Line items and lifelines
Boston Globe, March 2, 2007

A BUDGET is a statement of priorities. It answers the two most basic questions of government: Where to get the money, and how to spend it. Deval Patrick, the first Democratic governor in 16 years, is trying to say something important about his governing philosophy with a fiscal vocabulary of very few words. Bequeathed a deficit of $1.3 billion, his first budget is necessarily quiet on anything requiring major new spending. The review below says that running a $26.7 billion government is no easy task.

Patrick, a former corporate lawyer, vowed during his campaign to encourage business growth. He made sure his audience at the Chamber of Commerce Wednesday heard him say that it is business that creates jobs, not government. And until a more prosperous population sends more revenues to Beacon Hill through income and sales taxes, the choices Patrick will have to make to balance the budget will be tough. This includes revenue raisers that have displeased some business leaders, and some spending choices that Patrick himself called "crummy."

Patrick's budget takes modest steps to beef up the state's economic-affairs agency, and it funds a $4 million new office created last year to speed up the process for permitting new development, a priority for business.

By combining his economic affairs and housing offices, Patrick showed that he understands that high housing costs are a major economic obstacle. The budget contains an extra $10 million for public housing authorities. Of course, Massachusetts also needs to promote new housing production for middle-class families. But incentives to encourage towns to allow such construction aren't typically included in the operating budget.

Sound of body and mind
Healthcare consumes the largest share of the state budget. Little of the $10 billion spent here can be shifted to reflect the priorities of a new governor. But the Patrick budget maintains the expansion of health insurance coverage mandated last year -- the state's biggest new initiative -- and addresses new and continuing priorities in public health.

Patrick makes sure that there is enough money -- $472 million -- to pay for the subsidized insurance offerings of the new Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority. He would also allow money to be transferred to the Connector from the uncompensated care pool that defrays the cost of hospital care for the uninsured. This would fulfill the intent of the 2006 law. But Patrick's budget would skimp on funds to pay for outreach programs to attract people to the new policies. The Legislature ought to correct this omission before it approves the final budget.

Most of the healthcare money goes for the MassHealth program (otherwise known as Medicaid), which covers the poor. Patrick intends to make some unspecified trims, perhaps amounting to $179 million. Hospitals are worried that the rate increases they were promised as part of the 2006 law will be delayed as a result. Underpaid for many years, the hospitals are entitled to the money.

The governor put an emphasis on public health in his budget that has been missing for the past five years, for smoking-cessation programs and immunizations, including the new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. This represents an exceptionally cost-effective way to spend healthcare dollars, and we hope the Legislature endorses it.

Hope for the helpless
Human service needs are never fully met, so there's always someone who falls through the safety net. Patrick's budget tries to minimize harm. There are small funding increases, but not enough to keep up with inflation. So, once again, human service agencies have to make do with less.

One promising change is the governor's commitment to "eliminate homelessness." His budget combines 11 separate anti-homelessness programs into two -- a move that opens up the possibility of getting rid of shelters and putting homeless people in permanent housing. This could be a policy success if it means spending is more closely tailored to meet people's needs.

But human services need more funding overall, enough to get back to the levels of fiscal 2001. A anti-poverty approach would be the ideal solution, with linked funding increases in housing, education, mental health, substance abuse treatment, and job training. That way, no matter where people go for help, they could connect to a ladder of opportunity. Unfortunately, Patrick's lean budget can't offer such broad increases.

State human services also need a sweeping information technology makeover to generate data that shows what approaches work best.

One long education
Patrick, like governors before him, has embraced education as the key to the state's future. Rhetorically, he has put more emphasis on a desire to consider education comprehensively, from pre-kindergarten through college. But his budget shows only hints of his intentions. That education reform package will be submitted "in a few months," Patrick said on Wednesday. But his aides say it is too soon to know whether additional money will be recommended -- a crucial factor.

The budget contains meager help for either end of the education continuum. The Early Education for All campaign said it was pleased at a modest increase in pilot programs, but it pledged to fight for higher funding, along with public higher education officials.

The budget's support for K-12 was also minimal. Several initiatives were advanced, including a healthy doubling of funds for pilot extended-day programs in several schools. However, Patrick decided to distribute education aid according to a formula that will hurt some communities with high property values but modest incomes.

The closest thing to real reform was the overdue consolidation of budgets for the 15 community colleges. But real reform will mean more than shuffling boxes.

Police and prisons
Hundreds of police officers got lost between the campaign trail and the release of Patrick's budget. He had pledged funding for 1,000 new neighborhood policing officers. His budget, however, contains $13 million in additional municipal police funding to help hire an estimated 250 new officers. That's probably just as well.

Patrick's budget makes it clear that the municipal police grants are intended as initial funding only, not as a "permanent subsidy." The governor does not want to commit to an expense that raises the base of the state's budget. It's a prudent decision. But why would mayors and selectmen rush in to raise the base of their own equally tight municipal budgets by hiring the officers?

Unlike his predecessors, Patrick made a good-faith effort to balance his budget without slashing local aid accounts. But the nonprofit Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center notes that non-education aid to cities and towns increases by only 1.3 percent under Patrick's plan. That's the account that cities with crime problems usually tap to hire police personnel. So Patrick's plan for the extra cops doesn't fully compute.

Lags in the quality of life
When Patrick unveiled his budget in a Melrose "Town Hall" setting on Tuesday night, he made clear that his campaign commitment to invest more in the state's parks and beaches will have to wait at least a year. He talked about the need to "refocus our parks agency on its core mission, delivering resources to the front lines of maintenance and operations, and in that way lay the groundwork for future and greater investment." In other words, visitors to state parks and recreational facilities will have to be content with finding the parks' aging beach houses or comfort stations cleaned; they won't be replaced.

Like other agencies within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the Department of Conservation and Recreation still lacks a leader. Whoever Patrick appoints will have to continue the work done by predecessors to mesh together the department's state forest resources with the urban rinks, beaches, and parks it gained from the merger of the old Metropolitan District Commission. Patrick proposes to simplify that consolidation by doing away with the separate budget lines for state and urban properties. The Legislature should follow his lead. And legislators would help ensure the best use of the state's limited parks budget if they would resist the temptation to earmark pet projects.

Close to home
Most people meet their government at the local level, and the state recognizes this with $5 billion in local aid for schools and municipal services. But local communities are feeling the pinch too. Patrick's municipal aid package is a separate bill and not part of the budget, but it is essential to keep pressure off the property tax and the state's growing obligation to the cities and towns. The idea that the local taxing authority in the package will fuel a tax backlash aimed at the Legislature is absurd. Mayors and selectmen who choose to increase local taxes are willing to take the heat. The Legislature ought to let them determine their own destinies.