Even while faced with massive deficits, the governors of each of the New England states have pledged not to raise taxes in their proposed fiscal year 2011 budgets. While this is good news for taxpayers in the short run, no new taxes in 2011 comes at the price of cuts to city, town and state services and added pressure on future administrations to raise taxes.

Massachusetts

Despite a $2.7 billion budget gap in fiscal year 2011, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick claims to have found the means to balance the state budget without raising taxes or reducing funding for critical statewide programs or aid to cities and towns.

The governor’s $28.2 billion budget proposal relies on $800 million in spending cuts, some one-time revenue sources and $600,000 million in federal funds. Critics of the budget have seizedon this last item, as the federal aid has not yet been approved.

According to Michael Widmer, president of the business-backed Massachu-setts Taxpayers Foundation, “If that passes, then this budget will hold together. If it doesn’t, then we’ll have to find an additional $600 million in cuts.”

The budget does raise taxes in one area, on the sale of candy and soda, and the expansion of taxes on tobacco products to include smokeless tobacco and cigars. The new taxes, said the governor, represent “an attempt to help curb behaviors that are not healthful. It’s a public health issue.” He estimates the measures will generate $52 million, which will go to health prevention programs.

The budget proposal calls for a host of spending cuts, totaling $787 million, including a seven percent reduction forenvironmental programs from fiscal year 2010. Spending would be cut for state beaches, state parks, the Depart-ment of Environmental Protection and hazardous waste site clean-up.

The budget cuts $500,000 from the $11.5 million 2010 budget for regional food banks and reduces the life scienceand film tax credits intended to draw and keep biotech and on-location movie productions in the state. The tax credit programs, said Patrick, are “wildly successful, but expensive.”

Perhaps the most controversial measure in the budget would take awaythe $57 million previously given to adult dental service covered by Mass-Health. The Massachusetts Dental Society reacted strongly: “By eliminating all restorative treatment for adults under the MassHealth dental program,” said the society’s president, David S. Samuels, “these patients will likely now end up in a hospital emergency room, which is far more costly for the state than having care provided in a dental office.”

Defending his spending cuts, Patrick – a first-term governor facing a tough election challenge this November – boasts that his budget spends an estimated three percent less than in fiscal year 2010, while at the same time maintaining state funding for local housing agencies at $62.5 million. The funding supports housing to the lowest-income individuals, seniors, andfamilies in the state, and maintains funding for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program at $32.7 million.

Aimed at reassuring homeowners that property taxes will not be increased, the governor’s budget maintains steady levels of funding for the Commonwealth’s cities and towns through 2011. The budget continues the 2010 level of general government aid at $936 million, regional school transportation at $40.5million and school lunch programs at $5.4 million.

Most public safety agencies are level-funded or slightly increased. These funding programs, together with othercost controls and revenue tools cited in the budget, “help reduce pressure on property taxes,” Patrick said.

In education, the budget provides a record high $4 billion to Chapter 70, the program of state aid to public elementary and secondary schools; level funding, at $969 million, for stateand community colleges, including the University of Massachusetts; a $1 million increase for pre-kindergarten; $500,000 increase for programs that support kids up to the age of three; and a $500,000 increase for early childhood mental health grants.

In health care, the budget provides $838 million for Commonwealth Care to cover more than 170,000 adults; $2.5 million for health care outreach and enrollment grants; $20.6 million for Domestic Violence Services; and an $8 million increase in the Department of Veterans’ Services.

Governor Patrick reported that he will attempt to save some $300 million by refinancing the Commonwealth’s debt at lower rates. And in addition to holding the line on spending, he said, the budget reduces the structural deficit for the second straight year since the fiscal crisis hit in 2009 by reducing the reliance on one-time resources. The budget, added Patrick, realigns how state government purchases and manages energy, potentially savingtaxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

Connecticut

In her $18.9 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2011, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell has promised not to raise taxes, despite the state’s projected $500 million budget deficit. But while citizens can breathe a sigh of relief at the governor’s pledge of no new taxes – particularly condominium owners, who have seen property taxes surge over the past decade –some critics of the plan say the Republican governor, who plans to retire from office next fall, is merely shifting the pain forward. One aspect of her plan is to borrow $1.3 billion against future revenue.

Sen. Toni Harp of New Haven, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said Rell’s one-time revenue appropriation will force her successor to raise taxes in 2011. “It’s an enormous hole in the next budget,” Harp said. “We can’t cut our way out of that kindof hole. Whoever becomes governor is set up with having to aggressively tax the people of this state.”

Governor Rell’s budget also relies on $2.7 billion in federal stimulus funds, digs into the last $300 million in the state’s Rainy Day Fund, defers contributions to state employee pension funds, proposes a new “Keno” gambling program and introduces co-pays for Medicaid recipients and increased co-pays on prescriptions covered by Medicare.

On March 1st, the governor updated her 2011 budget proposal with a second “deficit-mitigation plan,” which would cancel a $100 million payment to the state employees’ pension fund, reinstate a hospital tax scrapped a decade ago, and cut $82 million from more than six dozen other accounts providing social service and education programs.

Some non-profit agencies say the service cuts put a disproportionate burden on the state’s most vulnerable populations. According to Connecticut Voices for Children director Jamey Bell, the new budget would cut nearly $75 million for early child care and other services for the young and their families.

Spending for major education programs would remain level under the plan and magnet and charter schools will receive $5 million in supplemental funding. In addition, Governor Rell hasapplied for $192 million in federal funding for education.

Commuters in New London would benefit by an expanded service on the Shoreline East rail line, at a cost of $1.6 million.

Governor Rell’s budget will have to be approved by the Democrat-controlled legislature, which has rejected most of her budget cuts over the past year, claiming the state budget deficit wouldbe much smaller if Rell hadn’t vetoed Democratic bills limiting tax cuts, such as the bill that raised the estate tax exemption from $2 million to $3.5 million.

Maine

Addressing massive declines in state revenues, Democratic Governor John E. Baldacci’s fiscal year 2010-2011 biannual $5.8 billion spending plan is the first budget in 30 years to be smaller than the previous fiscal years.

The plan makes use of $116 million from the state’s Rainy Day Fund and the Working Capital Reserve Fund, and includes cuts to the Tree Growth Program, a reduction of the Homestead Exemption to $10,000, 10 shutdown days in each year of the biennium, the elimination of merit increases and longevity payments and the addition of employee contributions towards health care premiums.

Of concern to some property owners, the budget proposes a 20 percent across the board cut to the Circuit Breaker program of partial refunds of property taxes and/or rent. At the same time, the budget provides approximately $270 million for property tax relief through municipal revenue sharing, and the Homestead, Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement Program (BETR), and Tree Growth programs.

Roughly 50% of the budget is spending for K-12 and higher education, providing $947 million in 2011. It also includes $535 million in spending for Maine’s colleges and universities over the biennium.

The Department of Health and Human Services will receive $1.6 billionin funding over the next two years. In addition, Baldacci said, the state will reform its system of paying hospitals and providers of health services.

New Hampshire

Governor John Lynch’s biannual 2010-2011 budget proposal has cut $140 million from New Hampshire’s $11.5 billion state budget by laying off more than 200 state workers and eliminating 400 positions. The plan closes the Laconia prison, several district courts and the Tobey School special education program. It also cuts medical education reimbursements for hospitals, funding for the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program and delays implementation of the new state cancer plan.

The budget helps offset local property tax increases with a 1.7 percent increase in overall aid to cities and towns and fully funds aid to local schools. It also provides additional Medicaid help to citizens who have lost their jobs and health care as a result of the recession.

While education spending is cut over the next two years by about one percent, $16 million is penciled in for career and technical education centers and $19 million is apportioned for projectsacross the community college system.

Rhode Island

Governor Donald L. Carcieri’s fiscal year 2011 budget, at $7.5 billion, decreases spending by $151.3 million as compared to the 2010 budget. Fundedin part by $455.7 million in stimulus funds, the budget eliminates a projected $427 million deficit without proposing any new broad-based taxes.

Increasing the Industrial Recre-ational Building Authority ceiling from the current $20 million ceiling to $80 million, the budget funds new building acquisitions, additions and rehabilitation of existing buildings and allocates money for new or used machinery and equipment. The program offers borrowers debt insurance on tax-free bonds, taxable bonds and conventional mortgages.

While it does not restore local aid eliminated in previous budgets, the governor said his proposal contains tools that would save towns and cities tens of millions of dollars, including authorizing local councils to approve school contracts and budgets and allowing them to levy taxes and determine how the taxes are spent.

The budget proposes $13.4 million of new funding for school construction, $2.9 million for teacher retirement, and a $7.7 million net increase for charter schools.

Vermont

Intent on offsetting a $150 million deficit without raising taxes, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas laid out an austere $4.7 billion budget for 2011 that more than quadruples deductibles paid by some public health care beneficiaries, trims payments to human services providers, and reduces subsidies that help middle-income Vermonters pay school property taxes.

Vermont, often regarded as one of the most liberal states in the country, is bucking the trend of raising state taxes to boost its economy and heading in the opposite direction.

At least 35 states have opted for tax increases to respond to fiscal woes brought on by the economic downturn, according to a Washington think tank that studies government budgets.

Governor Douglas would change Vermont’s lowest-in-the-nation student-teacher ratio from 10.8 to 1 to 13 to 1, still below the national average of 15.5to 1. State workers would take three percent pay cuts to take effect in July.

The budget offers some good news for homeowners. The governor proposesto lower both the residential and non-residential property tax rates by one cent, from $.86 to $.85 and $1.35 to $1.34 per thousand respectively.

Steven Cutler is a freelance writer and a frequent contributor to New England Condominium magazine.