Slashing funds for young people with disabilities and outpatient services at soldiers’ homes, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a budget-balancing bill lawmakers sent him Thursday but demanded they return to session “now” to help close a still-gaping budget gap.
But lawmakers are balking at the demand. A spokesman for House Speaker Robert DeLeo indicated late Tuesday afternoon, “Formal sessions will resume in the first week of January, as scheduled.” Through a spokeswoman, Senate President Therese Murray declined comment.
In a message to lawmakers, Patrick also axed a new program aimed at reusing discarded pharmaceuticals, an initiative long pushed by Republican lawmakers as a potential health care cost-saving measure but criticized by skeptics as risky.
“Given the seriousness of our current fiscal challenges, I am disappointed that you have taken no action on many of the measures I included in the original legislation,” he wrote, adding, “We need your attention to these remaining issues now.”
Patrick has demanded that lawmakers empower him to cut the state budget outside the executive branch, a move he said would spread pain more evenly among the beneficiaries of state spending and spare services for the vulnerable from additional program cuts. He has called their proposal “not enough” to address an estimated $600 million budget deficit. But lawmakers balked at the request, sending Patrick on Thursday a $95 million proposal that – coupled with about $390 million in budget fixes the governor has already made – they said was sufficient to address current challenges.
In his letter, the governor explained his rejection of funding for early intervention services, sexual assault nurse examiners and funds for the state's two soldiers homes. He said discontinuing outpatient services at the soldiers homes in Chelsea and Holyoke "would not break faith with our commitment to serve our veterans" because the veterans affected by the cuts are "overwhelmingly insured" and most receive primary care elsewhere.
Patrick vetoed a section of the budget legislation establishing a new program that proponents hoped would allow unused medications at health care facilities to be redistributed, saying the Department of Public Health would “examine the feasibility of accomplishing the same goals under existing authority.”
Patrick also faulted lawmakers for not giving him the power to cut accounts that are off limits to mid-year cuts and for not giving his budget managers the authority to transfer funds between accounts, which he says would offer more flexible budget management during tough times.
Speaking to reporters at UMass Boston earlier Tuesday, Patrick said he had ordered his budget chief to develop plans for an additional $120 million in spending reductions that he said could affect disability services, home health aides, day habitation programs and services for the sight-impaired.
The announcement came barely a week after the governor, coping with overoptimistic revenue projections and spending demands within the $27 billion budget he signed in July, announced $100 million in cuts to state Medicaid programs such as adult dental coverage and personal care attendants.
Patrick has said he hopes to navigate this year’s budget crisis while protecting from additional cuts nearly $5 billion in aid doled out to cities and towns. The governor’s latest call to lawmakers came as he was preparing to depart for Washington D.C., to attend a state dinner at the White House. Patrick plans to travel from Washington to Atlanta, where he has family, for Thanksgiving.
The governor said he spoke with House Speaker Robert DeLeo Monday – four days after telling reporters he hadn’t been able to reach DeLeo – though he would not disclose details of the conversation.
“If we don’t act, it will unfortunately impact those we most need to protect,” Patrick said at a press conference following a daylong human services conference organized by the administration and held at UMass Boston. “In the absence of legislative action next week, we have to prepare.”
The Legislature last Wednesday recessed formal sessions for the year and plans to resume such sessions in January. Patrick last Thursday called on lawmakers to return this week, saying they could finish work on education, crime and budget bills by Thanksgiving. Lawmakers opted to stick with their recess plans, with House leaders promising action on the education bill in January.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charley Murphy, while acknowledging the bill sent to Patrick doesn't fully address the $600 million downgrade in state tax collections, says lawmakers can address additional budget problems later in the fiscal year, if necessary.
Human services agencies are lining up behind the governor to urge the Legislature to expand his budget-cutting authority, a move they say would help divert cuts from support programs for the vulnerable.
Al Norman, executive director of Mass Home Care, said he hopes the governor will look to new revenues that could be gained from closing longstanding tax exemptions and ending “corporate welfare.”
Raising taxes was a theme throughout the summit.
Michael Grunko, head of a union representing 11,000 human services workers, said that one of his group’s foremost goals is to “turn back right-wing attacks on taxes” and establish “more progressive state taxes to get our clients what they need.”
“In a world dominated by the Bain Capitals and their wealth-redistributing ilk, we cannot model our workforce on the other extreme, total self-sacrifice,” said Grunko, president of SEIU Local 509. Administration officials estimated that more than 300 human services workers attended the conference.
Secretary of Health and Human Services JudyAnn Bigby said her office would work with many of the attendees to develop a report on the summit talks within 90 days.
The governor said the report would be accompanied by an “implementation plan” to help bring efficiencies and innovation to the human services sector.
Norman, the Mass Home Care executive director, said the governor should establish a council on human services to advise him prior to making cuts.
“It’s disheartening to hear that the governor has another $120 million in cuts lined up,” he said. “This summit should’ve happened a month ago. It should’ve been a summit where the governor said ‘what do you think I should do,’ instead of having a summit after he’s just cut the ribbons out of home care.”
