August 10, 2010

The Honorable Therese Murray

President
Massachusetts Senate
Room 330
State House
Boston, MA 02133

Dear Senate President Murray:

It goes without saying that the budget challenges faced by the Commonwealth in the last two
years have been monumental. The precipitous drop in state revenues has made your job as an
elected leader more difficult and answers to the demands for limited spending are harder to
provide.

Throughout the Fiscal Year 2011 budget process, there were increasingly deep and painful cuts
to human services – cuts which, it was said, were unavoidable and would not be made if
possible. We realize and appreciate your attempts during the budget process to allocate certain
funds to human service line items, provided the state received the Federal Medical Assistance
Percentages money.

Now is your chance to stand by those commitments. The human service sector urges you to do
it quickly, before the impact of the cuts grow deeper.

On behalf of 1,100 community-based human service agencies which care for the neediest of our
Commonwealth’s residents, we urge you to immediately return to formal sessions to restore
funding to the human services programs which were so disproportionately cut this year.

Our industry cares for one in 10 residents of the Commonwealth, employs 185,000 workers in
5,500 locations around the state and allows countless others the security to work while we care
for their loved ones. We have sustained a disproportionate share of the painful budget cuts in
the last two sessions, and our sector can no longer be marginalized.

As you know, the U.S. House of Representatives has now joined the U.S. Senate in approving a
$26 billion stimulus bill to provide immediate and urgent need to states which are struggling
most with this lingering recession. Massachusetts would be eligible for $655 million in aid, about
$450 million of which is designed specifically to offset deep cuts to human services.

The budget which the Legislature sent to Governor Patrick anticipated the arrival of this funding
and it specifically detailed how it would be spent in keeping the strands of our frayed safety net
together. Unfortunately, Governor Patrick vetoed those designations, cutting $457 million
because the funding had not yet been secured.
Providers’ Council • Human Services Providers’ Charitable Foundation, Inc.
250 Summer St., Ste. 237 • Boston, MA 02210 • p:617.428.3637 • f:617.428.1533 •
e:info@providers.org
With President Obama’s signature expected imminently, we urge you to immediately move to
schedule a formal session to override those vetoes and restore that funding. After much study
by your Ways and Means Committee, extended debate and deliberation and a joint conference
committee, the Legislature has spoken. It is time to re-affirm those votes and restore critical
funding to these vital programs.

The delayed actions by Congress and vetoes from Governor Patrick have already had a
significant negative impact on the services to your most needy constituents. Providers around
the Commonwealth are being forced to consider laying off workers, cutting programs and
increasing workloads for some of the lowest paid workers in the state.

And the ripple effect, as always, is detrimental to your efforts to revive the economy. The ranks
of the jobless increase, their demand on the services you are cutting increases, services to
those looking for work evaporate, families which depend on providers for loved ones must leave
jobs, and on and on.

The longer the Legislature waits to restore these cuts, the more damage is done and the harder
it will be to provide the services needed. By calling the Legislature back into session before
Labor Day, this pressing need can be addressed before the impact becomes graver and before
the campaign season makes the scheduling of such a session difficult.

Throughout the budget debate, those who are the most at risk were told time and again that
more would be done if it could be done. The state is about to be handed an opportunity for one-
time aid meant to directly offset these “unavoidable” cuts. We urge you to make good on your
promises, stand up for the people who most need it and put people back to work today.

Thank you for your time and attention to this request and we look forward to working with you in
the next session to ensure that the most vulnerable among us are given the kind of adequate
and predictable budget support they deserve.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please don’t hesitate to call me
directly at any time. Thank you again for your dedicated service to the Commonwealth.

Sincerely,

Michael Weekes
President/CEO

Cc: Governor Deval Patrick

Speaker Robert A. DeLeo
Chairman Steven C. Panagiotakos
Chairman Charles A. Murphy
Members of the Senate and House

Providers’ Council • Human Services Providers’ Charitable Foundation, Inc.

250 Summer St., Ste. 237 • Boston, MA 02210 • p:617.428.3637 • f:617.428.1533 •
e:info@providers.org