State revenues including surtax collections need to increase 5.7 percent over the fiscal 2023 total to hit the fiscal 2024 benchmark, according to Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Five months in, the growth so far has been only a single percentage point, well below…

Tax revenues for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 and FY 2025 settle into a post-COVID pattern of lower growth as the economy slows, impacts from migration and an aging population emerge (Appendix A), and tax reforms take effect. Excluding revenues related to the four percent surtax on income over $1 million…

That’s actually a conservative number. According to revenue forecasts prepared by the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, when excluding the surtax takings, the state will end the fiscal year close to $880 million shy of its own revenue predictions.

On October 19th, the Healey administration announced its plan to pursue the federal funding opportunities available through the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act (IIJA), Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors Act (CHIPS). The proposal would…

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…