The long-term financial health of Massachusetts is top of mind as state lawmakers contemplate the Senate's version of the budget.
The Massachusetts Senate has put its budget plan on the table for consideration. It's $55.8 billion and joins the House and the governor's proposals.
State House News Service reporter Sam Drysdale has looked at these documents more closely, and highlights some similarities among the three plans.
Sam Drysdale, SHNS: All of them include money for C3 grants, which are child care grants. They differ a little bit in how much money is going towards those grants and where that money is coming from. But the Healey administration, the House and the Senate have baked those in. Those are pretty new spending items. They've baked those into the budget for next year, identifying those early child care grants as a priority.
They've also all included $20 million for one of Gov. Healey's priorities, which is this MassReconnect program, which would provide last-dollar funding for students to go back to community college if they're over age 25 and don't already have a college degree in the state.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: So the funded items in the House and Senate versions are the ones more likely to become the basis for a compromise budget. Can you remind me what initiatives Healey funded in her plan that didn't appear in the House and Senate budget, and are now likely not to be seen again?
One of her priorities was a tuition lock, which would have locked in the same tuition for any student going to a public university or college in Massachusetts at the same tuition that they paid their first year. It was praised by UMass officials, but neither the Senate nor the House included that in their final versions of the budget. So she probably shouldn't expect that to get to her desk via the budget bill.
And she had valued that at, what, $59 million?
Yeah.
And so, what do you see as some of the major differences between now the House and the Senate versions?
One of the main differences, something that has come up a lot over the past year or so, is this iLottery. The House has been more in favor of taking the state lottery and putting it online, especially now that mobile sports betting is legal in the state. They say that money is going toward sports betting, that could be instead going back to the state, which would then contribute to local programs via the lottery.
But the Senate has historically been a little bit more cautious about creating new gaming markets, and they didn't include that in their budget. And the budget chief in the Senate, Michael Rodrigues, he said that it hadn't been vetted properly yet. So that's going to be a major cause of negotiation as they continue down the budget process.
And continuing down the budget process, what is next for the Senate budget?
This upcoming week, Senators will have a chance to read through the budget and then it'll hit the floor for debate on May 23, next week.
Sam, you also reported on the Constitutional Convention that happened on May 10th. Briefly, can you remind us of what the purpose of the Constitutional Convention is and what came of that?
The Constitutional Convention is a process that happens every session for people to be able to amend the Constitution. So, on May 10, it was a pretty quick session. They gaveled in and out in about four minutes.
They legally, within the Constitution, have to open the Constitutional Convention by May 10. So that was the beginning of that process. They gaveled out and they recessed until October 11. So, in the fall, they'll take that convention back up and begin to examine the nine possible amendments to the Constitution that have been proposed.
