Tsongas raps Patrick veto of state aid for Haverhill
WASHINGTON - Congresswoman Niki Tsongas criticized Governor Deval Patrick yesterday for vetoing $1.2 million in state aid to the city of Haverhill to pay off debts related to a hospital sale - but Tsongas added that there was little chance the city would get federal help.
Haverhill sold debt-ridden Hale Hospital to private investors in 2001, but agreed to take responsibility for the millions of dollars the facility was in arrears. Since then, repaying that debt has put a major strain on the city's budget, and city leaders have asked the state and federal governments for aid.
Next year's state budget originally included $2.4 million for Haverhill, but Patrick subtracted $1.2 million when he signed the spending plan in July. Tsongas, meeting with Globe reporters and editors in Washington, criticized the move.
"It's a terrible constraint on the city's budget, and so it's unfortunate that he did veto it," said Tsongas, a freshman Democrat from Lowell.
Haverhill's annual bill for the hospital debt is about $7.5 million, but Tsongas said the city should not look for federal help. "The city came to us to see if there was some recourse for it within the federal budget, and we looked very hard, but there is no place for it to fall," she said.
Becky Deusser, a spokeswoman for Patrick, said he supported help for Haverhill, but "we're facing difficult fiscal times as a state."
The deadline for state lawmakers to override the veto passed yesterday.
Tsongas, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, also discussed legislation she introduced that would establish a pilot program to train college and university staff to spot post-traumatic stress disorder in students who are Iraq war veterans enrolled under the GI Bill.
"On the third deployment, 20 percent of those deployed are likely to develop PTSD," she said. "Often counselors are not trained to detect symptoms of PTSD. We want to put in place a program that will work with college officials to understand what they're seeing when they see it and then how to deal with it."
