Mass. lawmakers, embracing ‘unique commonality,’ send Healey $63 billion budget plan

Politics admin July 2, 2026 0 Comments

Mass. lawmakers, embracing ‘unique commonality,’ send Healey $63 billion budget plan

Massachusetts lawmakers on Wednesday sent the state’s $63 billion spending plan to Governor Maura Healey’s desk, passing a budget on the first day of the fiscal year that experts said showed unusual “commonality” between the Democrats who control Beacon Hill.

The proposal, details of which were first released Tuesday, touches everything from local aid to health care funding, and represents a deal between House and Senate leaders hatched over weeks of closed-door talks. The bill also largely mirrors Healey’s initial budget proposal from January.

“While there is usually a lot of commonality, there is a unique commonality this year,” said Doug Howgate, president of the business-backed budget watchdog, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “That is honestly the biggest theme.”

While it increases spending by about 4 percent over the budget Healey signed last year, the plan focuses largely on preserving programs that already exist and creating a framework around future budgeting, Howgate said.

Perhaps the most prominent example of this is the proposedcreation of a new panel to review how the state funds its local school districts.

The budget plan would revive a commission to reexamine the school-funding formula, which lawmakers last overhauled seven years ago with a sweeping bill that promised $1.5 billion of extra money to local districts over several years.

The commission would have to publish a report with findings and recommendations by October 2028, and would be made up of elected officials, business leaders, and policy analysts.

While the commission reserves a seat for the union representing higher education employees, it does not include a representative from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union that represents 117,000 teachers and professional staff across the state.

The union played a role in the last commission of its kind, said president Max Page, who slammed the decision to leave the union out as “petty and small-minded.” Democratic leaders in the Legislature have clashed with the union in recent years, notably over the MTA’s successful push at the ballot to eliminate the MCAS exam as a high school graduation requirement.

“No one there is representing the vast majority of school district educators,” he said. “It’s stupid and will undermine the efforts of the commission.”

State Representative Aaron Michlewitz, the budget chief for his chamber, said in revamping the commission, “we felt it was an appropriate time to refresh the group as a whole.“ He noted that the commission does have a seat for the American Federation of Teachers, another union.

“We certainly thank the MTA for its service,” the North End Democrat said. “Now we are onto the next steps.”

Senate leaders declined to comment.

The budget plan would also change how the state funnels direct state aid to Massachusetts’ 351 cities and towns.

The budget agreement increased unrestricted local aid by $40 million over last year’s budget and included Senate language that would give $30 million of that funding to communities based on their per capita population as opposed to an across-the-board increase as the state had done in the past.

Adam Chapdelaine, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, backed lawmakers’ approach, saying it felt like a “natural time” to study how aid is distributed.

His organization, however, had advocated for an even larger increase as local communities report facing increasing overrides, layoffs, and service cuts.

Chapdelaine said local cities and towns have been experiencing an “indirect trickle-down” effect from the federal government: State leaders have concerns about how the Trump administration might cut funding, which in turn, he said, “impacts what the state feels they’re able to do to fund local aid.”

“We are sort of balanced between appreciation for the investments proposed, with an understanding that we will need to keep advocating for the resources that cities and towns need going forward,” Chapdelaine said. “We know the shifting tides in Washington have budget writers at the State House having a lot of legitimate concerns about what the future holds.”

Despite the relative harmony in the budget, not all Senate and House priorities made the final legislation.

For instance, a Senate- and Healey-backed initiative that would require companies to make it easier to cancel subscriptions did not survive negotiations with the House.

The budget did include greater financial oversight for the state’s 14 county sheriff’s offices, which the Massachusetts inspector general last month said were running their finances like the “wild west.”

Under the budget plan, sheriff’s offices this fiscal year would be barred from spending into deficit, and state officials would be empowered to put new limits on hiring and spending “to restrict the number of employees for each sheriff’s office.” Any sheriff’s offices that don’t provide state officials with required financial information by the end of the fiscal year could also have their budgets fall under increased oversight by a newly created board.

And despite the budget largely funding programs that already exist, it includes a variety of new policy proposals.

Among them was language to set aside 5.5 percent of sports betting tax revenue to fund a sports and entertainment events fund, which was piloted for the state’s World Cup-hosting duties. The budget also created a new program to address deadly wrong-way driving incidents, an extension of an affordable health care pilot program, and funded insurance coverage for HIV prevention medication.

It also includes changes to cost-of-living adjustments for retired public employees; language that would make it illegal for a mandated reporter, such as a teacher, coach, or police officer, to have sex with a 16- or 17-year-old; and a policy — originally proposed by state Senator Becca Rausch — that would scrub candidates’ addresses from the ballot and instead only list what town or city they live in.

While Healey is expected to sign the bill, she has 10 days to review it and wields line-item veto power. She also can send provisions back to the Legislature with amendments, if she wants.

This year marks the 16th-straight that the state began the fiscal year without an annual budget in place. To account for the lag, lawmakers passed a stopgap spending bill on Monday that will fund essential programs through July.