Rep. John Velis
Hello Westfield! Hope you are all having a wonderful Saturday. The past couple of weeks have been real busy with budget season upon us. For fiscal year of 2018, Governor Baker released his budget recommendations in January- now it’s the House’s turn. Typically with the budget there are discussions on how much money should fund different areas and how much money is necessary to do these. When the Governor’s budget is first released, it is released as House Bill 1, which goes to the House Committee on Ways and Means. This committee then reviews the Governor’s budget and develops its own recommendations before sending it to the full House for consideration.
When the budget gets to the House, every representative has the ability to submit budget amendments; these are then debated on the House floor. This is a very busy time for the House of Representatives because this is where my staff and I are constantly working to make sure the concerns and needs of our constituents are addressed in the final budget. All of the submitted amendments are debated on, amended, and voted on by the full House.With over 1,000 amendments- it can take a while! The final House budget bill then moves to the Senate.
The Senate goes through a similar process once the budget is in their hands. The Senate Ways and Means thenreleases their version and Senators can add their two cents by submitting budget amendments. These amendments go through the same procedure as they did when in the House, becoming the final Senate budget bill. There are other forms of earmarks that can be placed on the budget. Amendments are where the line item or amount of money being spent can be changed and discussed. Earmarks are placed on budget proposals in order to spend anexclusive amount of money on explicit areas.
When the budget bill makes its way through Ways and Means, the House, and the Senate, it lands in a conference committee. House and Senate leadership assign three members each to Conference Committee to negotiate the differences between the House and Senate budget bills. Each branch will appoint one member from the minority party to the Conference Committee. The Conference Committee report is only approved or rejected; there are no additional amendments that can be made.
When both chambers of the Legislature approve of the budget, the Governor has ten days to review it. These ten days are where he may approve or veto the entire budget, veto or reduce particular line items/sections, however he cannot add anything. The House and Senate have the ability to override the Governor’s vetoes, requiring a two-thirds roll-call vote in each chamber. The budget is then finalized and commonly referred to as the “General Appropriations Act” for the upcoming fiscal year.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cannot spend more than it receives in revenue during any single year. Unlike the U.S. federal government where there is no balanced budget provision, Massachusetts’ constitution doesn’t allow for an unbalanced budget, and the Commonwealth cannot take on debt. This often means the Governor will make “9c cuts” to the final budget to bring it into balance. It’s certainly a long process, but it’s the one bill that has to pass every year.
As always, please feel free to contact my office with any questions or concerns, and have a great week!
