Romney vetoes $225m in spending

Governor Mitt Romney, setting up an election-year battle with Democrats, yesterday vetoed $225 million from two Beacon Hill spending bills, eliminating dozens of pet projects, slashing pay raises for judges, and abolishing $10 million for research in the life sciences.

The cuts were extensive and statewide, including $8.3 million for substance abuse treatment and $1.5 million for grants to community health centers, as well as smaller local projects, such as $200,000 to install Victorian-style street lights in Melrose and $100,000 to build a gazebo on Sunset Lake in Braintree. Romney said the state could not afford to fund all of the items, some of which he called ``pure pork," by tapping into the state's $1.7 billion stabilization fund, as the Legislature had proposed. Together with two other spending bills currently pending in the Legislature, the total hit to the fund would be $700 million, he said.

``If we drew $700 million from the rainy day fund, we would be putting Massachusetts on the road to ruin," Romney said at a State House press conference. ``We've been there before. We cannot go there again."

But legislative leaders said the spending items had been crafted to boost the economy and respond to the needs of cities and towns. They bristled at Romney's suggestion that many of the local items represented wasteful spending. Democratic leaders, who control the House and Senate, vowed to muster the two-thirds support needed to turn back the vetoes.

``We're not going to be afraid in terms of overriding any of these items we feel are necessary and in the best interests of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts -- as many as we feel are necessary," said Representative Robert A. DeLeo , chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, speaking by phone yesterday. ``The month of July is going to be `Veto Override Month' here in the Legislature."

Romney singled out several examples of spending he said were either irresponsible or the result of political favoritism. He eliminated $150,000 for a University of Massachusetts study of the winter moth, which feeds on maples, oaks, crab apples, and other trees. He cut $4 million for a study of the internal combustion engine, $250,000 for the Hopkinton Athletic Association, and $75,000 for the Hyannis Athletic Association.

``There is highly discriminatory spending going on," Romney said. ``Favorite sons are being cared for."

Chuckling at the Melrose lighting project, he said: ``I think Victorian street lighting is delightful, and I'm sure Melrose would benefit from it. But I don't understand why the state of Massachusetts should select one city or town for Victorian street lighting and not all the rest."

Republican governors routinely eliminate such local items, deriding them as Beacon Hill boondoggle s . But yesterday, Democrats cast Romney's vetoes as the actions of a governor so focused on presidential ambitions that he has lost touch with local cities and towns.

``He's been to Kuwait City more than he's been to North Adams," said Representative Daniel E. Bosley , a North Adams Democrat, who was upset that Romney had vetoed $50,000 for the Mohawk Theater in North Adams. ``I just don't think he understands how these kinds of things stimulate the local economy."

Romney also cut proposed pay raises for judges, court clerks, and sheriffs from 15 percent to 4.1 percent, a reduction he said would make the raises consistent with those given to elected officials such as the state treasurer and state auditor. He slashed a tax credit proposed to spur the rehabilitation of dilapidated buildings from $50 million to $15 million, saying the state could not afford the cost. And he abolished $10 million for life sciences research, because private firms and universities spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on such research.

Even as Romney issued vetoes yesterday, he also signed into law $630.5 million in spending approved by the Legislature as supplements to the $25 billion budget for fiscal 2006. Among the items approved were $100 million for construction projects at the University of Massachusetts and state and community colleges, $55 million for road and bridge projects statewide, and $55 million to improve transportation near Fenway Park, a measure sought by the Red Sox. That provision will allow the state to refurbish commuter rail and subway stations around Kenmore Square, improve the rotary between Fenway Park and the hospitals, and install new traffic lights on several surrounding streets.

``Many of the provisions which have been brought forward by the Legislature are ones which I requested and therefore appreciate," Romney said.

``Others are, in some cases, as good or perhaps better than some of those I put forward; I appreciate those, as well."

Lawmakers have not set a date to debate Romney's vetoes, but Senator Steven C. Panagiotakos , a Lowell Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said they were eager to get started.

``There was wide support to get these projects through," Panagiotakos said, ``and I think there will be wide support in overriding the vetoes."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.