February 27, 2003
$60M IDEA
Plan would raise fees on certain services
Nearly 100 state fees, including those on bottled beverages, public health testing, and driver's licenses, would rise next year under Governor Mitt Romney's 2004 proposed budget, which was released yesterday.
The administration estimates the fee increases, which must be approved by the state Legislature, would bring an additional $60 million in revenue to the cash-strapped state.
Some Romney critics said yesterday that they don't see any difference between raising taxes - as Romney has pledged not to do - and raising fees. But a Romney spokeswoman said the two are separate issues.
''Fees go for a direct service,'' spokeswoman Nicole St. Peter said. ''Taxes are something that is assessed, that everyone has to pay.''
Bottles of water and uncarbonated beverages, which have not previously come under the state's bottle law, would cost 5 cents more; and a 15-cent charge would be added to bottles of wine and liquor under the proposal. Romney's move would make Massachusetts one of only 11 states with a bottle deposit fee on noncarbonated drinks and only the fifth - along with Vermont and Maine - to charge for wine and liquor.
The state has not changed or expanded the 5-cent deposit fee on beer and soda since 1982.
''It is time to bring bottle charges up to date,'' Ellen Roy Herzfelder, secretary of Environmental Affairs, said yesterday.
Romney also said he would like to raise 12 motor-vehicle-related fees to generate $8.6 million. Motorcyclists would pay $40 for a new
license instead of $34; while new - and often younger - drivers would see the price of a learner's permit double to $30.
David Shaw, spokesman for the Registry of Motor Vehicles, said the permit fees should have been increased five years ago, when drivers were allowed to use them for two years instead of one.
The biggest fee increases at the Registry will be shouldered by those who are looking to reinstate revoked licenses, he said.
''A big bulk of the money will come from drivers who have had their licenses suspended because they did something wrong,'' Shaw said. ''So it's only going to affect those people who choose to act illegally.''
Fee increases at the Department of Public Health would generate the most new money for the state, $9.1 million. The fee changes include $6 million in hikes at state labs and hospitals, as well as a new $50 charge for tuberculosis tests and a $400 fee for those who test positive.
Stephen E. Collins, executive director of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition, a health-care advocacy group, called the TB screening fee ''ludicrous.''
''There's going to be a real problem if people start declining the screening and the disease starts to spread,'' he said.
