The cutting crew

he national economic crisis is battering the Massachusetts state budget, forcing Beacon Hill politicians and their top fiscal experts to sit down and make tough decisions about where to cut. Governor Deval Patrick is expected this week to spell out his plan for hundreds of millions of dollars in reductions from the current $28.2 billion budget, after consultations with House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray. Most of the action thus far has taken place behind the scenes, in the warren of offices at the State House, where these key players have been shuttling back and forth in a frenzy to prepare for the upcoming fiscal storm.

Matthew J. Gorzkowicz
Assistant secretary of Executive Office for Administration and Finance
Background: He was the budget director for the Senate Committee on Ways and Means for nearly three years, and later became the chief financial officer at the Massachusetts School Building Authority, a state agency that provides funds for cities and towns to build schools.
Inclination: The man with perhaps the most command of the numbers, he has a scary familiarity with individual line items in a budget that is several hundred pages long. He reports to Kirwan, who reports to the governor, and will be charged with advising them on how to close the budget gap and which areas should be cut.

Deval Patrick
Governor
Background: Has a background in business and law-- but in the private sector, where the decisions and the criticism that went along with them were kept behind closed doors. He was a corporate attorney, an executive at Coca-Cola, and assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration.
Inclination: Like a squirrel protecting his food for the winter, Patrick wants to salvage key education programs important to his political agenda. But it will be a difficult test of his leadership. He can unilaterally make cuts to about two-thirds of the budget, but he needs special power from the Legislature to cut into other areas, including local aid to cities and towns. So far, lawmakers have balked at giving him that authority.

Therese Murray
Senate President
Background: A self-described "kid from Dorchester," she was elected Senate president last year, the first woman to lead either legislative body. She is intimately familiar with the budget from her previous experience as chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Inclination: Murray has avoided the limelight, skipping news conferences or sprinting through the hallways to avoid reporters, and so far she has maintained the same low profile on the budget. She even went on a trade mission to Ireland last week as the crisis brewed. Once the budget-cutting begins, however, Murray fights for things she is passionate about. One of her key passions, healthcare spending, almost certainly will be the subject of cuts.

Salvatore F. DiMasi
Speaker of the House
Background: A creature of the State House, a politician for nearly 30 years who held key roles, including majority whip and majority leader, before being elected speaker in 2004.
Inclination: DiMasi loves delivering the goods for his members, but his abilities to maneuver have been diminished recently by ethics questions. DiMasi clashed bitterly with the governor early this year over casinos, but they've patched things up. Now the repairs in their relationship will be put to their first big test as they push their respective visions for budget cuts. When the public backlash arrives, the Democrat-led Legislature, for the first time in nearly two decades, won't have a Republican governor to blame.

Timothy P. Cahill
Treasurer
Background: Cahill, a Quincy city councilor for 16 years, previously was Norfolk County treasurer and oversaw about $400 million in pension funds. He also ran a cafe; for 12 years. Now his job is to make sure the state has enough money to pay its bills, manage billions of dollars in state investments, and oversee the state lottery.
Inclination: The treasurer has been scrambling to juggle bond issues and cash accounts to meet the topsy-turvy shifts in credit markets. Cahill is an independent operator with higher ambitions who is not averse to criticizing the governor. As the focus shifts away from his cash-flow management duties and more toward budget-cutting, it's likely he will look to continue scoring points by urging heavy use of the budget ax.

Navjeet K. Bal
Commissioner, Department of Revenue
Background: A lawyer by trade, she worked for the law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo for 18 years in public finance and state and federal tax law. She joined the Department of Revenue last year as senior deputy commissioner. She's been in her current position for about nine months.
Inclination: Her role is that of a parent, telling the kids how much allowance they get. She won't make spending decisions, but she'll be at the forefront in projecting how much money the state will take in this year. Tax revenue so far has taken a nose dive, and new projections are being calculated. Depending on how far the revenue estimates fall, others will then decide how much of the budget needs to be cut.

Leslie A. Kirwan
Secretary, Administration and finance
Background: She has been in the job for two years, but previously she was the budget chief for the Massachusetts Port Authority and is used to tough assignments. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, she helped Logan International Airport regain its financial footing.
Inclination: Kirwan and her team are at the hub of all budget activity, so much so that people stop her in the streets and ask, "Are you doing OK?" Kirwan, the state's first female administration and finance secretary, has a quiet confidence and a dry wit. She keeps a whip in the corner of her office, she jokes, to keep people in line during budget seasons. A staff member recently gave her a sign that says, "Don't make me break out my flying monkeys"-- a reference to the Wicked Witch of the West.

Steven C. Panagiotakos
Chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, senator from Lowell
Background: Got his political start as a Lowell School Committee member, where he served two terms. He also served two terms in the House before winning his Senate seat in 1997.
Inclination: He became chairman last year, taking over for Murray when she became Senate president. He had previously served as vice chairman on the committee. His public support is important, but his real work won't begin unless the Legislature decides to give the governor additional powers to cut local aid. He and other lawmakers will appear engaged in budget debates, but will be happy to let the governor take responsibility for the budget cuts.

Robert A. DeLeo
Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, representative from Winthrop
Background: For years he was a back bencher who focused mostly on constituent issues such as toll hikes on the Tobin Bridge and in the Sumner Tunnel and expansions at Logan. In 2005, DiMasi elevated DeLeo to his current post, which is one of the most powerful positions in the Legislature.
Inclination: He has ambitions to succeed DiMasi as speaker, and the current budget problems give him a high-profile role where he can show leadership. House members go to him to secure crucial earmark projects for their districts - called DeLeo Dollars - but those very earmarks could be targets for cuts now that the roof is threatening to cave in. "There is intense pressure to try and get through this," he said. "The month of October, don't take any vacations because there's going to be a lot going on here."

Michael J. Widmer
President of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
Background: During the 1970s, Widmer was special assistant to the human services secretary in the Frank Sargent administration. He also was director of communications for Governor Michael Dukakis. He has been president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation since 1992 and is an undisputed authority on the Massachusetts budget.
Inclination: Widmer's role often is Doubting Thomas, or perhaps Skunk at the Garden Party. Fiscally conservative and pragmatic, he persistently questions the spending decisions of those in power. For months, Widmer has been warning that the budget contains a "structural deficit" of at least $1 billion that would become a crippling burden in a bad economy. This has made him none too popular among elected leaders at the State House. At times he's treated like the boy who cried wolf, but this time he appears to be right.