The Massachusetts House and Senate agreed on Wednesday to a $41.88 billion budget deal for the fiscal year that began on July 1. The compromise spending plan is 17 days overdue.
The accord is the product of a six-member conference committee, helmed by the Ways and Means Chairs Sen. Karen Spilka and Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, which began its talks on June 7. A $5 billion interim budget passed in late June has kept the state government and its services running while the panel hashed out its differences.
"The $41.88B Conference Report honors our commitment to programs that improve the lives of people across Massachusetts," Spilka and Sanchez said in a joint statement. "Together, we have agreed on a budget that meets people where they are in their lives, supports the most vulnerable amongst us, and ensures our economy grows for the benefit of all residents. It also reflects our continued belief that we have a responsibility to be careful stewards of taxpayer dollars, directing a significant deposit into our stabilization fund to bring the total amount over $2 billion by the end of Fiscal Year 2019."
The deal does not include Senate-backed language that sought to restrict local authorities' cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. That measure was the subject of fierce lobbying by immigrants and activists opposed to a Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigration.
Massachusetts stands alone as the only statein the country without a full budget in place for the current fiscal year.
The House and Senate budgets were similar in their bottom lines but differed on individual line items, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, which tallied the House's budget at $41.515 billion and the Senate at $41.494 billion.
There were more than $500 million in line-item spending differences between the two budgets, along with 185 non-spending policy initiatives from the Senate and 109 from the House, according to the Foundation.
Votes in each branch are needed to accept the deal and then again to send it to Gov. Charlie Baker's desk. The governor will have 10 days to review it and issue any vetoes or amendments.
The budget's late arrival has complicated work on other bills. Lawmakers have less than two weeks to finish writing major bills and address other important items, including consumer data protections, short-term rental regulation and taxation, health care, education funding, environmental spending, animal welfare, veterans benefits, civics education, automatic voter registration and clean energy. If the Legislature gets a budget to Baker soon, they'll preserve a short window at the end of the month to consider line-item spending vetoes and budget amendments.
This report was originally published by State House News Service.
