Mass. House leaders eye investments in ‘better future,’ unveiling nearly $50 billion budget
Colin A. Young, State House News Service | WBUR | April 13, 2022
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/04/13/massachusetts-house-budget-proposal
Acknowledging that surplus tax collections and federal aid have kept Massachusetts afloat through the pandemic, House leadership on Wednesday unveiled a nearly $50 billion budget for fiscal year 2023. Speaker Ron Mariano said the budget will reinvest in lower- and middle-class residents and gird the post-COVID economy for “tough times” in the future.
The House Ways and Means Committee’s budget recommendation, which totals $49.629 billion and is expected to be debated the week of April 25, would increase spending by $2.015 billion, or 4.23% over the current year’s budget, and proposes to spend $1.398 billion, or 2.9%, more than Gov. Charlie Baker recommended in his January budget filing.
In addition to the early education and workforce development initiatives that Mariano and Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz rolled out Monday, the House budget would also boost local aid, fully fund the next year of the 2019 school finance reform law known as the Student Opportunity Act, eliminate communication costs for incarcerated people and their families, provide free school lunches for another year, and push the state’s stabilization fund to an estimated balance of $6.55 billion by the end of next June.
“We are on our way towards filling some of the holes that were created during the pandemic with a $49.6 billion spending package that we think addresses a lot of the needs, and it’s based on state tax collections that have been very strong [and] a lot of help from the federal government,” Mariano said Wednesday.
The budget includes $6 billion for Chapter 70 education aid (an increase of $485 million over the current budget), increases the minimum per-student aid amount from $30 to $60 (Mass. Municipal Association had requested $100), accelerates by one year the charter school reimbursement process, and increases higher education scholarship funding by more than $25 million.
There is also $853 million for housing initiatives, including $150 million for the rental voucher program (an increase of $20 million over Baker’s budget plan), $140 million for the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition program ($60 million more than the governor proposed), and $100 million for homeless shelters.
The budget would fully fund the Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children program at $343 million and the Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children program at $137 million. Caseloads for those programs have persisted above pre-pandemic levels, with EAEDC at a record high.
The University of Massachusetts system would get $653 million under the House budget with another $326 million allotted to state universities and $337 million for community colleges. The House is proposing $156 million in scholarship funding, which would represent an increase of more than $25 million over the current year.
UMass President Marty Meehan said the House budget plan “makes critical investments in our 75,000 UMass students by funding increases in financial aid and support for behavioral health services while also investing in our workforce and partnering with the university to confront historic inflation.”
The $638.4 million for workforce development baked into the House budget includes $230 million for Chapter 257 rates for health and human service workers, $60 million for adult education, more than $28 million for youth-at-risk summer jobs, more than $20 million for career technical institutes, and $15 million for the state’s one-stop career centers.
Environmental services are funded at $349.7 million in the House budget plan, a slight increase of $7.8 million over what Baker proposed in January. Department of Conservation and Recreation state parks would see $78.7 million ($5.2 million more than Baker’s proposal) while $72.8 million would be directed towards environmental protection efforts, including for implementation of the 2021 climate roadmap law.
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