Some states, like Connecticut and Vermont, have already decided how they'll spend their share of American Rescue Plan Act money. For Massachusetts, about $5 billion of it is still sitting in the state's piggy bank.
States are aiming the funds at economic relief development, education and human services programs, among others.
Matt Murphy of the State House News Service joins us to take look at Beacon Hill lawmakers’ priorities for the ARPA funds.
Matt Murphy, State House News Service: We haven't seen a schedule or a timeline yet, but House Speaker Ron Mariano said last week that he anticipates hearings to begin this month.
Legislators, led by Representative Dan Hunt — chair of the Committee on Federal Stimulus and Census Oversight for the House — and the House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz, are anticipated to be chairing these hearings, and leading the effort to gather input on the House side, along with their Senate counterparts on how different groups, stakeholders, interest groups and lawmakers themselves want to spend this money.
I’m honored @RonMariano has given me the opportunity to serve on the CMTE. Thanks to MAJ Leader Cronin for coordinating w the White House so we can work with @RepMichlewitz to further understand the legislative intent put forward by the Biden-Harris Admin. https://t.co/R0h7XnJoK3
— Dan Hunt (@RepDanHunt) March 25, 2021
Carrie Healy, NEPM: Are lawmakers as passionate as Governor Baker is about funding affordable housing, for example?
Yeah, I would think they would have a lot of the same priorities as the governor.
We have heard housing talked about by lawmakers, including by Rep. Bud Williams of Springfield, who called it a key to unlocking wealth for minorities who have long struggled to keep up with the wealth of their white counterparts in Massachusetts.
I think the recent budget shows that there's also a priority for many lawmakers on spending in education.
The speaker has made creating clean energy jobs a priority, so you may see some efforts there. But there is a lot of money here that can be spread around. The other big question is how fast they will want to spend it, or if they hold on for future years, and how far they spread it out.
Last week, Massachusetts House and Senate negotiators came to an agreement over the 2022 annual state budget, and it's been passed along to the governor. Can you walk us through some of the highlights of the budget that was devised by lawmakers?
The big piece of the compromise was that they revised their revenue projections upward by $4.2 billion. This allowed them to increase bottom-line spending to just over $48 billion for the fiscal year.
They made a huge new deposit in the state's pension fund. They set aside $350 million to fund the Student Opportunity Education Reform Act from 2019, if in future years they have financial difficulties of the funding of this law.
This compromise also makes the film tax credit in Massachusetts permanent.
One feature that was not in the compromise: an increase in fees on Uber and Lyft rides, which was favored by the Senate. But not part of this package.
In crafting this budget, lawmakers increased the anticipated tax revenues of the state, after seeing the pandemic didn't slow down tax collection. Could the resulting decrease in the "over projection" revenue have any ramifications down the line?
If revenues were to fall off and not meet this new projection, as I mentioned, they upgraded by $4.2 billion. What we saw the Legislature do in this proposal is to invest in long-term liabilities that the state has, and to guard against future downturns in revenue they could draw on if revenues slowed down to fund the Student Opportunity Act.
They also canceled all their planned use of the state's rainy day fund. And they're anticipating, with this new revenue, they would make another huge deposit that would push that fund to $5.8 billion by the end of fiscal 2022, which would guard against it, give them a big cushion in future years should tax revenues start to fall off.
