November 22, 2001
Dear Colleagues: I spent most of yesterday at the State House, along with MTA staff and lobbyists, monitoring the legislative action on the budget and our contract funding. Here is the latest information we have on these issues.
FY'02 State Budget The House-Senate conference committee released its version of the FY'02 budget at midnight Tuesday night. It was adopted Wednesday evening and will be sent to the governor for her action. Both houses voted to return for a formal session on December 5th to consider override votes of vetoes the governor may make.
The highlights (or lowlights) of the adopted budget include:
1) No freezing of Question 4 (the tax cut) or consideration of it on December 5th. 2) $50 million in cuts to higher education accounts (see attached chart - Webmaster's note: this is an Excel chart; you will need Microsoft Excel loaded on your computer and use Internet Explorer as your browser to view this chart). The state colleges' operating budgets were reduced an average of 2.1% when compared to last year's appropriations. Library / Reference Materials were reduced to $5 million, compared to last year's funding of $14 million. The General Scholarship account was cut by $8-9 million. 3) 85% /15% for state employee health insurance premiums was preserved.
1) No freezing of Question 4 (the tax cut) or consideration of it on December 5th. 2) $50 million in cuts to higher education accounts (see attached chart - Webmaster's note: this is an Excel chart; you will need Microsoft Excel loaded on your computer and use Internet Explorer as your browser to view this chart). The state colleges' operating budgets were reduced an average of 2.1% when compared to last year's appropriations. Library / Reference Materials were reduced to $5 million, compared to last year's funding of $14 million. The General Scholarship account was cut by $8-9 million.
3) 85% /15% for state employee health insurance premiums was preserved.
Contract Funding MTA Executive Director Ed Sullivan and representatives of approximately 30 other state employee unions met early Wednesday afternoon with Gov. Swift. She said she supported funding all the state employee contracts during this session as well as an Early Retirement Incentive Proposal for state employees. She promised to sign all funded contracts when she received them.
Immediately afterwards, MTA initiated for the group of labor leaders a meeting with Speaker Finneran. The Speaker made a public commitment to fund the MSCA contract, along with the other state employee contracts filed earlier this year, in a supplemental budget no later than December 5th. He also made a public commitment that, should the governor veto the 85/15 health insurance premiums, that would be the first veto to be considered by the House for override on December 5th.
The membership needs to know how effective the postcard/email/phone call/visit campaign was in getting these commitments. Every member who supported the MSCA legislative strategy is to be commended for that support. You made the difference in getting the Legislature, particularly the House, to act.
Early Retirement Incentive Program The governor has submitted an Early Retirement Incentive Program for state employees that would cover higher education employees. The incentive is the "five years" age and/or service, similar to earlier programs. All chapter presidents have copies of the proposed legislation, which was not acted upon by the Legislature yesterday but could be considered this year.
Board of Higher Education A "special" BHE meeting has been called for Tuesday, November 27th, in the City of Worcester, presumably for the purpose of dealing with the higher education budget cuts. I will represent the MSCA at this meeting and report to you on it.
Pat Markunas MSCA President
MSCA Home/Messages to the Membership 11/23/01