Mass. governor to review new budget

The Conference Report also includes language preventing the use of state funds or tax expenditures for the 2024 Olympics, the creation of a finance control board and a 3-year suspension for the MBTA of the statute that governs the privatization of the functions of state entities, an increase to 23 percent for the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit effective January 1, 2016 and no changes to the income tax. Top legislators insist a budget deal is close and no one on Beacon Hill has used words like “impasse” or “breakdown” to describe negotiations.

“The 2008 Combined Reporting tax law brought income from companies’ operations in other states into a unitary or “combined” Massachusetts return”, AIM reported. The Senate had initially envisioned that an increase in the earned income tax credit could be funded by a freeze on the income tax, which is expected to ratchet down to 5 percent in future years because of economic triggers. The budget would also suspend the Pacheco Law, which limits the T’s ability to contract out some services to private vendors, for three years.

The bills called for overall state spending to grow by a lower rate in fiscal 2016, about 3 percent.

“We should all remember that we started with a $1.8 billion structural deficit when we began this activity back in March”, Baker said.

Auditor Suzanne Bump, a ex- Labor and Workforce Development Secretary and now the state’s top government spending efficiency cop, also wants to keep the Pacheco law and rejects Pioneer’s position.

The bill emerged from secret talks a week into fiscal 2016, and Baker will have 10 days to review it before signing it and announcing amendments and vetoes. Both Baker and Rosenberg have pushed for the credit’s expansion. The speaker said no, he doesn’t want to get rid of the film tax credit.

In the report, former Inspector General Greg Sullivan finds that the state’s rules to vet the oversee privatization efforts – known as the Pacheco law – has cost the T at least 450 million dollars since 1997 by keeping bus services in-house.

House negotiators did not go along with a Senate plan to increase the tax exemption for all taxpayers regardless of income by $400 to $4,800 for single individuals and by $800 to $9,600 for married couples. We saw what happened past year.

The lurch towards a more conservative approach to spending comes just months after Baker and the Legislature were forced to reopen the fiscal 2015 budget, passed during an election year and Gov. Deval Patrick’s final year in office, to make major spending reductions. “We have protected riders from excessive fare increases and kept our commitment to financial investments in the T”, said Sen.