Lawmakers not ready to give governor sweeping budget-cutting powers

September 22, 2008 04:21 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Matt Viser, Globe Staff

After huddling for nearly 90 minutes this afternoon, the state’s top legislative and financial leaders emerged and sought to project a united, calming front in solving a growing state budget crisis.

“Sobering news, yes,” said Senate President Therese Murray. “But we expected it, and we’ll just work together going forward on the budget and anything else that comes up.”

Governor Deval Patrick, meanwhile, is preparing for potentially dire cuts in a budget that the Legislature approved in July. Leslie Kirwan, Patrick's secretary of administration and finance, said the state is looking at making “several hundred million dollars” in budget cuts, but she said it would not be clear for several weeks how deep the cuts would be, or what areas would be hit the hardest.

“It’s pretty fluid right now,” said House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi. “We are working together in cooperation with the governor right now.”

But so far, legislators have rejected calls from the governor for expanded powers to cut from the state budget. Patrick needs their approval to make any cuts to accounts outside the executive branch. That power has not been granted since 2003, when former governor Mitt Romney implemented sweeping midyear reductions in the face of a spiraling deficit.

“Those are things we’ll discuss in the future,” Murray said. “There’s been no decision made. We’ll wait and see what the October numbers show.”

The state has been struggling in the early part of the fiscal year, which began July 1. The biggest hit came in the first two weeks of September, when the state brought in $200 million less than it did in the same period last year.

There are several variables, but even those who are most optimistic say the state will end up having to make budget cuts. The only question is how deep they will be.

“It’s starting to get a little bit scary,” said Representative Brian Wallace, a South Boston Democrat. “It’s creeping in everyone’s conversations about what we do from here. The numbers aren’t adding up and the numbers aren’t looking good. There’s a lot of indecision.”