Greetings Westfield! May is here and with it brings the promise of good weather. This past week was budget week for those of us in the House of Representatives, where my colleagues and I worked out a $38 billion budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in July. Many constituents reached out to my office asking me to support various amendments filed by my colleagues, and it was really exciting to see how involved people were in the process. This was a difficult budget to create, given this tough time of economic uncertainty, and the entire House went into the week with an understanding that there wasn’t a lot of money to allocate for all of the programs and services that each Representative wanted to fight for. We knew we had to work together to make ends meet. In the end, this budget was about compromise, and we were able to unanimously pass a budget package.
The $38 billion includes no new taxes or fees and reduces reliance on one time revenue sources. For the first time since 2007, it does not withdraw any funds from the Commonwealth’s stabilization fund, leaving the balance in excess of $1 billion. There are great investments made to education and other important areas like behavioral health. We also allocated funds to cut down on homelessness throughout the entire state, with a good portion of that money coming back to the Pioneer Valley and all of western Mass.
While many people understand what the House went through this past week, the budget process is a lengthy one and can get tricky. Though this budget passed unanimously in the House of Representatives, there is still a long way to go before the product is finalized.
Like all things in government, there is a process that must be followed when creating the state budget. There is a simplified, interactive graphic on the state legislature’s website that anyone can look at to see the timeline, but this oversimplifies a process that a lot of people work tirelessly on to get just right. It also does not even remotely portray all of the good work that legislators and advocacy groups do to fight for programs and services they care about.
The budget process begins with the Governor and his team. In January of each year, the Governor sends out workbooks to the various agencies and departments operating on state funds. These workbooks are completed by budget specialists at each agency who submit a request for funding for the upcoming fiscal year based on operating expenses and revenues from prior years. This information is returned to the Governor, where it is analyzed by his own budget specialists. This generally happens in January of each year- the exception is when a new Governor is elected, in which case they are given a longer period to compile their budget.
In addition to the workbooks that represent financing for these agencies, the Governor compiles projections for funding based on his administration’s priorities. Specific to Governor Baker’s situation, priorities include increasing funding to cities and towns through local aid. There is also an explanation of revenue sources. The Governor promised to not raise or create any taxes or fees, and his budget made good on that promise.
The Governor takes all of this information and compiles it into one budget book. This shows the people of the Commonwealth the priorities of the administration, as well as funding to services and programs that may have been cut. Cuts are a big concern each year, but are even more threatening in this particular budget cycle. Coming off of a series of 9C cuts and budget deficits, the administration had to make some difficult decisions. The common theme across the Governor’s budget this year was level funding, meaning that agencies, departments, programs, and services were often allocated the same amount of money for the upcoming year as they are currently operating with. For many programs and services, this comes as a loss. Any new programs that were planned will not be able to launch, but also, costs of operation generally rise each year.
The Governor’s budget was released the first Wednesday in March. Upon its release, the legislature prepares its upcoming work on its own version. The budget comes to the House of Representatives next, and more specifically, to the House Committee on Ways & Means. This committee, led by Chairman Brian Dempsey, controls all of the state’s financial matters. The Chairman and his staff undergo the same process as the Governor: they send out workbooks and see the same information regarding funding for departments and agencies. The Ways and Means committee has its own budget analysts who put help determine where funding is needed and how revenue will be brought in to support it.
During this time, each Representative is given ample opportunity to meet with the Chairman and express his or her priorities for the budget. Here, we are given one on one time with the Chairman to fight for the programs and services that benefit our constituents. The budget emerges from Ways and Means in mid-April, and we immediately look to see if our priorities were included. On April 15th, the House budget was released. On April 17th, amendments were due. Over one thousand amendments were submitted by my colleagues and me, on all sorts of programs and services. The next week, the clerks and the Ways and Means team sorted through these amendments, consolidating similar ones, and organizing them into categories.
It is then our task to vote on these amendments as a body. As mentioned before, my colleagues and I went into this week with the understanding that this would be a difficult budget to produce. While we all have programs we wish we could fund, we also do not want to raise any taxes or fees on the already overburdened taxpayer. There are, however, several areas that we all agree should receive funding, which was evident from the final product. Those areas were education, local aid, behavioral health and the opioid crisis, as well as programs and services to citizens with developmental disabilities and to ending homelessness in the Commonwealth. I was also overjoyed to be able to get two amendments into the budget for funding to Westfield- one for the construction of the entryway to Noble hospital to make is ADA approved and handicap accessible, and the other in support of downtown businesses through a grant to Westfield on Weekends. We also voted to take the surcharge offense out of the new headlight law.
The budget now goes to the Senate, where they will undergo a similar process as we did this past week. Their Ways and Means committee will produce its own budget, funding priorities as they see fit. Their budget will be released, and the members of the Senate will have the ability to file amendments to fund programs and services. The Senate will debate and eventually vote on the amended budget bill. When the budget is passed in the Senate, it will then go to a conference committee, where three members of the Senate along with three members of the House will work to find a compromise between the two bills that satisfies both branches.
The budget will then go to each branch to be voted on. Upon passage, it will go to the Governor for his review. At this point, he can make changes such as to veto the budget, veto line items, or reduce funding. The Governor has ten days to review and make any changes. After this time, the budget goes back once more to the legislature, where any changes made by the Governor can be overridden by a two thirds vote in both branches, starting with the house. If there are no overrides to be made, the budget is approved and finalized.
This is an extremely lengthy and particular process. If you have questions about the budget process, or any funding or line items in the budget, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Have a great weekend!
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not the staff, editor, or publisher of this publication.
