Senate President Therese Murray said the supplemental budget would also include a provision allowing cities and towns to borrow in anticipation of federal aid.
By MICHAEL NORTON
and KYLE CHENEY
BOSTON – Gov. Deval L. Patrick is planning to file a supplemental budget Monday or Tuesday requesting tornado relief funds for Western Massachusetts, legislative leaders said late Monday.
During a meeting with Patrick, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray discussed moving legislation this week to help western Massachusetts communities affected by last week’s tornadoes.
“There’ll be an amount for public safety, overtime, and a reserve account for state agencies who will be experiencing different costs,” Murray told reporters after emerging from the meeting.
Murray said the supplemental budget would also include a provision allowing cities and towns to borrow in anticipation of federal relief. She added, “We can get it approved fast.”
Although the supplemental budget may move quickly, both leaders agreed that the overall recovery effort could take awhile.
“This is going to take a little bit of a time. The biggest issue we have to get our hands on is the cost,” DeLeo said.
Murray agreed, calling the relief effort “a long process” but one she said would be more efficient than the one that followed a 2008 ice storm that ravaged central Massachusetts.
Both leaders said they were pleasantly surprised by the efficiency of the relief effort by utility companies, noting that most people whose telephone and electricity service had been lost during the storm have already had it restored.
“The coordinated effort has been astounding,” Murray said. She said that in Monson on the worst-hit street, “the utility poles were going up as we stood there.”
DeLeo said the level of state assistance will likely depend on how much the federal government allocates, which in turn will depend on when the Obama administration declares the region a federal disaster area.
“Probably the first thing we have to do is get the federal government to declare a disaster area, and then from there I think we’re better able to assess what we can do as a state,” DeLeo told reporters prior to the meeting, adding that he would consider using state rainy day funds as a source for disaster relief.
When a reporter wondered whether a rainy day fund draw could reach $100 million, DeLeo said, “I didn’t say how much.”
State officials on Tuesday plan to offer an estimate, based on information provided by private insurers, of the damage caused by last week’s tornadoes.
Officials from the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation will discuss the cost of the damage during three stops - at 10 a.m. at Springfield City Hall, at noon at the state assistance center on the Monson/Palmer line and at 1:15 p.m. at the Southbridge Storm Assistance Center.
Consumer affairs officials are cautioning property owners in the areas hit by the tornado to avoid unregistered or unlicensed repair work crews that they said are canvassing the areas and to make sure they deal only with registered contractors.