Governor Patrick has now released his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. Despite media headlines about budget cuts, it is the first $30+ billion budget in the Commonwealth's history!
Local officials might think that higher spending is good news for local communities, because it would help lower property taxes. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Local aid was cut about 7% across the board. Most of the increased spending is going to Medicaid (known in Massachusetts as MassHealth), as an increasing number of residents enroll in the program.
Here's how local aid looks for the moment:
Unrestricted Municipal Aid (UMA), state aid that supplements local governance, was cut 7.23% across the board. At the same time, except for the Haverhill Public School System and Whittier Tech, Chapter 70 aid increased only .54%. (Both the Haverhill schools and Whittier saw substantial Chapter 70 increases.)
With the decrease in UMA and increase in Chapter 70, most communities in the 2nd Essex will see minor (but not unimportant) losses in state aid under the Governor's proposal over the FY-2011 Budget.
The Governor's budget is the first step towards finalizing the budget in June. In the intervening time, both the House and Senate will release their competing proposals -- we'll be sure to blog about new developments.
Cut spending. Stop the madness.
ReplyDeleteIf the Commonwealth is not bringing in more that $30,000,000,000 then why we even discussing a budget of this size? Only a MORON would think that they could spend their way out of debt.
ReplyDeletePlease pass this message on to the Governor because he is not listening to us.