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Patrick budget boosts local aid
(Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, MA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 27--BOSTON -- Gov. Deval Patrick spent months touring Massachusetts, promising reform and a new way of governing on Beacon Hill.
Tonight, more than at any time since he took the oath of office on Jan. 4, that task begins. In a televised address at 7 p.m. from the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building in Melrose, he will give a preview of his first state budget.
It is expected to total about $26 billion, a 4 percent increase over the budget approved by the Legislature last year.
The actual budget -- including detailed local aid figures for cities and towns -- will be filed tomorrow.
"The governor has pledged to serve the whole state, not just the neighborhood around Beacon Hill," said his spokesman, Kyle Sullivan.
The Patrick administration is already announcing some highlights: a 5 percent increase in local aid, including a $200 million boost in the largest category of school aid; $13 million to bring full-day kindergarten to about half of the classrooms in the state that still have half-day sessions; a $15 million increase in Lottery aid to cities and towns; and a $77 million boost in school building assistance.
Patrick also will propose expanding public health programs by 15 percent, or more than $72 million. The budget boosts anti-tobacco programs by $12 million. It also would make every Massachusetts girl between the ages of 9 and 18 eligible to receive a free vaccine against the human papilloma virus that causes cervical cancer.
Immunization programs for children would rise $24.8 million to cover the cost of new vaccines.
Disease prevention programs, covering such areas as prostate cancer, Hepatitis C and suicide prevention, would grow by $21.6 million, and early intervention for children with developmental problems would rise $3.8 million.
Then there are the low-lights.
Leslie Kirwan, Patrick's secretary of administration and finance, said the budget would have across-the-board cuts in a number of departments.
The administration said it faced a $1.3 billion shortfall in revenue to maintain current programs unless it cut spending or found new sources of money.
"We tried to spread this pretty fairly," Kirwan said in a pre-budget briefing.
The budget will not propose any new taxes or broad-based fees, but Patrick is counting on the Legislature to approve his plan to raise $295 million by closing what he calls corporate tax loopholes.
Businesses call it a tax hike and it already is meeting some resistance in the Legislature.
One change would prevent multi-state corporations from shifting Massachusetts profits to their subsidiaries in other states to avoid paying taxes here.
Patrick is counting on the corporate tax revenue to pay for his plan to offer tax credits of up to $870 a year to 100,000 low- and moderate-income homeowners.
His proposal to allow cities and towns to impose additional taxes on meals already is facing opposition from leaders in the House.
Rep. Jeffrey Davis Perry, R-Sandwich, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee but is one of only a handful of Republicans in the Legislature, said he was disappointed the Democratic governor was looking to raise taxes on businesses without offering a more significant spending increase in areas like education, community policing and property tax reduction.
"I am disappointed that he appears to be heading down the road of increasing taxes on business," Perry said.
"He's taxing everything and everyone and there's no substantive improvement in education funding, police officers on the street or property tax reductions." The House side of the Legislature will hold its first hearing on Patrick's budget proposal Thursday morning at the Statehouse.
To see more of the Cape Cod Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes.
Copyright (c) 2007, Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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