Higher education
Cuts to the state’s system of public colleges and universities don’t get the attention that cuts to our public elementary and secondary schools do. But the sad thing about these cuts — and few are willing to admit it — is that they are a form of regressive taxation. Consider this simple fact. If you’re wealthy enough to attend a private institution of higher education, state budget cuts have little or no effect on you. The bulk of the budget shortfall — in the form of tuition and fee increases and decreases in services — falls upon the sons and daughters of working- and lower-middle-class residents (some of them immigrants) for whom higher education is a ticket to, if not prosperity, then at least a better life. At UMass Amherst, almost half of all students receive need-based financial aid, and one-quarter receive the federal Pell Grant, which is targeted to low-income students. At UMass Boston, the age of the average student is 26, a number that administrators say translates into a largely diverse, hardscrabble student body.
Here’s a taste of what awaits public college and university students if the current cuts to higher education stand. (And remember, this comes at a time when state aid to higher education as a percentage of personal income in Massachusetts is already second to last in the nation. Education-funding defenders point out that when you factor out the thousands of students at private colleges and universities who receive state funding, Massachusetts moves up to 14th in the scale.) The four University of Massachusetts campuses alone are being asked to cut more than $25 million. The ramifications filter all the way through the system. UMass Amherst is eliminating five departments — comparative literature, Spanish and Portuguese, French and Italian, Asian languages and literature, and German — and consolidating them into one. This is of concern to faculty members and students alike because each field is so different from the others. Besides, they had been struggling with limited resources, which had resulted in a failure to restock the supply of teachers over time, long before the current budget crisis came into play. Says David Lenson, a professor of comparative literature at UMass Amherst as well as treasurer of the Massachusetts Society of Professors: "I’ve been teaching 31 years. I started in my department as the youngest professor in it, and I still am." And Lenson’s situation is representative. In 1990, the university employed 1400 faculty members. In the fall, that number will likely have dropped to 850. The number of students, meanwhile, has remained the same.
UMass Amherst has also deemed it necessary to slash its campus security force — an action that has drawn fire at recent rallies protesting budget cuts and in the student newspaper, the Daily Collegian. "This is ridiculous," wrote Yousef Munayyer, a columnist for the paper, on May 10. "Providing security for its constituents is the first and foremost priority of an administering body, be it the US government ... or the UMass administration for its students."
The UMass system has sliced funding for its libraries as well. UMass Boston, for example, cancelled all library subscriptions to scholarly journals; Salem State College did likewise. In addition to canceling all journal subscriptions, UMass Amherst has stopped buying books. On the surface, this may seem like a trifle. But, to make up for lost funds, library officials at UMass Amherst are already talking about charging students entry fees. One critic, who wished to remain anonymous, quipped that the state ought to just force the schools to erect paid turnstiles in their libraries — a joke that seems all too close to the truth.
In Beacon Hill testimony last week, Pat Markunas, president of the Massachusetts State College Association, made the predicament facing state higher education crystal clear. "When hard economic times hit, our enrollments increase," she said. "We represent the best hope for a long-term solution to the current economic crisis. Now is not the time to cut support further for public higher education." State colleges and universities may offer the best hope for the future, but it doesn’t look like the legislators are listening.
The judiciary
In addition to education, the judiciary is also likely to face cuts by state legislators. House Speaker Tom Finneran is taking advantage of tough fiscal times to hammer the state’s court system — a frequent object of his ridicule. Appearing on New England Cable News just last week, Finneran cackled about his control of the court’s purse strings. Thank God the legislature controls the budget, he exclaimed, noting that while judges might be good litigators, trial lawyers, or jurists, they can’t budget.
Finneran’s loyal ally, Representative Angelo Scaccia of Hyde Park, is introducing an amendment to radically reorganize the court system. Under Scaccia’s plan, the legislature will gain even more control over court funding. In spite of the fact that good-government advocates — from the Cox Commission (a blue-ribbon panel headed by former solicitor general and Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox) in 1976 to the Pioneer Institute in 2002 — have called for the judiciary to exercise more control over its management and funding, the legislature seems headed in the opposite direction. Scaccia’s plan calls for the elimination of all special departments and all chief justices (judges who engage in management) — with the exception of the constitutionally created Supreme Judicial Court and the appellate court. If put in place, the new system would go so far as to preclude judges from handling administrative requests such as leaves of absence and decrease their control over courthouse appointments. Judges would also lose what little remains of their control over their own law clerks — something the legislature battles to prize away perennially. Of course, in the face of this budget crunch, you wouldn’t think there’d be many hires, if any, to worry about. But over the last four years, state representatives under Finneran’s leadership managed to find $50.1 million to pay for additional registers, assistant clerks, probation officers, and associate probation officers — courthouse positions that the courts never requested. Now that the staff has been bloated with patronage positions, $43 million in cuts to the courts’ budget will have to be made across the board.
This $43 million decrease will almost surely fall upon court reporters, interpreters, and other administrative officials. Cutbacks like these guarantee the delay of judicial proceedings — you can’t have a trial if there’s no court reporter available to record it. This will not only delay justice, but also drive up its cost. In a civil dispute, a cancelled trial date means a lost day of work for lawyers and often also for costly expert witnesses, who get paid just for showing up — whether they testify or not.
The legislature has also "zeroed out" funding for alternative-dispute-resolution (ADR) programs. Legal scholars, in general, favor such proceedings for many civil disputes; as cost-saving measures, they speed up the prosecution of justice. It’s true that even with budget cuts, two private parties in a legal dispute can always agree to pay a third party to render a judgment. But only if they have the money. The state ADR program encouraged less-wealthy plaintiffs to try to resolve their disputes in ADR settings. That will no longer be an option.
The legislature has also targeted drug courts, special courts that tie drug testing to jail time for nonviolent drug offenders. The beauty of this program is that it frees up space in jails for people who really should be there — violent criminals — and helps get addicts what they need: treatment. The drug-court initiative not only matches the punishment to the crime, it saves money. Consider this fact: the most conservative estimate calculates that putting an offender into the drug-court system costs $35,000 less than incarcerating him or her for one year. So the ADR program is another cost-saving measure that will, ironically, likely be lost to the fiscal crisis.
Health care
Health-care advocates look to the state coffers to help meet the failings of the federal health-care system. But this year they won’t get much help on Beacon Hill. The House has slashed the Children’s Medical Security Plan, a measure that allowed state pols to boast that all children in the Commonwealth receive at least some form of health care. Not so any longer. Meanwhile, a cut of at least $1 million from prescription-drug benefits for the elderly means the state will have to cap enrollment in that program. A more than 10 percent reduction in the Healthy Start program for pregnant women — which dramatically improves prenatal care and cuts down on costly complications that can arise during pregnancy and labor — means that 500 women will be dropped from the program.
Health advocates say that funding for public health has been pared back to the point where it will take $41 million simply to keep pace with the current level of service. While legislators restored some funding for AIDS care and breast-cancer education, they cut monies for hepatitis C programs and anti-tobacco efforts.
WHEN BUDGETS are tight, it’s easy to focus on mere threads of funding found for pet programs. It’s easy to overlook just how significantly the landscape in the state has changed. Of course, that’s what State House leaders count on. This method of doing business allows politicians to crow about "saving" this program or that, even as patronage is protected, the courts suffer, and the level of service for children, students, and the needy falls into shameful decline.
Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell[a]phx.com
