Lawmakers discuss Patrick's budget cuts

October 16, 2008 07:27 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Globe Staff

Democratic leaders held caucuses today in the House and Senate to wrestle with Governor Deval Patrick's plan to slash more than $1 billion from the state budget.

Roughly $341 million of the cuts, new revenues, and use of reserves require legislative approval, including several initiatives that have already been killed once by lawmakers. Those failed proposals that Patrick has revived include adding tiers to healthcare plans for state employees and taxing telecommunications companies for telephone poles.

Top lawmakers are weighing whether to return for a special session or wait until their next formal session, in January. Patrick indicated he wanted legislative approvals "as soon as possible," but did not call lawmakers back to Beacon Hill.

House lawmakers were “talking about what the governor proposed last night and starting to look at what the options are for the Legislature going forward,” said David Guarino, a spokesman for House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi.

No decisions were made. “We haven’t seen the details of what the governor is proposing. We’d have to take a good hard look at that first,” Guarino said.

Senators also met in the office of Senate President Therese Murray.

"It was a full-house caucus," said Senator Stephen Brewer, a Democrat from Barre. "We're all engaged in this process."

The Legislature would need to approve a $100 million spending cut that would extend by two years the amount of time the state will take to pay off its pension account. Instead of paying it off by 2023, the schedule would be extended to 2025.

Lawmakers need to sign off on the tapping of an additional $200 million in the state's reserve account, bringing the total the state would spend from the rainy-day fund to $600 million this year instead of the original $400 million. The plan would leave $1.6 billion in the fund.

The telephone pole initiative would tighten the tax code for telecommunications companies, requiring them to pay $13 million more in taxes. The $28 million plan to tier state healthcare plans to income levels would raise the premiums for the highest-earning state employees.

Material from State House News Service was used in this report.