While the immediate cause of Massachusetts’ fiscal crisis is the national recession, policy choices made over the past decade created a structural deficit that have reduced the state’s ability to address the economic downturn.

The Commonwealth’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget will be the first one for which there has been
enough information made publicly available for everyone to see and understand the priorities
within the budget, and for everyone to evaluate how each budget proposal is balanced.

Starting with the Governor’s budget proposal in January, and continuing through the proposals
made by both the House and Senate, there has been significant progress in the “transparency” of
information, implementing many of the recommendations made in Creating a Transparent Budget
for Massachusetts, a report by the Massachusetts Budget Transparency Project.

This MassBudget Brief takes the information provided by the House and creates a complete Sources and Uses statement, comparing the House proposal to the Governor's proposal. Because the Sources and Uses lists all proposed state spending and all sources of revenue, the reader can determine how the budget balances (i.e. whether there are sufficient revenues to pay for all of the expenses), and can determine whether the budget is structurally balanced whether ongoing spending is supported by permanent, rather than temporary or one-time revenues.

As the analysis that follows shows, FY 2009 House budget, although nominally balanced, is out of structural balance by approximately $600 million.

This MassBudget Brief takes the information provided by the Governor in his Fiscal Year 2009 budget proposal and compiles it in a Sources and Uses presentation in order to determine how the budget is balanced, and whether it is structurally balanced. While the Commonwealth has made significant progress in enhancing the transparency of our state budget, one important recommendation from the Massachusetts Budget Transparency Project's Creating a Transparent Budget for Massachusetts was that the state produce a complete Sources and Uses statement, listing on one page all proposed state spending and all sources of revenue. The Governor's budget documents do, for the first time, provide most of the information needed to construct such a chart. Ideally, future budget proposals from the Governor and the Legislature will include similar Sources and Uses statements when those budget proposals are released to the public.

Massachusetts government made significant progress this year toward making it easier for regular people to understand how we are spending our tax dollars. These new transparency initiatives allow anyone to visit the state budget website and find extensive information including current and historic appropriations for each area of government and mission statements for departments. A More Transparent Budget: Continuing the Progress details the progress made this year and identifies additional steps that would further strengthen the capacity of all the people of Massachusetts to understand the budget and participate meaningfully in debates about budget priorities. This report was prepared by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MBPC) and the McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts. It follows on a report issued last year by those organizations and others that outlined a comprehensive set of recommendations to create a more transparent budget. A Boston Globe op-ed, co-authored by Noah Berger, MBPC's Executive Director, and Steven Crosby, Dean of the McCormack Graduate School and co-chairman of Governor Deval Patrick's transition team on budget and finance, explaining the findings of the report is available at this link.

Originally published in the Boston Phoenix, December 22, 2006

Debates about the Massachusetts budget and the critical policy issues it shapes are often muddied by confusion about basic facts. Is there a budget surplus or not? How much new spending is being proposed and what will it be spent on? What existing programs are being cut? Is the budget addressing long term challenges?

Calling for state government to improve the public's ability to understand the annual budget, the Massachusetts Budget Transparency Project today released its report, Creating a Transparent Budget for Massachusetts. In it, 18 specific reform proposals, many of which have already been implemented in other states, are offered for how state government can enhance the budget process by increasing transparency and improving accessibility for the public.

Participants of the project include non-partisan budget analysis experts and former top budget writers from the state's executive branch and both houses of the state Legislature: Stephen Crosby, former Secretary of Administration and Finance under Governor Paul Cellucci and acting Governor Jane Swift; Katherine Craven, former Policy Director for the House of Representatives; John McGinn, former Budget Director for the Senate Ways and Means Committee; Katharine Gibson, former Vice President responsible for budget and planning at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Michael Widmer, President of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation; and, Noah Berger, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.

In conjunction with the release of the report, Crosby and Berger drafted an op-ed that appeared in the October 6, 2006, edition of The Boston Globe. The op-ed can be viewed by clicking here.

Op-ed by Stephen P. Crosby and Noah Berger Originally published in The Boston Globe, October 6, 2006

As Massachusetts begins to emerge from the budget crisis that began in FY 2002, several competing proposals have been offered that would shape the Commonwealth's fiscal policy for years to come. One such proposal would amend the Massachusetts Constitution to mandate annual deposits into the Commonwealth Stabilization Fund and to impose restrictions on future withdrawals from the Fund. This fact sheet details some of the shortcomings of that amendment and discusses other budget process rules that could help to prevent future deficits.

Materials for an MBPC presentation on the current state budget crisis and possible solutions to it.

Op-ed by Sarah Nolan, published in the Boston Globe

Massachusetts has a budget deficit estimated at $3 billion. How did this happen? If spending didn't cause the crisis, should cuts to essential services be the solution?

A report released today by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center examines factors in the state's fiscal crisis and finds that spending grew more slowly than personal income in the 1990s.

A study outlining how large and ultimately unaffordable tax cuts enacted during the 1990s were the key factor leading to the current fiscal crisis, rather than excessive state spending.