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The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker meets with legislative leaders Monday afternoon. It’s their first gathering since Baker announced nearly $50 million in state budget budget cuts late Friday.  We check in now with State House reporter Matt Murphy. He tells New England Public Radio’s Henry Epp that Baker does not need the legislature’s approval to make these emergency budget cuts.

 

Click on the audio link above to hear a conversation between State House News Service reporter Matt Murphy and NEPR’s Henry Epp. 

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

Governors Michael Dukakis and William Weld over nearly five terms in office were unable to advance a project connecting downtown Boston’s two train hubs and closing the broken link in East Coast rail service.  On Wednesday, they plan to meet with Governor Charlie Baker to appeal to him to get the job done.  Rail link supporters promote it as a logical solution to long-term congestion problems and a way to avoid other costly upgrades, like the expansion of South Station.  But the project is in line behind many others, including mega-projects like the Green Line Extension, a commuter rail spur to the South Coast, and needed maintenance upgrades on the MBTA.  And the rail link lives in the haze of the historic Big Dig cost overruns left from the last time the downtown area was dug up to bury the interstate highway.

While they bill themselves as full-time, the House and Senate are in the midst of a weeks-long summer recess and reps and senators are not about to rush back to Beacon Hill the day after Labor Day.  A few committees plan to resume business this week but the House and Senate plan to stick with informal sessions.

Speaker Robert DeLeo plans to be in Springfield on Wednesday and Thursday, though details of his events in the city are still being worked out. Senate President Stanley Rosenberg has events in the Pioneer Valley and in Boston.

To hear Henry Epp’s conversation with State House News Service reporter Matt Murphy, click on the audio player above.

 

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

Governor Charlie Baker, who has placed bills before the Legislature to boost hydropower and solar electricity in Massachusetts, travels to Canada this week to meet with New England governors and Canadian premiers where energy options will be on the agenda.  Legislative leaders this session are giving serious consideration to energy bills, weighing environmental benefits with implications for the economy and consumer costs.

As the governor heads to Newfoundland, Attorney General Maura Healey by Wednesday must rule on which of the many initiative petition proposals that activists hope to place on the 2016 ballot meet eligibility requirements under the state constitution.  Proponents of questions that survive Healey’s review face a long road to the ballot that starts with a major signature gathering hurdle.

Wednesday is also the release date for state government’s annual assessment of the health care system’s performance.  Massachusetts has been ground zero for policy experimentation in the areas of health care access, quality improvements and cost control and the Center for Health Information and Analysis report will shed insight into how the state is doing against some of its benchmarks.

For Henry Epp’s conversation with State House News Service reporter Matt Murphy about the week ahead on Beacon Hill, click the audio player above.

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

To show his willingness not to dig on priorities and to work with the Legislature, Governor Charlie Baker this year has grown fond of saying bills are combo platters. As the calendar is about to open on fiscal 2016 without a state budget in place, Baker is still waiting to be served, and now hoping it will happen by Independence Day. With Senate President Stanley Rosenberg and House Speaker Robert DeLeo at his side, Baker said Monday that he’d asked them if he should make plans for the Fourth of July and said they didn’t offer much of an answer. Neither Rosenberg nor DeLeo, who have clashed intermittently this year, interjected with any assurances that they’re getting close to an agreement. That may reflect continued icy relations, or they may just be holding back until they do strike an agreement. The branches called it quits for the week on Thursday so lawmakers will continue waiting for a budget while Massachusetts residents start to gear up for July 4.

For Henry Epp’s conversation with State House News Service reporter Matt Murphy about the week ahead on Beacon Hill, click the audio player above.

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

Pro-gambling forces for years have argued that Massachusetts is losing out in the casino sweepstakes and forcing its residents to travel outside the state’s borders to place their wagers. On Wednesday, the tide will begin to turn as the first facility to serve gamblers under the state’s 2011 casino law is set to throw open its doors in Plainville, a day after New Bedford voters go to the polls and decide whether that city will compete against Brockton for the last remaining commercial casino license. House Speaker Robert DeLeo’s ascension in 2009 cracked the door wide open for casino proponents and Massachusetts is now about to begin learning about the advantages and disadvantages of expanded gaming. While proponents have touted new jobs and tax revenues, critics of casinos have warned that gambling addiction problems will grow and take their toll on families. Plainridge Park Casino’s opening comes two days after Gov. Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey lay out plans to address another type of addiction – recommendations from an opioid working group are due out on Monday.

The milestone in the state’s casino era headlines the upcoming week, as pressure mounts on a six-member conference committee working on a $38.1 billion budget.  There are just 11 days remaining before the dawn of the fiscal year that they’re budgeting for.  An interim budget is in the works to keep the state’s bills paid while talks continue.  Last year, when Gov. Deval Patrick saw that negotiators might not strike a deal on time, he filed a one-month, $4.6 billion budget on June 23 and lawmakers promptly passed it.  Administration and Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore said Friday the administration likely plans to file a two-week interim budget on Monday and hopes that it will be passed and signed into law by June 29.

An early retirement program sought by Gov. Charlie Baker drew far fewer applicants than expected and Baker this week wouldn’t say whether layoffs are likely, saying only that “we’re in pretty good shape.”  He added, “We still have some work to do to figure out the close of fiscal ’15 and the opening of fiscal ’16 and by the way you know we don’t have a budget yet from the House and Senate.  They’re still in a conference committee so we don’t know exactly what the sort of entirety of this thing is going to look like until they conference that out and send it to us.”  Baker will have ten days to review the budget, expected to authorize about $38.1 billion in spending, before signing it and announcing any amendments and vetoes.

For Henry Epp’s conversation with State House News Service reporter Matt Murphy about the week ahead on Beacon Hill, click the audio player above.

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

During act three of the annual state budget drama, the Massachusetts Senate next week will dispense with 942 amendments to its $38 billion fiscal 2016 budget before handing the bill to a House-Senate conference committee for resolution before the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. Senate budget deliberations in recent years have often required two or three long days of deliberations to complete, with senators holding more debate on amendments than the House while also deploying a process in order to quickly dispense with batches of amendments. While the House consolidates amendments by category, the Senate has favored a process known as “bundling” batches of amendments for bulk approval or rejection.

Like the House budget and the spending plan recommended by Gov. Charlie Baker, the Senate bill looks to hold spending growth to roughly 3 percent, a slowdown from recent rates. In that environment, and with a fiscally conservative governor waiting at the end of the line with a veto pen, amendments adding significant amounts of new spending face an uphill climb next week. The full list of amendments is available on the Legislature’s website and budget sessions are expected to begin at 10 a.m. each day, beginning on Tuesday. Given that half the Legislature will be consumed with the budget, legislative committees have little planned this week.

For Henry Epp’s conversation with Matt Murphy about the week ahead on Beacon Hill, click the audio player above.