Romney sets off budget battle

Setting off a partisan firefight on Beacon Hill, Governor Mitt Romney invoked his emergency fiscal powers yesterday to withhold $425 million to deal with what he called a spending crisis that he blamed on the Legislature.

His move was immediately denounced by top aides to the Legislature's Democratic leaders. The aides accused Romney of trying to pump up his presidential prospects by playing to conservative Republican voters nationally at the expense of Massachusetts. Governor-elect Deval L. Patrick suggested that he may not go along with the cuts when he takes office in January.

At a State House press conference, Romney said he was forced to take the emergency action because the Legislature had transferred $450 million from a $2.1 billion "rainy day" fund and used it for other spending. Romney vetoed the rainy-day fund transfer last month. The Legislature did not override his veto, leaving a deficit that Romney projects at $425 million.

"The state is not in a fiscal crisis; it's a spending crisis," Romney said, asserting that some of the spending he targeted was for "pork" projects for legislators.

"We want to make sure the rainy day fund is used for rainy days, not sunny days," he said.

Last night, a statement issued by Patrick's staff said that the incoming governor "appreciates Governor Romney's willingness to help his successor by 'taking the heat' and withholding these expenditures, but that's not the point."

"The point ought to be whether the proposed spending helps advance the long-term interests and meet the essential needs of the people of Massachusetts," the statement said.

The statement added that Patrick "does not believe that significant depletion of the rainy day fund is fiscally responsible, and [he] will review cuts, where necessary and prudent, to balance the budget."

Using his so-called 9C authority to deal with emergency fiscal problems, Romney reduced 455 budget items, representing $425 million, or 1.7 percent of the state budget. The spending includes $25 million to reduce water and sewer rates; $31 million for decking over portions of the Big Dig to allow for private development; $28 million in salary increases for human service workers; and $20.3 million for retroactive pay increases at public colleges.

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi also denounced Romney's actions, saying in a statement that the governor was driven more by his personal ambition than concern for the state's fiscal health.

"The governor has once again shown that he is more concerned with political gestures and sound bites aimed at voters in other states than actually governing on behalf of the citizens of Massachusetts," said Kyle Sullivan, DiMasi's director of communications. Sullivan said Romney had created the deficit by vetoing the $450 million in funding from the rainy day fund.

"Now [he] is covering his political hide at the expense of families and communities across the state," Sullivan said. "In the end, these cuts may be restored, but his legacy as governor will not be. His term in office will be remembered, if at all, as four years when personal ambition ruled over the common good."

The Legislature's two Ways and Means Committee leaders, Representative Robert A. DeLeo, a Democrat from Winthrop, and Senator Therese Murray, a Democrat from Plymouth, struck the same themes in a joint statement.

Saying that the cuts were made less than halfway into the fiscal year, the two lawmakers described them as "nothing more than an attempt by Mitt Romney to play presidential politics with the lives of Massachusetts residents."

Romney's director of communications brushed aside the Democrats' reaction, saying the lawmakers are responsible for creating a deficit-spending culture on Beacon Hill.

"The reaction from the overspenders in the Legislature is entirely predictable," said Eric Fehrnstrom. "They are the pied pipers of deficits, and they're apparently determined to lead Massachusetts down the road to financial ruin."

Still, the state's leading nonpartisan, fiscal watchdog group criticized Romney's cuts. Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said the governor was reacting prematurely, because the state's fiscal year is only four months old and the economy is generating strong revenues that will cover potential deficits.

"The economy has kicked into high gear, and there is every likelihood that revenue will grow enough so there would be no need to draw on the rainy fund," Widmer said.

He also said that Romney's cuts will force Patrick, seven weeks from taking office, to choose between endorsing the cuts -- which include significant reductions to public higher education, the criminal justice system, social service programs, and public health prevention -- or reversing them when he takes office.

"It unnecessarily puts the governor-elect in a difficult position of either having to endorse the cuts or restore them," Widmer said.

Michael Weekes, president of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, said the $28 million that Romney is withholding was aimed at increasing pay for workers who make $40,000 or less, many making less than $11 an hour and care for frail elders, children, and women at risk of abuse and people with mental and physical disabilities.

"This just another slap in the face of these hard-working humans-services workers who are servicing the most vulnerable residents of the Commonwealth," Weekes said.

Environmental groups said they tallied close to $7 million in cuts to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation which has been unable to keep up with park maintenance.

"Basic maintenance has not been getting done, and this is just going to exacerbate that problem to the frustration of people who use the parks and those in charge of fixing them," said Tom Philbin of the Conservation and Recreation Campaign, which is attempting to improve parks.