Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick unveiled his budget plan today  for the upcoming fiscal year. Speaking at the state house, Patrick said the state’s ecomomic picture is improving, but government spending will never go back to pre-recession levels.

"Revenue has continued slowly to recover as more people have been getting back to work, which is great news on many, many levels.  But we still have unprecedented needs to meet in health care, emergency housing, and other essential services because of the numbers of people whose lives have been turned upside down by the  global economic collapse.”

In all, Patrick’s budget proposal calls for $32.3 billion in spending.  That’s a 3% increase over last year. 

The plan would boost state aid to local schools by $145 million, or 3.6%.  Patrick also wants to give an additional $10 million dollars to community colleges, and another $10 million towards efforts to close the educational achievement gap between poor students of color and their wealthier white peers.

 "Because education is our calling card around the world and central to our competitiveness in the future, we owe it to ourselves to do everything we can to support the schools."

The spending plan also makes some cuts. It would lay off about 300 government workers, It would cut funding for 240,000 subsidized lunches for senior citizens, and it would reduce funding for child care vouchers for low income families.  

Patrick also called for eliminating a sales tax exemption on candy and soda, increasing taxes on cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco, and expanding the bottle bill.  He says there's public support for these proposals.

"All together, these new revenues amount to less than 1% of the budget.  They are not new. They are still sensible, still widely supported in the general public, in most cases, and still necessary.”

But Beacon Hill lawmakers in the past have rejected similar tax proposals from the governor, and Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation questioned whether they would accept them this time around: 

"Those tax proposals I think are reasonable but nonetheless this is an election year so there’s an open question on whether or not the legislature will approve them.  So this puts the pressure on the legislature because if you don’t achieve the new revenues then you have to cut more deeply than the governor has in this budget."

The budget submission is only the first step in a lengthy process leading to final approval of the spending plan for the next fiscal year. Both the House and Senate will pass their versions of the spending plan, then must resolve differences before sending a final budget to the governor for his signature or veto.