Negotiators Agree To $34B State Budget
Agreeing to significantly higher spending on the state's university system and new efforts to tamp down welfare fraud while discarding an expansion of the bottle deposit law, the group of lawmakers negotiating the annual state budget filed their $34 billion proposal on the eve of the new fiscal year, along with an accord on a mid-year spending bill.
The House and Senate are scheduled to take up the two conference committee reports during sessions on Monday afternoon. If the two budget bills are approved as expected, Gov. Deval Patrick will have 10 days to consider the proposal and announce any amendments or vetoes before he signs it.
A roughly $4.1 billion interim budget is in place to cover state spending during July while final details of the annual spending plan are worked out between Patrick and the Democrat-controlled House and Senate.
The budget was submitted around 8 p.m. Sunday, when the State House was mostly empty. Lawmakers missed the 8 p.m. Friday deadline, when both branches met in informal sessions, meaning the House and Senate will have to suspend their rules with a two-thirds vote to take the legislation up in formal sessions scheduled for Monday, according to the House clerk.
The $34 billion budget, up from the $32.5 billion fiscal 2013 budget, depends on new revenue from a gas tax hike, an application of the sales tax to certain computer software services and increased tobacco taxes, which are part of a separate piece of legislation Patrick has said he will amend to ensure the revenue in it would eventually add up to $800 million.
The final budget also draws $350 million out of the state's rainy day fund, according to an aide.
The final budget includes $478.9 million for the University of Massachusetts, a proposed spending level that both the House and Patrick had included in their budgets, which will allow the university to prevent fee and tuition increases.
Language the Senate had included that expanded the state's 5-cent bottle deposit law to cover sports drinks, water and coffee was scrapped from the final version submitted by the conference committee.
The final budget retained language creating the Bureau of Program Integrity within the Department of Transitional Assistance, an oversight office that would be appointed by the inspector general and was included in the House version of the budget.
A House proposal to require photo identification on electronic benefit transfer cards used to distribute welfare was included in the mid-year spending bill for the current fiscal year. That mid-year spending bill also included $56 million to cover winter snow and ice removal, $18.2 million for the Committee for Public Counsel Services and $100,000 in line-of-duty death benefits for the family of Sean Collier, who authorities say was killed by the two brothers suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing.
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