Next Steps in the FY06 State Budget Debate

Each step in the budget debate process is a window of opportunity for advocacy efforts to improve programs and services for persons with disabilities. The most important advocacy relationship any person can have is with his or her own state representative and state senator. A call, email, letter, or visit from a constituent in the district is always the most influential. To be most effective, an advocate establishes an ongoing relationship with his or her state representative and state senator.

Window of Opportunity: The Senate

The House budget will be referred to the Senate Ways & Means (SWM) Committee, chaired by Sen. Therese Murray. SWM senators and staff already will have been working on their own set of FY06 recommendations. The SWM FY06 Budget will be released to the full Senate sometime in late May or early June 2005. Senators may file amendments to change the SWM’s funding or language recommendations. Then there will be a full debate, where the fate of the amendments filed by various senators is decided. Since there are 160 state representatives and 40 state senators, the Senate process usually involves fewer amendments and quicker decisions than the House process does. The full debate usually takes two or three days.

Advocacy action steps:

• Call, email, write, or visit your state senator. Tell him/her about your priorities for the FY06 Senate budget.
• Ask your senator to make your priorities known when he/she speaks with the Chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Window of Opportunity: The Conference Committee

The House and Senate budgets will vary in their funding and policy recommendations. The two budgets will be sent to a Joint House/Senate Conference Committee, composed of three senators and three representatives and chaired by both Ways & Means Committee chairs. While they are not formally members of the Conference Committee, House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and Senate President Robert Travaglini will have great influence over the Conference Committee negotiations.

The Conference Committee should complete its work by late June 2005. Its single reconciled set of budget recommendations, known as the Conference Committee Report for FY06, is returned to each chamber for a single “yea” or “nay” vote of approval. After it is approved by each chamber, this Conference Committee budget is sent to the governor’s desk.

Advocacy action steps:

• Call, email, or write the members of the Conference Committee, the Speaker of the House, and/or the Senate President. Tell each of them to include the language and/or the funding that you prefer from either the House or the Senate budgets when they draft the Conference Committee Report.
• Call, email, write, or visit your state representative and senator. Ask these elected officials to make your priorities known to the Conference Committee, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate President.

Window of Opportunity: The Governor’s Vetoes

The governor has ten days to review the Conference Committee budget and return it to the House with the governor’s veto message. He can veto policy changes and he can veto some or all of the dollar amount appropriated to a particular line item. He cannot, however, increase any appropriations at that point in the process.

Advocacy action steps:

• Call, email, or write the governor’s office to ask him not to veto your budget priorities as stated in the Conference Committee Report. As always, be specific in your request— mention the line item numbers of any particular budget language or particular funding amount you are calling about.

Window of Opportunity: The Legislative Overrides

In the final step, the legislature may vote to pass overrides on some of the governor’s vetoes. The House leadership will review the governor’s vetoes, decide which ones to challenge, and have formal roll call votes on each. A two-thirds majority vote is needed to overturn a veto. If the veto is not overturned in the House, the veto will remain in the final budget. If a veto is overturned, it is sent to the Senate, where again a two-thirds majority is needed for each item. If both chambers override a veto, the original Conference Committee recommendation stands as the final version of the FY06 budget. This entire process is supposed to be complete before the formal start of fiscal year 2006 on July 1, 2005.

Advocacy action steps:

• Call, email, or write your state representative and senator.
• Thank him/her for the positive aspects of the Conference Committee budget with regard to disability issues. As him/her to vote to override any of the governor’s vetoes with which you do not agree.

State Website Budget Resources

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts website—at www.mass.gov—has become a great resource for followers of the budget debate. The flow chart on the next page, which portrays the full budget debate process, is among the many resources provided.

• To access the governor’s H1 for FY06 budget, click on the “Office of the Governor” link at the top left of the www.mass.gov homepage. Scroll way down and look for a “Governor’s 2006 Budget” link in the “In Focus” section.
• To access the House budget, click on the “Massachusetts General Court” link under the“Legislative” heading on the right hand side of the www.mass.gov homepage. Scroll way down to a large heading that reads “Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Recommendations.” Under the“HOUSE” subheading, click on “House budget site.”
• To access prior year budgets, click on the “Massachusetts General Court” link under the“Legislative” heading on the right hand side of the www.mass.gov homepage. Scroll way down to a large heading that reads “Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Recommendations.” Click on the link to“Previous Fiscal Year Budgets.”

Overview of the Budget Process