Romney's team initiated many efficiencies administratively; for instance, integrating 15 human services agencies, but the Legislature balked at many of his proposals, including the court system consolidation, and only pieces of the broader reorganization plan were implemented.

The budget cuts were often deep and painful, but Anderson, the antitax crusader who had begged Romney to run for governor, identified a tradeoff.

"What people don't credit him for is what he prevented from happening ... a (broad-based) tax increase," she said.

Balancing act

Romney's success in steering the state through the fiscal maelstrom was one of his key achievements, but in the retelling he and his aides often overstate the accomplishment and understate the side-effects: big fee increases and pressure on local property taxes.

The Web site of his presidential campaign summarizes his version of history: "Without raising taxes or increasing debt, Governor Romney closed a $3 billion budget deficit his first year in office with a heavily Democrat legislature. Each year, Governor Romney filed a balanced budget without raising taxes. By eliminating waste, streamlining government, and enacting comprehensive economic reforms to help spur growth, Governor Romney helped the state achieve a surplus totaling nearly $1 billion in 2005."

Romney and the Legislature did approve an austere budget to deal with nearly all of a projected shortfall, which never fully materialized because tax collections came in more than $1.2 billion above preliminary estimates. The spending plan also raised at least $331 million through increased fees for permits, licenses and services — about a 45-percent jump — and $128 million in tax code tweakings to close "loopholes" affecting businesses. Another $181 million in "loophole" closings — businesses called them tax increases — followed in the next two years.

Romney has asserted that the fee increases totaled only $260 million in fiscal 2004 but that ignores at least $71 million in new fees implemented shortly after he took office.

One major fee hike was clearly excessive — a 2-cent-per-gallon increase in a special gasoline fee, implemented during the fiscal crisis without fanfare, even though it affects every motorist in the state.

The increase generates about $60 million per year for a program to clean up contamination around underground fuel storage tanks, but since its inception has produced surpluses of more than $40 million a year above the actual cost of the program, according to a report done by the Department of Revenue in response to a Globe request.