By Chris Lisinski, CommonWealth Beacon, February 7, 2026
DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK, there’s either a sea change underway in how Beacon Hill thinks about the billions of dollars now flowing into state coffers from the state surtax on high earners, or simply a natural evolution in thinking as budgeting grows more challenging.
In 2022, when voters approved the added levy on income over $1 million, backers of the so-called millionaires tax pitched it as a way to fund new programs in education and transportation. But a few years later, the approach is changing.
The annual budget bill Gov. Maura Healey unveiled last week plus a companion proposal would together spend nearly $4 billion collected from the surtax. And for the second year in a row, hundreds of millions of those dollars would go not toward brand new programs or one-time expansions, but perennial investments like MBTA support or state aid for K-12 schools.
MassBudget Reference:
Viviana Abreu-Hernandez, president of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said she does not have “a philosophical problem” with the millionaires tax funding school aid increases, given that the money is designed to improve education. Like the MTA, MassBudget supported the surtax before its passage.
Read the full article here on CommonWealth Beacon and here on The Local News Ipswich.
