BOSTON — Lawrence resident Bill Collins likes to keep an eye on Massachusetts lawmakers as they find ways to spend his money.

So Collins is disappointed the House budget debate that used to be on television can only be found on the Internet.

"With the Lawrence City Council, every word uttered is broadcast live on local access Channel 22," Collins said. "On Beacon Hill, with hundreds of millions of dollars, it's done in the dark of night."

Actually, it's billions of dollars.

House lawmakers put together a $28 billion state budget largely out of public view. Much of the deliberations over spending occurred in backrooms, and debates that were once televised were moved to the Internet.

Democrats, who control the Legislature, defend the process, but critics contend there is too much secrecy surrounding the most important piece of legislation the House passes each year.

Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause, which champions government openness, said the House process is blatantly undemocratic.

"It's a shockingly private process to the most important piece of legislation that will be considered this year," Wilmot said. "The state budget allocates the state's resources, the public's resources. It's absolutely essential it be transparent from soup to nuts."

Secret Room 348

One issue for Wilmot and others is the decision to move most of the budget debate off the House floor and into a backroom off-limits to the public and media.

Lawmakers meet in Room 348, a small room off the House chamber, in an area cordoned off by blue ropes that are meant to keep lobbyists apart from lawmakers but that also serve to prevent the public and media from watching.

There, House members argue over what ends up in consolidated amendments — the vehicles for bundling dozens of the 1,512 spending proposals put forth by individual lawmakers. The consolidated amendments are worth millions of dollars each and are lumped together based on subject, such as health care or safety.

On the House floor, lawmakers vote on the entire amendment, not on each spending item it contains.

Lawmakers speak for and against the amendments, starting in the late afternoon and running late into the night, as Republicans and Democrats pause for lunch and dinner — paid for by campaign contributions — during sessions running sometimes past 10 p.m.

Those sessions are held in public. But for all the talk of open debate, the outcome is preordained. Consolidated amendments are rarely altered on the floor and, unlike other bills brought before the House, always pass.

Rep. David Flynn, a Bridgewater Democrat and the House's longest-serving member, was apparently referring to that fact when he urged colleagues on Friday to "stop talking about spending items that can't lose" so they could wrap up their business by a reasonable hour.

Republican Leader Bradley Jones Jr., said the public wrangling is a poor substitute for debate, with little real back and forth because most of the issues up for grabs have been decided in the backroom. What's done in public is largely posturing.

"This isn't a debate," Jones said. "This is 10 people standing up and extolling their virtues."

'Members Only'

Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, said Room 348 should be open to the media.

"It's $28 billion of our money they're spending," Anderson said. "Why should there be anything secret?"

Rep. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, said no debate is happening in Room 348 that doesn't also happen on the House floor.

"We're not trying to keep anything from anyone," Finegold said.

Lawmakers say there is a lengthy public hearing process before they pass the budget and note the amendments are posted online for the public to see.

Rep. Barbara L'Italien, D-Andover, said that after extensive public input, the Legislature should have the opportunity to caucus privately.

L'Italien said it's the "prerogative of the Legislature to have more internal discussions."

James Eisenberg, a top aide to budget chief Rep. Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, said people mistakenly think there was a time when lawmakers delivered "grand soliloquies" as they engaged in vigorous public debate on critical spending initiatives.

In fact, before rule changes nearly a decade ago, amendments often were dealt with one at a time and rejected quickly without debate, he said.

"I understand the image of the door where it says, 'Members Only,'" Eisenberg said. "It conjures up images of decisions made behind closed doors."

Eisenberg said fighting it out in Room 348 gives elected officials a stronger voice.

"I feel it increases the debate," Eisenberg said.

Moreover, the backroom meetings impose order on an unruly process, Finegold said.

When he first arrived on Beacon Hill in the late 1990s, he said, the House was criticized for all-night sessions during which spending was approved literally in the dead of night, with even some lawmakers dozing off.

"I think that was a problem when I first started," said Finegold, a member of the House Budget Committee. "We had overnight sessions going until 2, 3 in the morning. It was very chaotic."

But Wilmot said creating a more orderly process for lawmakers is no excuse for doing much of the public's business in private.

"Democracy is messy and inefficient," Wilmot said.

No more TV

Further troubling to some observers is the disappearance of House television coverage.

David Guarino, a spokesman for Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, said the House faced a $500,000 increase in the cost of televising all House sessions and saved "hundreds of thousands of dollars" by streaming debate over the Web. Beyond saving money, Guarino said, Internet broadcasts give taxpayers a "front-row seat" to many important debates.

But some local residents, Republican and Democrat, lament the absence of televised debates.

Collins said it's more difficult to watch the House debate over the Internet.

"They think that people are sitting by their computer," Collins said. "But many people are not going to sit down and watch the Statehouse on computer."

What House debate that does occur in public can only be seen in person in the House chamber or over the Internet. And those watching from the gallery aren't allowed to take photos. An Eagle-Tribune photographer was asked to leave seating reserved for the media after violating a House rule banning photography inside the chamber when lawmakers are working.

To some, the House process is emblematic of a larger climate of secrecy on Beacon Hill.

The Legislature exempted itself from laws requiring city and towns boards to open their meetings to the public.

Anderson and Wilmot believe the state Open Meeting Law should apply to the Legislature, too.

Some House lawmakers contend the process is gradually opening up. They point to a daylong debate last Monday over budget amendments that would bring in new revenue.

Rep. Harriett Stanley, D-West Newbury, said in her first seven years on Beacon Hill, the budget process was very transparent. The next seven, it was increasingly closed. But she feels as new members enter the House, the chamber is gradually returning to openness.

"The pendulum is beginning to swing again," Stanley said.