The Buzz on Beacon Hill

The buzz on Beacon Hill next week is over the contraction state government will soon undergo as Gov. Deval Patrick deals with an eroding tax base, which state revenue officials say could carve between $400 million and $600 million out of this year’s expected collections. Patrick and the Legislature have already deployed waves of tax increases and spending cuts and poured billions of dollars from the state rainy day fund and federal stimulus dollars into the budget, leaving them with few popular choices to address the new red ink in the $27 billion budget and next year’s gap, estimated preliminarily at between $2 billion and $3 billion. Groups of developmentally disabled individuals have taken over the governor’s lobby in a regular vigil to protest potential cuts, which appear inevitable by month’s end. Administration officials are making no promises about which services and programs might be preserved as Jay Gonzalez, Patrick’s new budget chief, looks to officially lower the fiscal 2010 revenue estimate by Thursday. “We’re going through a process. We need to know what our options are,” Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby told the News Service Friday. “Obviously, the governor is going to hear a lot of recommendations, a lot of cases made for particular things. It’s going to be a couple weeks before we even know what the level of cuts will need to be. We are very hopeful we can make sure that we do the most we can to maintain the supports that people are looking for.”