Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick used his executive powers this week to cut the state budget by $198 million and asked the Legislature to pass a bill to facilitate another $57 million in additional budget cuts.   Since then, state revenue officials have reported that tax collections over the first half of November surpassed collections over the same period in 2013 by $89 million.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo quickly rejected Patrick’s request to cut local aid by $25.5 million and the rest of his plan (H 4536) is under review in the House Ways and Means Committee.   The gap remaining after Patrick’s unilateral budget cuts is fairly small in proportion to the overall $36.5 billion budget and with more than seven months remaining in the fiscal year, it’s possible that lawmakers will wait until Republican Governor-elect Charlie Baker takes over to determine a course of action.

House leaders have not yet said how they plan to proceed, but the issues are likely to receive some consideration next month at annual hearings held to get a read on projected fiscal 2015 and fiscal 2016 revenue collections.

To hear NEPR’s Susan Kaplan’s conversation with Matt Murphy click on the link above