In Massachusetts, which has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 17.4 percent, the pool of money that funds unemployment benefits has already gone into the red by more than $350 million, said Eileen McAnneny, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The state is…

"There's really no money for projects," said Eileen McAnneny, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "The Legislature is facing a what we've estimated to be a $6 billion shortfall, and they will be forced to make drastic cuts to existing programs if federal assistance doesn't come…

"There's so much up in the air right now," said Eileen McAnneny, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "This will provide some stability for the state and local governments while they wait for details of a federal aid package."

“I’m not sure what the magic of the three months is,” Eileen McAnneny, president of the Taxpayers Foundation, said of the interim budget. “It provides some of the folks who are getting the money at least some certainty in the short term. But it doesn’t allow for full year planning.”

Any sort of budget debate without knowing the level of help from the federal government would be only a hypothetical exercise, said Eileen McAnneny, president of the taxpayers foundation. And Brooke Thomson, head of government affairs at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said her group is…

“These lower appropriation levels address the need for continuing government operations while adjusting for lower tax revenue collections, but even this reduced spending could prove to be overly optimistic should federal assistance levels fall short, the economic recovery is delayed or…

On June 19, Governor Baker filed H. 4806, a one month, $5.25 billion spending authorization to keep the government operational through July 31 that the legislature has since enacted. In this interim budget, the guidance indicates that for each account, spending will be the lower of the FY 20 GAA…

Unlike Congress, state lawmakers need to pass a balanced budget every year. Money is tight, to say the least: The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation recently estimated that state tax revenue in the next fiscal year will drop by $6 billion, or nearly 20 percent, from what state officials…

In its updated economic outlook released in late May, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a leading Beacon Hill watchdog organization, already predicted the state could face a roughly $6 billion budget shortfall this year.

MTF projected before the pandemic hit that the state faced a revenue shortfall of up to $800 million this fiscal year. Even then, the Beacon Hill watchdog group suggested putting off the phase-in of the Student Opportunity Act or hold off spending in other parts of the budget. Since the pandemic…