600 College Students Protest Budget Cuts

BOSTON--As 600 angry college students gathered at the State House to protest proposed spending cuts in higher education, the Massachusetts House of Representatives resumed debate yesterday on the fiscal 1990 budget.

Shouting "We won't take no [for an answer]," students from state public colleges and universities jammed State House stairways for an indoor, noon-time rally to decry the "bare-bones" budget proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee.

"Public higher education is part of the solution to what ills the Common-wealth, not part of the problem," John Theriault, a senior at Southeastern Massachusetts University, told the audience.

Theriault, who helped coordinate the rally, is a student member of the state Board of Regents of Higher Education.

"These legislators like to look at things in terms of investment value," Theriault said after the demonstration. "So [House Minority Leader Steven D. Pierce (R-Westfield)] and the rest of the Republican leadership should realize that higher education is one of the soundest investments they could make."

Students spent the day visiting the offices of their state legislators, "power-lobbying" for an amendment filed by Rep. Stanley C. Rosenberg (D-Amherst). The amendment would restore $15.7 million in funds for higher education to what has been described as a "bare-bones" $12.3 billion House budget.

The House budget was crafted in reaction to the $12.9 million spending package submitted in January by Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. The governor's plan is linked to a controversial $604 million tax hike on capital gains, alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline.

Higher education advocates said yesterday that there are several line-items in the House spending plan which would be particularly harmful to higher education:

* The elimination of funding for the purchase of library materials and laboratory supplies. The Dukakis administration had requested $400,000, a $350,000 decrease from last year's budget.

* The elimination of collaborative educational programs between colleges and secondary schools. The governor had requested $2 million for the program, a 200 percent increase from fiscal year 1989.

* A cutback of $665,878 from the original Dukakis request for a new scholarship program, which would fund low-interest student loans and aid to needy part-time undergraduates. Officials at the Governor's Office for Education said yesterday that administrative costs for the program would now be funded entirely from the base scholarship appropriation.

Although many of the student protesters said they were unable to meet with their representatives, they said they were optimistic about passage of the Rosenberg amendment.

"I have to be optimistic," said Shari Silkoff, student body president of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "I have to be optimistic when they're talking about turning public higher education out into the street."

"Do you know what it's like going to a library with no new library books? It's like an antique shop," said JamesKavanaugh, a junior at Framingham State College.

"Although it's not as good as the Dukakisbudget, they have to pass the Rosenberg amendment.It means no frills, but at least we'll be able toget by," he said.

But State Rep. Angelo Scaccia (D-Hyde Park),vice chair of the House Ways and Means Committee,said that he did not expect the amendment to beapproved.

"We've been trying and we've been succeeding inholding the bottom line. We keep tellingrepresentatives that they must propose a cutsomewhere else equivalent to the spendingincrease," Scaccia said. Most lawmakers areunwilling to make such compromises, he added.

"If things were different, then we would bemore than happy to give the students the money.But right now they are competing with otherinterests and they're all asking for the samedollar," he said.

Later, during formal debate on the Housebudget, Republican legislators foughtunsuccessfully to eliminate several speciallegislative committees, including panels ontaxation, criminal law and other issues. The GOPrepresentatives said those committees were costlyand unnecessary.

But House Majority Leader Charles Flaherty(D-Cambridge), in a moving speech which many saidsounded more like a defense of the Dukakis budgetthan the House plan, criticized Republicanattempts to cut the budget further.

"We're not in a budget crisis, we have a budgetglitch," Flaherty said.

As the normally raucous House chamber fellsilent, Flaherty told fellow lawmakers that thestate must now pick up the slack for a negligentfederal government and local communitiesconstrained by Proposition 2 1/2, the 1980property tax cap referendum.

Invoking the name of the late Vice PresidentHubert H. Humphrey, Flaherty said, "I hope wecontinue our commitment to provide for theservices that the people of the Commonwealth havecome to expect and deserve in order to meet ourbasic commitments to the have-nots, thehave-littles and the anxious haves.