With Massachusetts looking at an annual budget deficit as large as $1 billion, Legislators and state officials are looking for new sources of revenue. Students investigated six of Beacon Hill’s budget “solutions” to see what they would bring to the state, and whether they could help solve the budget crisis.
MassDOT: does consolidation save?
BY SOPAN DEB FOR THE BU STATE HOUSE PROGRAM
BOSTON – Last June, Gov. Deval Patrick triumphantly announced the bill he had just signed would deliver “real cost savings” and “radically” reduce the state’s transportation bureaucracy. That bill created MassDOT – an ambitious merging of the state’s transportation agencies, authorities and offices into one superagency.
Legislative leaders joined the bandwagon, claiming the merging of the Registry of Motor Vehicles, the Highway Division, MBTA and Aeronautics Division, along with abolishing the Turnpike Authority, would make transportation more efficient and less costly.
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State criticized on stimulus spending
BY SARA BROWN AND SARAH THOMAS FOR THE BU STATE HOUSE PROGRAM
BOSTON – In February, the federal government outlined hopes for the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) package: Jobs, economic growth, infrastructure improvements – all under the open public gaze of transparency and accountability.
Massachusetts’ officials had their own hopes for the estimated $12 billion the state was to receive. They spoke of “shovel-ready” projects that could start immediately and infuse the economy with money and jobs, countering an unemployment rate that had risen past 7.8 percent in February and continued to climb with 230,000 Massachusetts residents receiving unemployment benefits.
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Could biotech save the state?
BY GREG KWASNIK, JEN JUDSON AND ANTOINETTE PIZZI FOR THE BU STATE HOUSE PROGRAM
BOSTON – In 2008, the Massachusetts Legislature approved the Life Sciences Act, a 10-year, $1 billion initiative that promised to bring biotechnology companies and jobs to the state, building on an industry already at the nucleus of the state’s high-tech economy.
Facing competition from California, Pennsylvania and other states, the Legislature designed the act to make Massachusetts more attractive to companies and investors through tax incentives, loans and grants.
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State working out bugs in renewable energy leadership
BY JEN JUDSON, GREG KWASNIK AND ANTOINETTE PIZZI FOR THE BU STATE HOUSE PROGRAM
BOSTON — In the darkening recession, Gov. Deval Patrick and the Legislature have dialed back funding for education, social services and local aid. But energy efficiency and renewable energy development – promised as a salvation for economic growth – have been spared.
“We are in very difficult times, as you know, but we cannot afford to slow down or think small, especially in the clean energy field,” Patrick told a conference of 400 energy entrepreneurs and investors in Boston earlier this month.
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Consolidation efforts slow to take root in Massachusetts
BY MATTHEW KAPLAN FOR THE BU STATE HOUSE PROGRAM
BOSTON – The idea of Hamilton and Wenham combining services was nothing new. After all, the two towns have shared a school district, an emergency dispatch center, library and facilities manager since the 1960s.
But in 2004, town officials had another idea: Why not consolidate the towns? It might save more money and make services more efficient.
The answer, according to a state Department of Revenue study done at the towns’ request, was that the towns could save around $750,000 a year out of combined budgets of $42.2 million.
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