The Patrick-Murray Administration’s capital investment program continues to be guided by three key principles: (1) affordability, (2) strategic prioritization of capital investments, and (3) transparency. The Commonwealth faces a backlog of needed capital projects; at the same time, it faces the constraints of an extraordinarily challenging economic climate and a high debt burden. In light of this challenge, it is more critical than ever that the Commonwealth take a disciplined approach to capital budgeting that is guided by the three principles stated above.
The Patrick-Murray Administration is the first Administration to develop a debt affordability analysis and policy to ensure that the amount of debt issued to fund the capital investment program is kept to affordable levels. The debt affordability analysis is formally updated each year. With respect to strategic prioritization of capital investments, the Patrick-Murray Administration is the first to engage in a thorough process of reviewing and prioritizing capital investment needs and developing a comprehensive five-year capital investment plan within the fiscal constraints prescribed by the debt affordability analysis and policy. Finally, with respect to transparency, the Administration publishes its debt affordability analysis and its five-year capital investment plan (www.mass.gov/eoaf) in order to enhance public understanding of the Commonwealth’s capital investment program and thereby improve public discourse and accountability with respect to the capital budget. This report is the Administration’s third publication of the debt affordability analysis and five-year capital investment plan.
This debt affordability analysis addresses the first of the key principles guiding the Administration’s approach to capital budgeting – affordability. The debt affordability analysis detailed below is an update to the analysis published in December 2008. The Administration will continue to update this analysis on an annual basis to inform its annual capital budgeting process.
In setting the annual administrative bond cap, the Administration has established a policy which sets a cap that will ensure debt service does not exceed 8% of annual budgeted revenues. By keeping total annual debt service within this limit, the Administration will be able to maximize needed capital investments while ensuring that debt service levels remain affordable.
For purposes of constraining growth in debt, the Administration has placed another restriction on its debt capacity model: growth in the annual bond cap for the regular capital program is limited to not more than $125 million each year (excluding carry forwards of unused bond cap from prior years). This limit will apply even if in some years the actual revenue growth projection provides capacity to issue a greater amount of debt. This additional constraint ensures stable and manageable growth and avoids taking on an unaffordable long-term debt burden on the basis of unusually robust short-term revenue growth.
After the completion and publication of last year’s updated analysis in December 2008, state tax revenues continued to decline at an historic rate due to the economic downturn. Fiscal year 2009 state tax revenues were ultimately $2.6 billion less than the original fiscal year consensus revenue forecast. While certain economic indicators suggest that the economy may be stabilizing, it is still unclear when growth in state tax revenues will occur and at what rate.
It is important that this debt affordability analysis take into account the impacts of the current challenging fiscal environment. It is also important, however, that the debt affordability analysis continue to be based in part on longer-term, historic trends rather than simply being reactive to current economic conditions. Trends reflecting experience over time are particularly relevant in the context of evaluating the affordability of long-term debt issued to fund investments in long-lived capital assets pursuant to a multi-year capital investment plan.
This debt affordability analysis is consistent with the basic analytical approach presented in the debt affordability analyses published previously. All of the underlying assumptions have been reviewed and, where appropriate, updated to reflect new information and revised outlooks.
Based on the debt affordability analysis and policy described in more detail below, the Administration has set the annual borrowing limit - or “administrative bond cap” – to fund the Commonwealth’s regular capital budget for fiscal year 2010 at $1.5 billion (plus $150 million of the fiscal year 2009 administrative bond cap that was not used and that will carry forward into fiscal year 2010). This represents a $226.1 million decrease in the fiscal year 2010 bond cap projected in the previously published December 2008 five-year capital investment plan. When compared to the first five-year capital investment plan published by the Patrick-Murray Administration in July 2007, this updated debt affordability analysis results in a reduction of $1.1 billion of planned borrowing through fiscal year 2014, reflecting the changed economic conditions. (See Table 8.) As this analysis demonstrates, the planned bond cap levels for fiscal years 2010 through 2014, together with the continuation of the planned borrowings for the accelerated structurally deficient bridge program, represent an affordable level of new debt that will allow the Commonwealth to responsibly invest in the general capital infrastructure needs of the state.