The redraft includes $95.6 million for the Department of Children and Families and Department of Transitional Assistance-related child care, plus $94 million for income-eligible child care. It leaves out nearly two-thirds of the House-approved spending, including $43 million for rent assistance, $60 million for home care services and $15.5 million to replace electronic benefits cards vulnerable to fraud.
Massachusetts Legislature
Posted inState Government
Senators get ‘enough yeses’ to add $43.5 million to budget
The Senate Ways and Means Committee proposed an underlying budget that started at $61.32 billion, as Democrats forge ahead with their spending appetite despite modest state tax revenues and federal funding uncertainty.
Posted inState Government
Spending push interrupted by executive branch hiring freeze
Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday paused executive branch hiring due to what her office described as “widespread economic uncertainty at the national level and a tightening budget outlook.”
Posted inState Government
Senate budget panel recommends 6.3% annual spending increase
The draft budget bill, which will be up for debate in the Senate starting May 20, does not feature any tax increases.
Posted inState Government
Weekly roundup – budget bonanza
The House-approved annual budget bill reveals policy and political fault lines
Posted inOpinion
The case of the State House cod caperÂ
Posing as tourists, the thieves entered the State House late in the afternoon and headed for the fourth-floor gallery overlooking the House chamber.
Posted inState Government
MBTA zoning law targeted by GOP budget amendments
Even following a Supreme Judicial Court ruling in January against Milton that deemed the law constitutional and gave the attorney general’s office the ability to enforce it with legal action, unrest remains in other communities — many of which are using Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s contention that the law is an “unfunded mandate” to pursue further legal action.
Posted inState Government
Opponents knock Healey’s youth mental health plan
With three state-funded youth mental health programs at risk of closing, lawmakers and providers ramped up their opposition this week to Gov. Healey’s proposed budget cuts.
Posted inState Government
Health care cash rained on Mass. lobbying world in 2024
At a time when lawmakers are wrestling with cost, access and regulatory questions, health care industry power players continued to dominate the Beacon Hill lobbying world last year, spending the most on employing influential insiders who sway development of public policy.
Posted inState House News Service
Mass. legislators visited Canadian renewable power operations
The trip comes as state energy policies shaped through a series of clean energy laws are suddenly at odds with the new direction of federal energy policy under President Donald Trump.