Last week, the Mass. House and Senate passed a $1.3 billion spending package and sent it on to Governor Maura Healey, using funds collected under the state's surtax on incomes over $1 million. The spending will be limited to transportation and education initiatives, and much of it will go to the Boston area transit agency, the MBTA. State House News Service reporter Chris Lisinksi explains how western Massachusetts could benefit.
Chris Lisinksi, SHNS: There is plenty of money in this bill for transit and transportation out in western Massachusetts. About $73 million of the bottom line would go toward regional transit initiatives like capital improvements at Regional Transit Authorities, workforce recruitment, and so forth. There's also about $80 million in Chapter 90 [Program funds], which western Massachusetts cities and towns in particular rely on to help fund local road and bridge repairs, given that the more rural parts of the state just have so many more miles of roadways to deal with than those of us out here in the east.
Adam Frenier, NEPM: And another spending bill still pending is a supplemental budget, which was passed by the Senate last week worth more than a half billion dollars. That includes funding for hospitals, rental aid and more. What else ended up added into this legislation?
The biggest addition that the Senate made along the way here was the money for fiscally strained hospitals and community health centers, as you note. The [Mass.] House had taken up lots of this bill through a slightly different vehicle, previously [appropriating] money for Residential Assistance for Families in Transition [or RAFT], and elder care providers.
What they're going to have to do now, is figure out if the House is on board with that additional hospital aid of about $200 million, before the Legislature can get a final version to the governor's desk.
Well, Chris, based on what we've just discussed, it seems like lawmakers have an appetite to pass spending items. But where do things stand on the state budget for the next fiscal year, which, by the way, starts next Tuesday?
Yeah, that's the big question. We usually see lawmakers and the governor around this time of year agree to an interim budget. In inside lingo, it's sometimes called a 1/12 because it usually funds state government for about one more month while negotiations continue.
Lawmakers always take their talks well into the fiscal year. They haven't produced an ‘on time’ budget in more than a decade. This time around, it's going to be even more complicated with the threat of federal cuts. So, my expectation is that we'll get another interim budget. And those private negotiations on the annual spending plan will continue at least into July.
Shifting gears, in Minnesota last weekend, a tragedy took place when the state's top lawmaker and her husband were shot and killed, and another legislator and his wife were severely injured in a separate incident. Among lawmakers in Massachusetts, how have they been reacting to this tragedy?
Yeah, everybody here has been reacting with horror, shock and anger.
Unsurprisingly, many [Mass.] lawmakers say they're now thinking about their own safety in ways they might not have reflected on previously. We haven't seen a ton of tangible changes to state law in response, but there could be some debate in the weeks and months ahead about, for instance, whether Massachusetts should continue to print candidates home addresses on ballots. It seems that Massachusetts is probably the only state that does that. Most other states just use a candidate's hometown or their water precinct on the ballot instead.
Briefly, the idea of banning cell phones in classrooms seems to be gaining some momentum on Beacon Hill. There was a hearing last week where several bills went before a Legislative committee looking to do just that. Could this come to reality?
It's seeming likely. The big question mark at this point is what the House thinks. House Speaker Ron Mariano has not really taken a position on the matter, but Senate President Karen Spilka, Governor Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell have all voiced varying degrees of support for getting cell phones out of classrooms.
