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<p>The Commonwealth of Massachusetts faces its deepest fiscal crisis
since the Great Depression of the 1930s. With this crisis, we also have a tremendous
opportunity
to permanently change the way state government operates and reform the current
wasteful and inefficient system. We must seize this moment.</p>
<h5>Fiscal integrity
with no new taxes</h5>
<p>In the face of a $3 billion budget deficit despite last year’s
billion-dollar
tax increase, the Romney budget is balanced:</p>
<ul>
<li>without new taxes</li>
<li>without tapping dwindling reserves</li>
<li>without borrowing against the future</li>
<li>without the use of fiscal gimmicks,
such as slowing the pace of pension recapitalization or securitizing tobacco
payments.</li>
</ul>
<p>Governor Romney’s $22.86 billion budget will boost spending by less than 1 percent over projected 2003 levels, the smallest increase proposed by any Governor since 1992. </p>
<p align="center"><b>State Spending</b><br>
<img src="/bb/fy2004h1/images/chart001.gif" alt="state spending"></p>
<h5>Revitalize public service</h5>
<p>Many aspects of public service in Massachusetts have
not kept pace with the changes in our economy. We need to adopt common sense
employment practices
in order to
achieve true reform in state government.</p>
<p> For example, our pension system,
which is modeled after 1950-style corporate America, demands updating. Civil
service,
a 19th century hiring system, must be replaced with a more modern and professionalized
human resources system. Managers who are unionized are caught in a perpetual
conflict of interest with the union employees they are asked to supervise.
Ironclad seniority means that performance plays a reduced role in career
advancement. And our dynamic private sector is virtually prohibited from
delivering services
even when they could provide better quality at a lower cost.</p>
<p>State government’s
outdated system prevents the Commonwealth’s
talented workforce from reaching its full potential. The Romney budget:</p>
<ul>
<li>eliminates
civil service</li>
<li>removes supervisors from union membership and reclaims basic management
rights</li>
<li>reforms restrictions on private sector outsourcing.</li>
</ul>
<h5>Customer comes first</h5>
<p>Our dynamic private sector illustrates the value of customer
focus and government should follow their lead. A rigid approach is too often
unresponsive to taxpayer
needs. A confusing maze of agencies and forgettable acronyms cannot provide
the best access. Duplication in services only wastes valuable resources.</p>
<h6>Regional
customization</h6>
<p>Although we are a small state geographically, we enjoy a rich
diversity from the urban bustle of Boston to the pristine Berkshires, from
the Cape and
Islands to the high-tech corridor between Routes 128 and 495.</p>
<p>The Romney budget
reflects the unique regional character of our Commonwealth by defining seven
different geographic regions to:</p>
<ul>
<li>transform individual higher education campuses into a
new seven-region system</li>
<li>customize economic development for regional differences
</li>
<li>shift health and human service delivery to a new regional model.</li>
</ul>
<h6>One-stop
service delivery</h6>
<p>The Internet introduced us to the “portal” concept:
a single place to access information, conduct transactions and check on past
actions. Information
technology, along with substantial changes to “brick and mortar” offices,
can make this an exciting reality for state government.</p>
<p>The Romney budget
embraces this one-stop concept by:</p>
<ul>
<li>integrating health and human service delivery
into a single access point, supported by both new back office technology
and the consolidation of physical
locations</li>
<li>increasing reliance on the Web for timely access to important information</li>
<li>accelerating
development of Web-based transactions to further boost customer convenience
and cut administrative costs.</li>
</ul>
<h5>Cut costs, improve quality</h5>
<p>America’s success is testimony to the reality
that, in a free economy, continuous quality improvement leads to lower costs.
We see this trend clearly
in our home computers, clothing, food and motor vehicles. It has helped
make us the envy of the entire world.</p>
<p>The method of achieving this miracle,
however, is not often discussed outside the business community. The private
sector revolves around continuous improvement
and reform, which often means frequent reorganization and new ways of doing
things. Everyone who has worked in the private sector expects change. But
in government,
the expectation is that things will remain the same.</p>
<p>The Romney budget proposes
more change to our state government than the Legislature has enacted in the
previous 50 years. We are truly operating
in the 21st
century with a 19th century bureaucracy.</p>
<p>Instead of isolated agencies each
with its own overhead structure, the Romney budget streamlines shared functions
like:</p>
<ul>
<li>legal services</li>
<li>public relations</li>
<li>human resources</li>
<li>information technology</li>
<li>legislative affairs.</li>
</ul>
<p>Related government programs have been combined to provide
better services:</p>
<ul>
<li>health and human services – almost half of total spending – will
be restructured to reduce administrative costs while funding
more direct care</li>
<li>public higher education, which is now a loose collection of independent
campuses, will be reconfigured into a new regional system without
compromising the mission
of providing affordable access to higher education</li>
<li>administration
of the courts will be significantly streamlined to take out the waste,
patronage and duplication that has hampered the judicial
system</li>
<li>the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Highway Department will be merged
under common management</li>
<li>independent registries of deeds will
be coordinated through a common technology infrastructure.</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition, public
policy will be better coordinated through a reorganization of the Executive
Branch, including the following new secretariats:</p>
<ul>
<li>Education, covering both K-12
and higher education</li>
<li>Commonwealth Development, covering transportation, housing
and the environment</li>
<li>Economic Affairs, covering regional business development,
labor, consumer, business, and technology issues.</li>
</ul>
<p>This budget proposal and accompanying
legislation accomplishes many of these reforms. Others will be achieved through
proposals to be
filed this Spring:</p>
<ul>
<li>Pension Reform</li>
<li>Public Construction Reform</li>
<li>Article 87 Executive Branch Reorganization.</li>
</ul>
<h5>Simple, flexible and user-friendly</h5>
<p>Past budgets have been overwhelming in their
complexity … for a reason.
Complexity is the friend of special interests. An isolated
line item appropriation is easily defended. A segregated fund is easily protected.
Old-style budgets – filled
with thousands of line items, funds, earmarks and obscure legal
references – can
be passed with few citizens understanding what their government
is actually doing.</p>
<p>The taxpayers who fund this budget deserve much greater transparency.
Budgets should be easy to understand. The structure should
be simple. Managers
should have the ability to make decisions in their respective
areas of expertise
without undue legislative micro-management. The average citizen
should be able to quickly
find out how tax dollars are being spent.</p>
<p>The Romney budget
fundamentally alters the framework of the budget process by:</p>
<ul>
<li>eliminating all
minor funds not required for accounting operations</li>
<li>creating Master Accounts
to simplify allocation of resources</li>
<li>changing the role of line item accounts
in the management of state government</li>
<li>putting the budget solely online, with
full search capability, for everyone in Massachusetts to access</li>
<li>eliminating
all earmarks. </li>
</ul>
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