A legislative year that begin with the near-unanimous re-election of a soon-to-be-indicted speaker of the House and ended with state finances still in disarray despite a 25 percent sales-tax hike is an embarrassment.
After all the springtime rhetoric about "reform before revenues," legislators failed to achieve the fundamental changes in personnel practices and policies necessary to achieve significant savings.
Typical of their approach to responsible spending was the vote to cut the state's share of Quinn Bill incentives for local (but not state) police, and leave the cities and towns holding the bag for the balance.
But such is the arrogance of the Democratic majority in the Legislature that a sitting senator has to be caught on camera shoving cash down her sweater before anyone makes the case for her removal.
Thus it should have comes as no surprise that both chambers would adjourn for their holiday recess this week (we should all get so much vacation time) with plenty of unfinished business still on the table. They couldn't even be bothered to do away with the notorious "hack holidays" — Evacuation Day (aka St. Patrick's Day) and Bunker Hill — as recommended by the governor.
So it's even money that state and Suffolk County employees will be enjoying those days off next year while the rest of us — at least those of us still employed — go off to work as usual. And that's just the least of what the Legislature failed to accomplish.
The state budget is still at least $115 million out of balance, despite the sales-tax hike and a brand-new tax on alcoholic beverages, and that number could grow by as much as $575 million, according to the State House News Service.
"I still am looking at that red ink, and I don't get to pretend like it's not there and it doesn't have to be dealt with," Gov. Deval Patrick told reporters this week, in a vain attempt to get legislators to come back into formal session.
The governor also expressed frustration that, while his office and the executive branch have been cut, the Legislature has rejected his call for cuts in legislative, judicial and constitutional officer accounts.
The governor is correct when he says the Legislature is rejecting "shared sacrifice," which is the only thing that is going to get the state through the current fiscal crisis.
That is not all, of course. There's a regional transit system that's on the verge of collapse — literally — according to one expert who's advised against riding the Red Line in some locations. And there's $250 million in federal education assistance now at risk due to the House's failure to act on an education reform bill.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who replaced the disgraced Salvatore DiMasi earlier this year, says the delay had nothing to do with Patrick's grandstanding for the legislation this week at a charter school in the community next door to DeLeo's hometown of Winthrop. And he promises it will be the first item on the agenda when his chamber returns to work in January.
But that's only if teacher union lobbyists aren't able to use the holidays to convince friendly legislators to gut the bill; and DeLeo and company can set some sort of record for speedy deliberation when they return. Applications for the federal aid that will go to those states that demonstrate a genuine commitment to innovative practices, must be received in Washington by mid-January.
So while legislators look forward to a bountiful Thanksgiving and festive December, those who depend on state assistance — cities and towns, the homeless, the mentally ill — will spend the next few weeks wondering where the ax will fall next. Happy holidays indeed.
