The Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget was signed into law on August 9th, but four months into the new fiscal year, work remains for administrative and legislative budget writers to close the books on FY 2023. This work – typically marked by the passage of a closeout supplemental budget – is completed…

On August 9th, Governor Healey signed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget; sending back $272 million in gross spending vetoes ($205 million net), amending 8 outside policy sections, and vetoing one policy section. The Governor’s vetoes eliminate the budget’s reliance on $205 million in one-time…

The House and Senate are set to enact a Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget, totaling $56.2 billion. The conference committee report was filed on July 30th, one month after the start of the new fiscal year. This year, separate tax bill negotiations, the new income surtax, and an uncertain FY 2023 revenue…

Three years ago, deliberations on the fiscal year 2021 budget stretched into December while state government grappled with pandemic upheaval. But other than that outlier, overdue budget talks until this year had not stretched past July 23 in more than two decades, according to research from the…

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. “There’s a whole lot that…

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…

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…

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…

Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said while April's revenue numbers are "jarring" they’re "not necessarily surprising given the recognition that capital gains and other collection types were likely to decline sharply from last year’s levels." He said the revenue…