Senate Republicans charted a three-day electoral minefield for their Democratic colleagues Tuesday, highlighting budget amendments designed to squeeze out cost savings – while painting their leader, lieutenant governor candidate Richard Tisei, into the role of reformer.
The five-member GOP Senate caucus said members plan to force extensive debate on amendments restricting public benefits access to legal residents, restoring probation department hiring authority to the Judiciary Branch’s control, repealing the Pacheco Law designed to curb privatization, authorizing municipal officials to structure health insurance coverage for employees without union sign-off, and enrolling Medicaid recipients in managed care. Tisei said the probation amendment was filed before Sunday’s publication of a Boston Globe investigation into probation patronage.
In all, Republican members have filed about 80 amendments to the budget, totaling “well over a billion dollars” in savings, Tisei, running on Republican Charles Baker’s ticket.
All five of the proposals touted as top priorities drive at policy areas that have drawn headlines in recent months – most recently in reports of a probation department overrun by patronage. Both Independent Treasurer Timothy Cahill and Baker want the hiring authority restored to the courts, while Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed consolidating the probation and parole operations under the Executive Office of Public Safety (EOPS).
Pointing to a structural deficit that could hit $3 billion next fiscal year, after the evaporation of federal stimulus funds, Tisei said, “It seems to us that we should be using this budget debate really to reform state government and make the changes that we need, to put them in place, to get us through [fiscal 2011] but more importantly to set the stage so we have serious reform in government for the next fiscal year as well.”
Under a budget add-on unveiled after a Democratic Senate caucus Tuesday, Judiciary Committee Senate chair Cynthia Creem proposed restricting the probation commissioner’s term to five years, granting control of 5 percent of the department’s budget to the Trial Court leadership, and appointing a task force to investigate transferring the probation department to EOPS.
Both Republicans who attended last week’s Ways and Means executive session voted in favor of the budget, but said they had caveats around reform measures.
GOP cost-cutting measures, often bemusedly swatted aside by the Democrats’ super-majority in the Senate, could stand a better chance this year, as incumbents are eager to embrace reform.
The proof of residency for public benefits promises to draw public attention, as immigration policy has bloomed into a perennially hot-button issue on both the state and national levels. Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth) said portions of the House amendment offered by Rep. Jeff Perry, a Sandwich Republican running for Congress, have found past support in the Senate. The Senate version would require residency credentials for state subsidies.
Senate President Therese Murray said many state agencies already practice residency-screening.
“It’s kind of a little smoke and mirrors here. We already do this stuff,” she said.
Senate Democratic officials said privately the majority could agree to codify some of those practices in statute. They were girding, though, against more stringent proposals. At Tuesday’s Democratic caucus, a 2007 Denver Post article circulated depicting a Colorado law similar to the Perry amendment as resulting in a net financial loss for the state.
The Republicans, whose press conference outside the Senate Chamber was twice interrupted by Murray on her way to and from a separate event, acknowledged they had little mechanism to push tax amendments due to Senate rules, but said they still planned to discuss tax policy through proposed tax credits.
Mayors and town managers have been negotiating with labor unions to arrive at a deal on municipal health insurance, after Republicans relented two weeks ago and opted against filing “plan design amendments” to a municipal management bill. Lawmakers allowed the negotiators an additional two weeks. Both Democrats and Republicans are waiting with amendments restricting union input into their members’ health insurance.
Republicans are also proposing to repeal the Bunker Hill Day and Evacuation Day holidays for public sector employees. Another amendment would affirm support for the standardized MCAS test.
Democrats bristled at the prospect of being depicted as anti-reform, pointing to overhauls of the transportation and education systems, and ethics rules, as well as targeted changes to the pension system.
“There have been more reforms passed – not only by the Senate but by the Legislature as a whole – than I think anyone could point to at any other recent time in state history,” said Sen. Anthony Petruccelli, an East Boston Democrat and Murray ally.
“Let’s not forget that the Senate budget had a compromise plan design component in [the fiscal 2010] budget. We have done it before, and we’re talking about that issue again in the context of this year’s budget because we know the importance of cost savings for the cities and towns,” Petruccelli said.
Sen. Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy) said Tisei was using the budget as a campaign tool.
Referring to the 2002 campaign, when then-Senate President Thomas Birmingham resisted overtures to step down from his leadership post to pursue the gubernatorial nomination, Morrissey said, “We asked the Senate president to step down from the presidency if he sought higher office because people were concerned about the campaign spilling over into an organized legislative process. Some of this, I’m sure, is part of the campaign rhetoric. Some of it makes some sense, and some is going to run into some opposition.”
The so-called Pacheco Law discourages the use of private contractors, and has long been a hobgoblin of legislative Republicans. Republicans said repealing the law could save “several hundred million dollars.”
“If we resist simple reforms like this, then we’re going to be in a world of hurt next year, and there will be a major tax increase,” said Sen. Michael Knapik, the ranking Republican on the budget committee.
Roughly 30 percent of Medicaid enrollees are in managed care, said Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester). Increasing that share, he said, could save up to $1 billion over the next five years. Growth in Medicaid accounts for much of the 3 percent increase enshrined in the Senate budget committee’s proposal.
Asked about the viability of the GOP package, Senate President Pro Tempore Stanley Rosenberg said, “Obviously, we haven’t had the debates yet, so it’s really hard to judge and speak for the body. Personally, I don’t find many of them very attractive … Some of these we’ll be rehashing for the third, fourth, fifth time, whatever.”
Rosenberg added, “Clearly, the probation stuff, everybody’s upset about that and we clearly have to address that.”
