Updated as of 8/5/2024
Sources: State House News Service, Rasky Partners, other sources
Massachusetts government is funded on a fiscal year basis. Fiscal Year 2025 runs from July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025. This page will give you updates on the FY2025 budget process. This page lists newest actions first.
Sources: Rasky Partners, State House News Service, MassTaxpayers Foundation and other sources
| Governor Signs FY2025 Budget on July 29, 2024 |
Governor Healey and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll Sign $57.78 Billion Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Information on Governor's Budget Vetoes, from Mass Taxpayers Foundation Includes $1 Million for Dam Safety Technical Assistance to address vulnerable dams. $2.8 Million to fund critical work on culverts and small bridges.
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Budget sent to Governor's desk |
Initial highlights: MBTA ($447 million) including millions of dollars for an “MBTA Academy” to help with workforce training. - this is still hundreds of millions of dollars shy of what the MBTA would need to balance its budget without digging into savings accounts. Senate leaders get $117.5 million to make community college free for residents across the state, a top priority of Senate President Karen Spilka. Students will be able to benefit starting this fall. And the Senate's proposal for fare-free Regional Transit Authorities made it into the compromise bill. The Legislature favored education in splitting the $1.3 billion in revenue from the so-called millionaires tax. The spending bill steers 58.5 percent ($762 million) toward education and 41.5 percent ($538 million) toward transportation — a more for education-heavy split than either chamber initially called for.
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Budget Negotiators Have "Agreement In Principle" |
House and Senate negotiators have reached agreements on a budget for fiscal year 2025. Seventeen days after the start of fiscal year 2025, the conference committee negotiating the general budget bill picked up the paperwork needed to file a final deal around 3:30 pm on July 17. Shortly afterwards, the top negotiators confirmed an "agreement in principle." Stay tuned. |
| House and Senate form Conference Committee |
House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz and Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues will lead the conference committee that will include other House conferees Rep. Todd Smola and Ways and Means Vice Chair Ann-Margaret Ferrante and other Senate conferees are Senate Ways and Means Vice Chair Cindy Friedman and Sen. Patrick O'Connor. They held their first meeting on June 5, 2024, |
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Senate completes Budget Debate in early morning hours of May 24, 2024 Senate FY2025 Budget Debate Link, as final version is not yet posted |
The Massachusetts Senate voted 40-0 vote to pass its budget early on Friday, May 24 in the morning, Ways and Means chairs Sen. Michael Rodrigues and Rep. Aaron Michlewitz will have about five weeks to iron out the differences between the House's $58 billion budget and the Senate's "$57.999 billion" spending package before fiscal 2025 starts July 1. Legislative leaders are expected to name a conference committee, chaired by the Ways & Means chairs, in the next few days. Mass. Taxpayers Foundation of Senate analysis of FY2025 budget: https://www.masstaxpayers.org/sites/default/files/publications/2024-05/MTF%20Brief%20-%20Senate%20Final%20Budget.pdf |
| Senate Budget Debate Underway as of 5/21/24 |
The Massachusetts State Senate is working through 1100 amendments to the proposed FY2025 during this week. Amendments are being handled in groups. More on amendments here: https://malegislature.gov/Budget/FY2025/SenateDebate
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Senate Ways and Means Files FY2025 Budget Proposal
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Senate President Karen Spilka and Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues released the Senate's Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget proposal on May 7, 2024. We'll provide more information on this page soon. |
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House finishes budget debate on April 26, 2024 House budget approved on April 29
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The Massachusetts House voted 153-4 late on April 26 to pass a $58B fiscal 2025 budget that invests in K-12 education, child care and public transit, shifting debate on spending priorities to the Senate. House Democrats were united in their support of the bill while there were divisions within the 25-member House Republican caucus, where four members voted against the budget. The budget does not call for tax increases, seeks to push overall state spending up by about 3.3 percent, or $2 billion, and aims to drive up the state rainy day fund balance to nearly $9 billion. The vote came after three days of behind the scenes deliberations where representatives hammered out details of more than a half dozen mega-amendments that added roughly $100 million to the bill. The Senate Committee on Ways and Means is expected to release its budget proposal in mid-May. The Senate usually debates its budget bill before Memorial Day weekend. |
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House Budget Debate Begins April 24, 2024 |
On April 24, the House passed its first mega-amendment, "Consolidated Amendment A" of the fiscal 2025 budget debate, adding $20 million for accounts dealing with education and local aid, social services and veterans. The vast majority of the additional spending is made up of earmarks for education and local aid, including $150,000 for security upgrades for Brockton public schools, $200,000 for mental health services in Braintree public schools, $300,000 for Friends of the Children Boston for the expansion of the professional K-12 youth mentorship program $50,000 to the Essex County Community Foundation for Haverhill Promise’s efforts to expand early literacy, and other local earmarks. The amendment adds $500,000 for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to use to develop curriculum materials related to the history of genocide and professional development training for educators in the teaching of genocide. Jewish and Muslim parents and community members have appealed to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education at recent meetings to better educate students on antisemitism, Islamophobia and genocide related to the ongoing war in Gaza. Approved 156-0, the amendment also requires DESE to study the impacts of layoff requirements on teacher diversity in the state, and put together a set of recommendations to the Joint Committee on Education to address disproportionate layoffs for teachers of color. When the House recessed at 4:30 p.m., five hours after the budget bill was introduced, representatives had dealt with nearly a quarter (352) of the 1,495 amendments. The first mega-amendment took care of 288 education or local aid amendments, 61 other amendments had been withdrawn by their sponsors, two were adopted Wednesday afternoon and one was rejected. Budget debate continues on April 25. |
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House Ways and Means Committee Budget Proposal Released on April 10, 2024 |
The Massachusetts House Committee on Ways and Means released its FY2025 budget proposal on April 10. The FY25 budget is based on projected revenue of $40.202B, which represents a 2% increase over the previously lowered estimate for FY24. In January 2024, Governor Healey reduced the FY24 benchmark by approximately $1B due to slowing revenue growth. Last week, the Department of Revenue (DOR) reported that tax revenue collections for the month of March were 3.3% above projections. Through the first nine months of FY24, however, revenues remain $145M below the year-to-date benchmark. In a statement issued April 9, Speaker Mariano highlighted public transportation as a priority in the House budget proposal. The proposal is expected to feature record investment in the MBTA and regional transit authorities, including a total of $555 million for the MBTA. In addition to $314 million for the MBTA's operating budget proposed in Governor Healey's budget, the House budget will include $75Mn for capital infrastructure investments, $65 million for safety repairs and maintenance, and additional funding for new MBTA workforce training and climate resiliency programs. With the release of the House Ways and Means budget today, House members will have until 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12 to file amendments. Debate will formally begin on April 24. The House plan does not call for any major tax hikes or draw from the state's long-term "rainy day" savings account, whose balance could surpass $9B by July 2025 under the House's latest projection. Instead, House Democrats moved to embrace a variety of other revenue sources to fund the spending growth. Their budget uses about $1.03B in one-time money, including $300M from a fund lawmakers created years ago to help with implementation of the Student Opportunity Act, $200M from a similar early education and care fund and $79.5M in redirected revenues from legal gambling. Like Healey sought to do in her plan, the House budget would also allow up to $375M in "excess" capital gains tax revenues - should they materialize - to be spent instead of automatically stashed into savings. Representatives will also consider nearly $300M in new, recurring sources of money, including legalization of online Lottery sales that they estimate will generate $100M per year. Healey also supports allowing the Lottery to sell its products online, but the idea has failed to generate traction in the Senate in the past. |
| Closer Look at the FY 2025 Budget published by Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation |
On February 24, 2024, MTF published its latest Closer Look at the FY 2025 Budget, with analysis of surtax revenue in Governor Healey’s proposal. This latest publication summarizes Governor Healey’s recommendations for education and transportation spending, provides a refresher on how surtax revenues are used in the budget, and poses several key surtax-related questions for policymakers https://www.masstaxpayers.org/fiscal-year-2025-budget-surtax-spending |
Governor Healey Files FY2025 BudgetFair Share Investments in Education &
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Governor Healey, joined by Lt. Governor Driscoll and the members of her cabinet, unveiled her FY25 budget proposal on January 24, 2024. The proposal totals $58.15 billion in spending, which is $2.07 billion or 3.7% more in spending compared to the FY24 budget she signed. Excluding the use of income surtax revenues that are specifically earmarked for education and transportation, the budget proposes about $56.1 billion in spending, an increase of 2.9 percent over last year. Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said the non-surtax spending growth rate is about half as much as the typical increase over the past five years and is slightly less than inflation. With the expectation that there will be little revenue growth, Healey's team balanced their plan by trimming $450 million from various line items, proposes preventing about half a billion dollars in other spending growth, and deploying $1.25 billion other available state resources. The bill does not propose any new tax increases to generate additional revenue, nor does it recommend tapping into the state's more than $8 billion "rainy day" savings account. Among a few new funding sources proposed in the budget, one is what officials call a one-time “tax amnesty” program that could generate $75 million. The other new funding sources include $100 million in redirected casino gaming revenue and $75 million in projected revenue from authorizing online Lottery sales. One new fund the proposal would create is a “Disaster Relief and Resiliency Fund”. The bill does not include seed money for the fund, instead proposing to automatically deposit 10 percent of excess capital gains tax revenues each year in addition to other sources like federal grants. The bill proposes $127 million more in state operating assistance to the MBTA. It would also use surtax funding to backstop $1.1 billion in new transportation-related borrowing capacity. Gorzkowicz said that move could steer $300 million in bonds to help the MBTA fix tracks and eliminate slow zones in fiscal 2025, and $800 million for other T and Department of Transportation capital projects in the next five years. Other highlights from the budget include another year of funding free school meals for all students, using $170 million in surtax revenue, and $475 million in Commonwealth Cares for Children grants to early education and care providers funded partly via the additional levy on high-earning households. MassReconnect, the program covering unmet community college costs for certain eligible adults that the state launched last year, would get $24 million in Healey's budget, representing a $4 million increase. |
Governor Healey Gets Ready to File FY2025 Budget Proposal |
Governor Healey is filing her Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget proposal on January 24. I will add the link to the budget page when it is posted. The filing of the Governor's budget comes during a period of slowing revenue growth in Massachusetts. The proposal also comes just weeks after the Governor initiated $375M in spending cuts and lowered the revenue estimate by $1B for FY24. The FY25 budget will be based on a revenue forecast of $40.202B, which represents a 2% increase over the revised estimate for FY24. Neither estimate includes revenues from the State's new surtax on income over $1M, which is projected to bring in between $1.7 and $2.1B in FY25. Despite slowing revenues, both the Governor and legislative leaders have rejected the prospect of raising taxes as part of the consideration of the FY25 budget.
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Governor Healey Resets Budget Outlook With Spending Cuts, Downgraded Forecast |
Includes Plan to Cut $375M from FY2024 Budget |
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