Beacon Hill Tackles Tight Budget Year

By Joe Connolly

Beacon Hill leaders addressed the need for local aid, education and health care reforms Thursday as the League of Women Voters laid out its legislative agenda for the coming year.

Every two years, the state's LWV chapters compile a list of issues they want to address, and the league creates an agenda based on the list, said Madhu Sridhar, president of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. Thursday, top state officials - including House Speaker Thomas Finneran (D-Boston)
and Gov. Mitt Romney - responded to the agenda in front of hundreds of LWV members.

The agenda this year focuses on protecting less-powerful citizens of Massachusetts by opposing cuts to
local aid, higher education and health care.

Sridhar said Romney's platform of reform will not save enough money to pay for essential services without raising taxes - which the governor has refused to do.

"We welcome efforts to make state government more efficient and less costly, but we think that tax
 increases are necessary," Sridhar said.

Finneran acknowledged the need for local aid but said balancing the budget after four years of hard
economic times is difficult.

"After one or two years of a fiscal crisis, there are lots of measures that can be taken," Finneran said.
"But in this, our fourth year, it is incredibly difficult. The current situation forces us to cannibalize on other programs."

Sen. Therese Murray (D-Plymouth), a member of the LWV, said increased security needs also put
pressure on the state budget.

"In the wake of September 11th, the federal government has not given us money to take security measures
that they require us to take," Murray said.

Finneran also said Romney's unwillingness to raise taxes has forced cuts to local aid.

On educational matters, the LWV called for school funding to be distributed equitably across districts, citing gross inequalities that league officials said have plagued the commonwealth in the past.

Romney voiced his support for the LWV and announced the findings of one of his task forces, which recently proposed 10 steps to reform education in the state. While the governor did not disclose the details of the
task force's recommendations, he did say teachers' unions will have to make some concessions.

As part of the reforms, Romney suggested modeling all public schools after state charter schools and giving principals more power.

"We need to insist that kids come first," Romney said.

Health care was also a top issue. Finneran echoed the LWV's agenda, calling for reasonably priced health care for all.

"As I see it, we have a stool with two out of three legs attached," Finneran said. "One, we provide excellent health care. Two, it's on time. But the missing leg is affordability."

Finneran said health care systems in Germany, Canada and Britain, where each citizen has affordable
access to care, are inefficient because they lack quality and timeliness.

"No system approaches ours in terms of excellence," he said.

But LWV health care specialist Judy Deutsch was near tears when she asked Finneran why Massachusetts citizens pay more for health care than citizens of Germany, Canada or Britain.

"I've heard the claims made, and I don't buy them," Finneran said.

The mission of the LWV remains the same, Sridhar said.

"These are challenging times," she said. "But we still need to take care of our vulnerable citizens."