The longer the state goes without a plan in place, the more it impacts the ability to implement new programs or expand existing ones, said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and former senior policy advisor to Senate President Karen Spilka.
Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 is just over two weeks away and House and Senate budget negotiators are in the process of reconciling countless spending, policy, and technical differences between the two bills. This year, the always complex budget negotiation process is further complicated by separate tax bill negotiations and the need to significantly are down surtax spending proposals to fit within the $1 billion spending cap.
After four days of debate, the Senate finalized its $55.9 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget; adding $82.2 million in new spending and 34 outside policy sections.
The Senate took action on 1,049 amendments through a combination of standalone votes and amendment ‘bundles,’ which categorically approve or reject many amendments at once. In total, 478 amendments were adopted, 415 were rejected, and 156 were withdrawn from consideration. This brief summarizes Senate debate action and assesses the new spending and policy proposals.
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget process reached another milestone today with the release of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means (SWM) budget proposal. The $55.9 billion SWM spending plan differs from earlier proposals as it was not released in conjuncture with a tax reform bill. However, the SWM budget does set aside $575 million for the first-year costs of a tax policy bill the Senate plans to take up later this session.
That includes a drop in capital gains collections this year after they were “just through the roof” over the past two years and the likelihood that pass-through-entities would claim credits owed to them by the state, which in turn lowered how much they paid, said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
As far as revenue projections used by Gov. Maura Healey and House leaders to craft the state budget, Howgate said those assumptions “remain reasonable.”
The House finalized its $54.9 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget this week after adding $129.7 million in spending over the course of three days of debate.
The House took action on 1,566 amendments through a combination of 7 consolidated amendments and 3 separate votes. Some form of at least 773 amendments were adopted; 745 added new spending, 25 added or amended policy sections or budget language, and 3 included a combination of both. This brief summarizes the House debate action and assesses the new spending and policy proposals.
The next major step in the FY 2024 budget development process began today with the release of the House Committee on Ways and Mean’s (HWM) budget proposal. Coming just six weeks after Governor Healey filed her administration’s inaugural budget, the $54.8 billion HWM spending plan makes significant investments in education, transportation, and the state’s workforce pipeline.
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