

3. Let us know how it went! Once you've called each of your legislators, Twitter about it with the tag: #MassRevenues
   

We are excited to announce the official launch of the Virtual Rally to Support Our State!!

Massachusetts has worked for decades to build a system of public structures that keep our communities safe and healthy, educate our children, and draw businesses to our state.

Now, in an effort to avoid raising state taxes, the House Ways and Means Committee has proposed to dramatically cut those public structures in a time when we all rely on them more than ever.

All this week, our legislators will be considering amendments to our budget. Debate starts on April 27th. Now is the time to talk to your legislators!!

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE VIRTUAL RALLY:

1. Contact your legislators - in the House and in the Senate. Tell them that you support an adequate, balanced tax package that both addresses our structural deficit and stabilizes the public programs that we depend on!

   Customize your message by telling your legislators why restoring these public programs is important to your local community!

2. Pass this on to your personal and professional networks via Facebook, to mailing list, or in person - and recruit five of your friends and neighbors to do the same.
3. Let us know how it went! Once you've called each of your legislators, Twitter about it with the tag: #MassRevenues

Thank you Secretary Kirwan!

You might already know that ONE Massachusetts has a commitment to work for a more transparent, accessible and accountable state and local policy-making process. Toward that end, Yawu Miller on behalf of ONE Mass has submitted testimony to the Governor’s Public Integrity Task Force and Boston City Council on the importance of  transparency in the policy making process.  

It has become clear to us that public support for government increases when people know that their taxes are assessed in a way that’s fair and that the revenues our government collects are being spent wisely.

Whether you’re talking about the municipal level or the state level, information on budgets is often not easy to find.

Well, we opened Governor Patrick’s House 1 today to find on the front page the following:

The Governor's award-winning budget document comprises hundreds of pages of background and supporting materials, including:

• A description of the overall budget, the challenges faced in developing the budget and the solutions employed to meet them
• In-depth policy documents describing the proposals embedded in the budget
• Detailed historical information on budget levels and spending by department and spending account
  

The Budget Navigation Guide is designed to help users navigate the state budget and find the information most important to them. The Guide contains a brief explanation of the budget's contents, describing what information can be found in each area. 

And the information is easier to find.