Rep. Hynes State House Report May, 2004 The Massachusetts House of Representatives has completed its primary task on the new year's budget. With a unanimous vote, after four days of 12 hour debate, the House sent the $23 billion, no new tax budget to the State Senate for its consideration. This budget, although operationally balanced for the next fiscal year, relies heavily on one time revenue sources and remains structurally unbalanced, i.e. expected growth in revenues are insufficient to meet expense increases in the following year. Despite this, the FY' 05 budget generally gets good marks for staunching the steep losses of the last several years, balancing competing demands in a responsible manner, and prudently planning for today's and tomorrow's needs. A few highlights: Local Aid and Education: The Commonwealth's principal revenue sharing accounts to its cities and towns were level funded, thus Scituate and Marshfield will receive no less state assistance in FY' 05 than they are currently receiving in this year. This level funding also applies to the Community Partnership Program, which provides accredited educational and care services to preschool children. Consistent with its concern for these children the House approved a plan to establish a new Department of Early Education and Care which seeks to move toward organizing and administering universal access to high quality early education and care for all young children over the next decade. Educational research compellingly concludes that early exposure to formal, quality educational programs at age three and four is a determinant in school success and in life long reading. The House, as well, increased funding for special education by $80 million, or 66%, dedicating this new revenue to assist local school districts for high cost special education students, regardless of their type of placement. In other House budget actions, the Prescription Advantage Program for Seniors was funded and an open enrollment period announced. The Marshfield based Talking Information Center, pursuant to an amendment offered by me, was restored to its full funding and should, thus, receive adequate state financing next year to carry on the statewide radio reading services provided to the blind. The Senate, this week, concluded its action on next year's budget and for the earliest time in over 20 years a Conference Committee began working on the different budget documents, seeking to reconcile the differences and present its recommendations to the Legislature by mid-June, with an expected delivery to the Governor well before the July 1 deadline. Chapter 40B: The long awaited debate on affordable housing, the 35 year old law, known as 40B, concluded in the House without any radical makeover. The law continues to allow developers to seek comprehensive permits in local communities, overriding local density and other land use bylaws, in the quest to develop affordable housing, defined as 25% of a development set aside for households making less than 80% of median income. I have for some time believed that 40B neither achieves successful affordable housing goals nor allows local communities to establish land use regulations consistent with local conditions and character. Thus, I was disappointed with the relatively modest changes in the new bill. An inclusionary zoning proposal I made was resoundingly defeated. Nevertheless, there are improvements in the bill: (1) homeownership units are to be double counted, retroactively and going forward. (2) the number of Ch 40B applications in a municipality are henceforth limited - a community may deny any application after approving 3 applications of 20 or more units each during a 12 month period. (3) municipalities, with an approved housing plan, may deny a comprehensive permit if it has made recent progress on affordable housing, defined as ½ of 1 percent increase in total year round housing stock. Two amendments I offered were successful. One would allow, under certain conditions, local towns to substitute zoning boards of appeals with planning boards as the local entity reviewing comprehensives permits; the other would require a subsidizing agency to consider a local community's concerns about water quality and supply before issuing approval for a project. The bill now heads to the State Senate for its consideration. School Building Assistance: The House took action to solve the financial problems associated with its school construction program. For over 55 years the state has partnered with local school districts in constructing new public schools. The state's role is to approve a local construction project plan and to pay a percentage of the principal and interest incurred by the local community: in Scituate 64%, in Marshfield 68%. The program came to a grinding halt two years ago due to the national recession. New funds were unavailable to support approved projects. Scituate's new Jenkins School and the renovated High School, approved in 1999, were at risk of not receiving their scheduled funding for several more years. The Governor, Legislature, and Treasurer, Tim Cahill, developed plans to deal with this fiscal uncertainty. Last week the House substantially adopted the Treasurer's proposal modeled, in part, on a plan I have offered for several years. This requires both a 25 year borrowing and annual appropriations, not to exceed 20% of the state sales tax revenues. The 700 plus school projects presently receiving reimbursement have their state funds secured and the 420 projects =lefting first year funding will be satisfied within the next here and one half years. Scituate will begin its scheduled reimbursement for both Jenkins and the High School with the new Fiscal Year, 2005. Reflection: "There is little pleasure in the world that is true and sincere beside the pleasure of doing our duty and doing good." ……John Tillotson |