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Moving the Recovery Story Forward: The Fiscal Year 2023 Senate Ways and Means Budget
The Senate Committee on Ways and Means (SWM) released a budget proposal that illustrates again how a state budget can be a powerful tool for advancing equity and improving well-being – as long as policymakers don’t decide to give hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue each year to the wealthiest residents of the Commonwealth.
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We’re Not Out of the Woods Yet
“Yesterday, Senate President Karen Spilka rightfully noted the need to balance “targeted spending investments to a number of crucial areas, such as housing, childcare and higher education” while responding to our state’s current revenue collections. As our analysis shows from the final Fiscal Year 2023 House budget proposal, our Legislature made a great first step in committing our public dollars to closing some equity gaps. We hope the Senate Ways and Means Committee will build on this and make the bold investments needed to further equity in Massachusetts. “Proposed large tax breaks for the very wealthy would harm our long-term ...
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Important Steps Forward: The Fiscal Year 2023 House Budget
The House Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget reflects many of the challenges the state faces moving out of the most acute phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has also taken a first step towards creating a budget that pushes the state towards equity in several important areas.
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House Budget Sets the Stage for Equity in Massachusetts
Statement by Marie-Frances Rivera, President of MassBudget, on the FY 2023 House budget released on April 27, 2022
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Following a Separate Path: House Ways and Means FY2023 Budget Proposal
Compared to the Governor’s budget proposal earlier this year, the HWM budget is an example of what is possible when policymakers choose to focus on important investments in the state’s future rather than on tax cuts for the wealthy.
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HWM’s FY 2023 Budget Proposal Helps Balance the Scales
Statement from MassBudget President Marie-Frances Rivera in response to the House Ways & Means Committee's FY 2023 Budget Proposal
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Housing Funding: ARPA in Massachusetts
The fight for using ARPA dollars for housing is not over! Dollars from the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund – the most flexible pot of COVID relief money provided by the U.S. government – are still available and provide an opportunity to fund housing initiatives that foster a more equitable recovery.
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Health Care in the ARPA Bill: Selected Highlights from Chapter 102 of the Acts of 2021
This report, done in partnership with the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, summarizes key health care funding allocations in this state legislation, which appropriates close to $4 billion, including $2.55 billion in funding directly from ARPA. Chapter 102 invests money from ARPA in many areas, including housing, infrastructure, education, and economic development. Health services received $950 million in the law, with funding for physical health, behavioral health, long-term care services, and public health initiatives. The report provides a high-level overview of state funding allocations in these health and health care related areas and is intended to be an ...
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The Governor’s 2023 Budget Proposal: Last Chance for a Lasting Legacy
Governor Baker submitted his last state budget as Governor of the Commonwealth last week, and this Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget is not all that it might seem on the surface. The Governor describes this budget as one that “prepares Massachusetts for the future,” but it does not present a bold vision. At a glance, his proposed budget and accompanying tax proposals: Fail to address the deep and underlying inequities across the state revealed during the pandemic; Do not tackle the statewide crisis for publicly-funded care workers that will have a long-lasting impact especially on the state’s children, elders, and ...
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FY 2023 Budget: the Good, the Bad, and the Need for New, Sustainable Revenue
Statement from MassBudget President Marie-Frances Rivera in response to the Baker Administration’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Budget Proposal For Immediate Release: January 26, 2022 “As one of the wealthiest states in the nation, Massachusetts has an opportunity to use our state budget to target spending to help support our neighbors who are most in need. However, this budget is not taking advantage of that opportunity. “In today’s FY 2023 state budget proposal, the Baker-Polito Administration recommends tax code changes that give breaks to higher-income Massachusetts residents. These include changes to the estate tax and capital gains tax rates that would ...
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State Budget 101
The state budget is single largest piece of legislation passed each year. It affects every person in the Commonwealth. It also represents the values and vision for what Massachusetts should be. This is an overview of the process of its creation.
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“The ARPA Bill”: Highlights from Chapter 102 of the Acts of 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has created both a health and economic emergencies in Massachusetts. To help address these crises, the bill just signed by the Governor—referred to as “the ARPA bill”—includes close to $4 billion in spending to be used over the course of the next several years. It will support crucial investments in affordable housing, infrastructure projects, local public health, support for the state’s workforce, expansion of mental health services, and more. These costs are funded by about $1.45 billion in funding from unspent FY 2021 revenue (the “surplus”) and about $2.5 billion out of a total of $5.29 billion ...
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New Federal Spending Makes It Crucial to Add State Funds for Education and Transportation
The federal and state governments act as partners to ensure high-quality education and transportation. In response to the COVID pandemic, the federal government has made available billions of one-time dollars for the Commonwealth. Federal funding for transportation and education from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), from other relief bills passed by Congress during the pandemic, and enhanced funding opportunities in the newly signed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) are important but insufficient sources of revenue for the Commonwealth to move beyond the pandemic to a future with equity at its center. ...
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The American Rescue Plan Act and Federal Relief Funds for K-12 Schools in Massachusetts
K-12 Schools During the COVID Crisis Each day, Massachusetts schools continue to persevere through the challenges of the COVID pandemic to teach our young people. The need for unprecedented safety measures, the rapid shift to remote learning, the importance of looking at students’ holistic needs, and the logistics of returning to in person learning, all create significant hurdles for schools to overcome in their vital role of educating young people across our state. Just as not all students need the same support, communities across Massachusetts faced the pandemic from different starting points. Many school districts that have historically been under-resourced ...
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