Legislature Pares Back Patrick Spending Wishes

By Gintautas Dumcius - October 24, 2007

State House News Service

BOSTON - You can't always get what you want.

It's a lesson Gov. Deval Patrick is learning as lawmakers tinker with his life sciences initiative and continue to vet a number of his other initiatives, both low-profile (a volunteer corps) and high (destination resort casinos).

Over the summer, Patrick asked the Legislature to help him to lay the groundwork for his education reform effort. But the "mini-budget" he signed Friday after lawmakers sent it to his desk gives him about a fifth of what he asked for.

Patrick had asked for $4.6 million in education-related initiatives when he sent his request to lawmakers in June. In a $278 million budget bill that doesn't appear to fully account for last fiscal year's budget surplus, the Legislature included about $1 million worth of the initiatives Patrick had requested.

The budget bill includes $200,000 for a teaching and learning survey for teachers; $200,000 for the Readiness Project, the group Patrick established to craft his 10-year "cradle-to-career" education reform effort; and $600,000 in professional development funds for early education teachers, down from the $1.2 million Patrick requested.

The so-called mini-budget did include raises for the state's constitutional officers, including Patrick, and about $454,000 to satisfy his request to expand the state's Washington, D.C., office. Patrick, in a note to the Legislature, said he and Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray would refrain from taking the raises until an advisory board recommends it.

Left on the cutting-room floor: $2 million for dual enrollment, allowing high school students to begin college level course work in a college setting; $500,000 for a competitive grant program to stem the rapid rate of teacher turnover, a $350,000 job vacancy survey and $150,000 for a college readiness assessment grant program.

But the tone exuded by both sides, at least in inquiries over his education requests, is generally cordial.

Paul Reville, an education policymaker whom Patrick recently appointed to the state Board of Education and to the top of the Readiness Project's leadership, described the paring back of education initiatives from the "mini-budget" as a "balanced response."

Reville added the Legislature regularly exercises discretion in budget matters. The "key components," like the Readiness Project and the teachers' survey, were funded, he noted. "I think the Legislature was responding to what they thought was immediate and the most urgent," he said. "I think the important thing is it gives the governor the ability to move forward in several different areas. I'm sure the administration is grateful for that."

Others said it indicated the moves could represent how much traction the governor's education reform efforts are having. "In some respects, it is a gauge of the level of support for the governor's education policies in the Legislature," said Jamie Gass, director of education research and programs at the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, a conservative-leaning think tank.

Lawmakers and their aides said that wasn't the case.

"In no way are the initiatives we're not including off the burner, so to speak," said Jim Eisenberg, spokesman for the House side of the Joint Committee of Ways and Means. "We certainly aren't making a statement for or against the policy of those initiatives that we did not address in the supplemental."

Added Rep. Patricia Haddad, D-Somerset, House chair of the Committee on Education, in a recent interview, "The things we did not address, we did not think they weren't good ideas."

Haddad, who is on the Readiness Project's 18-member leadership council, said the $2 million for dual enrollment was better suited for state's fiscal year budget, which won't be completed until next summer, instead of a mini-budget. The items that were left in were determined to directly affect education reform, she said.

Before Patrick signed the bill, his spokeswoman, Becky Deusser, noted in an e-mailed statement, "We are still reviewing the bill, but there are a number of shared priorities included in this budget. The governor looks forward to working with the Legislature as the Readiness Project continues to take a hard look at our education system and put together recommendations on how best to fulfill his vision for a world-class education starting before kindergarten through higher education and beyond."

Haddad said programs dealing with teacher turnover are included in a pair of bills before the committee, which also contain pilot programs for mentoring and other professional development. The bills (H.451 and S.284) establish a teacher, principal and superintendent quality endowment fund.

Funds for professional development for early education teachers, necessary as the state's moves toward a universal prekindergarten model, were reduced to $600,000 because that was what lawmakers thought the state could afford, she said, instead of the $1.2 million Patrick had originally requested.

Commonwealth Corp., a quasi-public agency, had recently done its own job vacancy survey, rendering Patrick's unnecessary, Haddad added. The funding in the mini-budget Patrick filed would have authorized the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development to create and administer a survey to 10,000 state employers to find gaps in the workforce and assess future demand for the secretariats.

In the meantime, the Readiness Project held its first public meeting earlier this month in Quincy, and a video of it is available on the governor's Web site as a podcast.

The education reform effort's leadership council met Oct. 16 at the Museum of Science. Patrick aides say the meeting of the council, which is expected to deliver recommendations to Patrick for next year's budget by December, was to be closed to the public.