Today, the House Ways and Means (HWM) committee released their proposed budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. This comes after the Governor released her proposal back in January. The HWM proposal outlines a plan to spend over $61.4 billion for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1.
The HWM FY 2026 budget proposal illustrates the importance of the Fair Share surtax which allows for continued and increased investment in essential areas of education and transportation.
We are excited to see the same commitment as last year to funding operational grants for child care providers. This ensures stability for providers, supports early educators and improves access to affordable, quality child care for the lowest income children. While we are encouraged to see additional funds to help more kids access child care, we know higher investment is needed to serve more of the 30,000+ kids who currently sit on the waitlist. Our state-level investments in early education are more important now than ever as we see devastating cuts to Head Start at the federal level. These cuts could result in additional families needing state support for child care. Head Start currently serves more than 10,000 Massachusetts children 0 to 5 years old.
Free bus rides have demonstrated to be a sound investment in our communities. While we acknowledge that more funding is needed to be able make this investment throughout the Commonwealth, we are encouraged to see level funding for fare-free bus programs at the Regional Transit Authorities.
Thanks to Fair Share, the HWM FY 2026 proposal makes significant investments in public education and transportation. However, because of insufficient revenue, it fails to fund other essential areas that support the state’s lowest-income residents. For example, the proposal does not go far enough to address housing needs. Shelter funding was cut while key housing assistance programs were level funded or very slightly increased. A main rehousing tool, HomeBASE, was level funded, but much higher investments are needed to provide access to stable housing for families currently experiencing homelessness.
The proposal also misses opportunities to raise revenue, particularly important during these unprecedented times of federal cuts to the programs that support our most vulnerable populations. In the past two years, we have seen the positive impact that can be made when the wealthiest pay their fair share. It is time for multinational billionaire corporations doing business here to do the same. Now is the time to close the tax loophole that allows billionaire corporations to avoid state taxes by hiding profits in offshore tax havens. The revenue lost to this loophole could be used to address the needs of low- and middle-income families who are currently struggling the most.
In the coming days, MassBudget will issue an analysis of the HWM’s FY 2026 budget proposal.
