Brett Schetzsle, Republican candidate for State Representative in the 6th Essex district, announced today an outline of the first bill that he will file as Beverly’s State Representative. The bill is aimed at dealing with the legislature’s inability to fix the state’s persisting budget deficits and the announcement comes on the heels of reports of elevated projections for the state’s budget deficit for the current two-month-old fiscal year and wide-spread agreement that a “structural” deficit of nearly $3 billion exists for the 2011-12 budget.

“It is clear that the legislature simply does not have the will to propose aggressive solutions to permanently change our approach to the budget. This legislation is designed to give legislators a personal stake in the budget they create and puts statutory guides in place so that the state budget can transition to one that is sustainable and subject to a total review every four years so we can adjust our spending priorities to meet emerging needs without the constant and unsettling threat of new taxes," commented Schetzsle.

He added, "This will also allow the Governor and legislature to completely re-assess all spending programs and eliminate those which have outlived their useful life, identify and implement reform for those programs that continue and gives a new or second-term administration the opportunity to create new programs and still be consistent with the expenditure limits."

Schetzsle’s legislation, the Budget and Legislative Accountability and Control of Expenditures (BALANCE) Act, will initially include three main components:

• Implementation of legislator and legislative leadership pay cuts if “9-C” budget cutting authority is granted to Governor: Creates an automatic roll-back of the most recent legislative pay raise or cancellation of any pending automatic pay raise with a 50% cut in leadership stipends for the remainder of a fiscal year in which the approval of “9-C” cuts is given.

• Creation of statutory tax and expenditure limits based on inflation and population growth: Provides for statutory growth limits for the state budget in order to set overall spending at a level sustainable in fluctuating economic conditions so that revenues over time will match planned expenditures over time and “structural” deficits are eliminated.

• Adoption of a quadrennial “zero-based” budget review and creation process: Institutes a formal, joint legislative-executive budget review process for the second full fiscal year budget of a Governor’s four-year term. The review will include increased levels of testimony from agencies receiving funding from the state as well as the office of the state's Auditor in order to demonstrate the need for requested funding levels.

Schetzsle concluded, "We need to end this cycle of the legislature scrambling to create a budget with little real debate and then running to the Governor later in the year to have him or her make mid-year cuts. The legislature is responsible for the budget and if we vote to give the Governor the authority to do our job and make cuts, those cuts should start with the legislators themselves. Ideally, if we implement the limits and do a zero-based budget every four years, legislators would never be faced with that vote.”