While we knew that Governor’s Baker’s proposed Fiscal 2022 state budget includes a major increase to the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) corporate provider-based residential system, we didn’t know how high that proposed increase actually is.
That’s because the amount of Baker’s increase appears to be under-reported by some $36 million on the state’s Mass.gov website.
The state budget site on Mass.gov currently lists the governor’s proposed funding for the provider residential line item (5920-2000) as $1.41 billion for the coming fiscal year. That would amount to a $121 million, or 9.4%, increase over the amount appropriated for the current fiscal year. That’s what we reported in our COFAR Blog post on February 2.
But according to the nonpartisan Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MBPC), which tracks the state budget, Baker’s real proposed funding for the provider residential line item is $1.44 billion – an amount $36.4 million higher than the number reported on Mass.gov. The real increase being proposed by Baker is $157 million, or 12.2%.
The reason for the higher funding amount, according to the MBPC, is a proposed, but unreported transfer by the administration of $36.4 million to the provider residential line item from another DDS line item — the Turning-22 account (line item 5920-5000).
The provider residential line item is one of five DDS accounts to which the administration has proposed transferring a total of $55.4 million from the Turning-22 account. Turning-22 funds programs for persons entering the DDS system at the age of 22.
The Mass.gov site lists proposed Fiscal 22 funding for the Turning-22 account of $79.9 million, which would be an increase over the current year of $54.9 million, or 219%. But as a result of the line-item transfers, rather than providing an increase of $54.9 million to the Turning-22 line item, the governor’s FY 22 budget would actually cut the Turning-22 line item by $877,900, according to the MBPC.
It’s not clear to us why the administration has proposed the transfers among the DDS accounts, and it remains to be seen whether the House Ways & Means Committee, which is now considering the governor’s FY22 budget, will adopt the transfers.
It’s also not clear that the administration is intentionally trying to mislead Mass.gov website users in failing to include the amounts transferred among the line items. Nevertheless, the misleading reporting is worrisome to us for a number of reasons.
One reason is that we have long been concerned that the provider residential line item has been steadily increased by successive administrations and by the Legislature at the expense of state-run programs and other accounts. It now appears to be getting an even larger increase than is being reported publicly.
We contacted the MBPC earlier this week after noticing several discrepancies between the DDS line item numbers on he Mass.gov site and the numbers that can be accessed via the MBPC’s online “Budget Browser.”
The Budget Browser is a database of state budget line item amounts since Fiscal 2001, and it provides additional numbers adjusted for inflation.
An MBPC analyst confirmed the DDS line-item discrepancies, and explained the transfer situation to us. The MBPC received a list of the transfers from the administration and forwarded the list to us. The analyst said the transfers themselves are an internal accounting process used in comparing budget numbers over multiple years. If that’s the case, it is still not clear to us why those adjusted numbers are not reported on Mass.gov.
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