Latest news with #Michlewitz
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
House joins Healey in pressing forward on spending
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, APRIL 16, Democrats will push for a significant increase in state spending after months of voicing discomfort about federal funding uncertainty and economic upheaval. The House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday will roll out a $61.4 billion annual budget for fiscal year 2026, a plan whose combined traditional and wealth surtax spending is about 6.4% higher than the budget Gov. Maura Healey signed last summer. Lawmakers traditionally add spending to the budget through the amendment process, which will unfold when the House takes up the proposal during the week of April 28. Beacon Hill has been wracked with angst for months about President Donald Trump's dramatic efforts to cut federal spending, which could whittle away significant dollars that flow toward state governments. Healey previously estimated that federal revenue would contribute about $16 billion toward her budget plan. House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz said representatives 'feel confident' that they can sustain spending growth at more than twice the rate of the prior year. 'In some respects, there's greater need, like in food insecurity and places like that. I think our budget is balanced, it's responsible,' Michlewitz told reporters. 'We feel that it provides the services that are necessary in these times, which is unprecedented in terms of the chaos that we're dealing with from not having a reliable partner on the federal side of things.' The House budget is the first major state spending plan for next year to emerge after Trump and Republicans moved to significantly overhaul federal funding. While the bottom line may grow during House budget debate, mostly through mega-amendments constructed in private that steer millions of dollars to local earmarks, the House Ways and Means Committee draft starts nearly $600 million lower than Healey's plan. Michlewitz said with a slightly smaller bottom line than Healey proposed, the House budget would enable the state to be able to better respond to federal cuts that might materialize. 'The aggressive actions of the new administration in Washington, particularly around tariffs, will only drive prices up and will further put pressure on both the state's fiscal outlook and people's wallets,' Michlewitz said. 'A trade war on top of unilateral funding freezes and a general sense of chaos emulating out of our nation's capital leads to major challenges towards constructing a budget, to say the least. The worst-case scenario for a budget writer is uncertainty. When faced with cuts, we know where we can cut. When faced with a surplus, we know what we can add. But not knowing what the future will bring means that we have to plan for anything and everything.' The House Ways and Means budget redraft omits a series of new taxes and tax increases Healey proposed in her version, including a charitable donation cap and a tax on prescription drug manufacturers for excessive price increases, together worth an estimated $471 million in revenue. The panel matched Healey's proposal to draw about $1.6 billion from one-time sources to pay for spending increases, including an idea to redirect more than half a billion dollars in capital gains tax collections that normally would be deposited into the state's long-term savings account. Some of the spending growth would be driven by the voter-approved surtax on wealthy households. In the fiscal 2025 spending plan, lawmakers and Healey agreed to use $1.3 billion in revenue from that source; in fiscal 2026, that would rise to $1.95 billion. Surtax dollars in the House budget would continue to fund free school meals for all students, early education grants, and free community college. They would also contribute to a significant increase in funding for the MBTA -- the House proposes a total of $687 million for T operating costs -- at a time when the transit agency faces a major funding gap that could imperil recent service improvements. The largest area of spending remains MassHealth, which combines Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program under one umbrella. House Democrats proposed $22.43 billion for the program, a $2.36 billion increase over last year's budget. Much of that money is traditionally reimbursed by the federal government, but Republicans in Washington, D.C. are seriously considering deep Medicaid spending cuts in part to fulfill their tax relief goals. House Democrats packed their plan with several noteworthy policy riders. The bill would expand the duration of a pilot program at the Massachusetts Health Connector from two years to three years, and raise the eligibility threshold for subsidized ConnectorCare coverage from 300% of the federal poverty level to 500%. Michlewitz and House Speaker Ron Mariano now also appear to be on board with limiting the impact of broker fees on renters, an idea that House Democrats killed during negotiations with the Senate on a housing bond bill last year. The House budget would prohibit a real estate broker from charging a tenant or prospective tenant for finding an apartment if the renter did not initiate use of the broker's services. Mariano said the measure would ensure 'that the party who hires the broker ultimately pays the fee.' 'While shifting the burden of those fees is only one facet of our effort to bring down the cost of renting here in the commonwealth, the fees are simply unfair,' Mariano said. 'It's an unfair cost for renters who do not contract a broker and therefore should not have that as a responsibility.' Representatives outlined significant changes to education funding and policy compared to Healey's budget, calling for a minimum school aid amount of $150 per student, compared to $75 per student in Healey's budget, and moving to block any changes to vocational school admissions policies for at least a year. Their budget also seeks a cut in funding for the emergency assistance shelter program, which for much of Healey's term has been crushed by soaring demand. Lawmakers and Healey have agreed to several additional rounds of dollars to the program, pushing the annual cost close to $1 billion, while implementing reforms designed to cut eligibility, length of stay and caseloads. The House budget -- rolled out as the Healey administration said current caseloads in shelters dropped below 5,000 for the first time in nearly two years -- would fund the program at $275 million in fiscal 2026. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Taxes still on table as House prepares budget unveiling
BOSTON (SHNS) – The House budget chief declined Monday to rule out tax increases as he prepared to roll out a budget plan. A week before releasing a redraft of Gov. Maura Healey's $62 billion fiscal 2026 budget, House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz initially dodged the tax question but then said taxes remain on the table. 'Certainly everything's still on the table for conversation,' he said, after initially telling reporters outside his office that 'you'll hear more about that in the coming days' when asked about tax changes in the budget. 'We're trying to build a budget that is fiscally sound and also allows us to be able to pivot if necessary based off a lot of these challenges that we're seeing from the federal government, from a financial standpoint a lot of uncertainty,' Michlewitz added. 'And then certainly with this tariff situation, top down with the affordability crisis that we're facing, we certainly are taking that all into consideration.' Healey's budget was up for a public hearing in Attleboro on Monday and its final hearing is planned for Tuesday. Michlewitz said he wanted to wait for the hearings to wrap up before making final determinations on taxes. 'Once that happens, you'll hear more of those conversations,' he said. House Speaker Ronald Mariano in late March said House Democrats would not adopt Healey's plan to add new taxes on prescription drugs, appearing to take off the table more than $200 million in proposed levies. He also indicated the House would likely not pursue Healey's idea to apply the sales tax to candy. Raise Up Massachusetts, the coalition behind the income surtax on wealthy households that voters approved in 2022, is lobbying this year for a 'corporate fair share' tax package that would target businesses that use 'offshore tax havens' to steer profits overseas. Taxing these corporations the same way that other states do could yield hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding for Massachusetts, according to the coalition. Michlewitz said estimated tax returns and non-withholding tax data in recent months suggest another income surtax surplus tied to fiscal 2025 is in the works. 'We will probably have a good amount of surplus next year based off how the numbers are coming in so far,' he said. 'We won't know those finalized until summertime, or some point.' With financial markets tanking on news of President Donald Trump's efforts to reshape global trade through tariffs, some analysts say budgetary support from the surtax and capital gains taxes will dry up and believe lawmakers need to immediately write down tax revenue estimates for the budgets they are about to debate. 'It's hard to predict,' Michlewitz said. 'Obviously the unpredictability and kind of the fluidness that's going on right now within the federal government is going to cause a lot of concern, and if that changes anything we'll have to react to it.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Expert offers tips for budgeting on 'roller coaster ride'
BOSTON (SHNS) – One of the economic experts most often relied upon by Beacon Hill's budget managers recommended Thursday that the Legislature and administration develop a strategy to digest and respond to federal government shifts, and to do so in a way that relates closely to the ongoing state budget process. Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate said he thinks it's still too early to be thinking about potential changes revenue assumptions being used to build the roughly $62 billion state budget for fiscal year 2026, which starts July 1. But he urged lawmakers at a hearing of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means to work with Gov. Maura Healey's team to coordinate a state response to the flurry of changes President Donald Trump has made or says he will make, many of which could significantly affect state spending plans. 'So much has happened. We don't know what the impacts are going to be, and we don't know what's going to happen. And so how does the state respond to that when we know that the resources available to us — whether it's financial resources, time, process — they're all limited, right? It's critically important that we create, I think, an approach across the administration, House and Senate, that allows us to collect information, assess options and coordinate a response,' he said. 'And I think it's critically important that as that exercise obviously takes into account how we listen to our communities, constituents, fellow members, but it also needs to reside pretty closely to budget decisions. At the end of the day, so much of what is going to be coming down the pike related to whatever the feds do or don't do, whatever happens to the economy, is going to be intertwined with the budget.' Trump has moved quickly in his second term to reshape the federal government and its budget, making or planning steps that could force Massachusetts officials to rethink the state's plans. Two weeks before House Democrats are due to release their rewrite of Healey's budget (H 1), there'ss significant uncertainty around the future of Medicaid funding and other federal programs that are critical to the state budget. Medicaid reimbursements account for the majority of the $16 billion of federal dollars baked into the governor's budget. Senate Ways and Means Chairman Sen. Michael Rodrigues, who gets about a month longer than House chairman Rep. Aaron Michlewitz before he needs to unveil his committee's proposal for fiscal 2026, asked Howgate during a hearing on spending surplus surtax revenues whether he and Michlewitz should 'be reconsidering what we had proposed for FY '26 given the actions of the president.' Rodrigues, Michlewitz and Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz agreed in January to build the fiscal 2026 budget on a $43.614 billion consensus revenue estimate, including $2.4 billion expected from the state's surtax on high earners. Howgate said his answer would be 'a provisional no' given where the state is in its budget development. 'The question is, if you were to make different assumptions now, what would that be based on? And would they be better than the assumptions you'll make in May or June once you see some of those numbers? And my gut is the answer to that is probably no,' he explained. 'Now, setting correct expectations for folks that this stuff may not be written in pen right now, and we may need to make some serious adjustments — just as both chairs made in 2020, when I think you took the appropriate action in terms of adjusting the budget, adjusting the timeline, in light of circumstances. We're not in that world right now, but folks need to know that when stuff changes, we have to adapt as well. I think that needs to be out there, but I don't know that you would have better information to make informed adjustments right now compared to a little later in the process.' Responding to broad questions about Trump's economic policy from House Vice Chair Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, Howgate detailed what he's watching for from D.C. He said he expects to know what the federal budget will look like and the fate of tax cut extensions by July, but that it will be harder for the state to anticipate or plan for administrative changes or shifts in economic conditions. 'You can only kind of plan for the information you have. And so that's why I do think, as you think about the actions that the House, Senate, [and] administration are taking, keying in on the Congressional budget process and the tax cuts extension, along with what's going on in the stock market and what's going on with the economy, those are the three things we can best track day to day to day, because I think we're gonna have to hedge quite a bit for federal policy uncertainty that's going to continue to be, I'm sure, quite a roller coaster ride for the next three plus years.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Healey deputies respond to House shelter inquiry
BOSTON (SHNS) – The Healey administration provided House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz with a trove of information and documents about the state's emergency assistance system and Gov. Maura Healey's proposed reforms, but the detailed letter did not answer some of the chairman's pressing questions, including about the amount by which her plan would 'bring down the costs' of the maxed-out shelter program. Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz and Housing Secretary Edward Augustus responded to Michlewitz's Jan. 22 request for more information Monday night with a seven-page letter and 16 pages of attachments, including a copy of a new background check policy that the administration put into effect Monday. The letter details the steps the administration has taken in recent years to respond to an influx of migrants that pushed the shelter system to its limits and addresses many of the questions Michlewitz said his committee would need answered before it could act on Healey's $425 million shelter mini-budget (H 51). 'The goal of this work has always been to return the system from a peak of 7,500 families back to sustainable and historical levels and, at present, we are trending in that direction. Our recent proposals seek to build on this progress,' Gorzkowicz and Augustus wrote. '[W]e are confident that the changes we have proposed align with the original intent of the Right to Shelter Law, protect the long-term fiscal sustainability of the shelter system, support cities and towns in addressing the needs of unhoused families, and help ensure the safety of shelter recipients and their communities.' The secretaries said the governor's proposals 'should be permanent and effective prospectively.' The Ways and Means Committee has been weighing Healey's spending plan since Jan. 9 and the governor made additional proposals to reform the 1983 Right to Shelter Law in a Jan. 15 letter to top lawmakers. The administration and Michlewitz have both acknowledged that time is of the essence — Gorzkowicz said last week that existing funding for the shelter system is due to run out on Jan. 31, give or take a week. While the letter provided the Ways and Means chairman with a greater level of detail and answers to some of what he asked, some key questions went unanswered. The administration did not provide answers to questions Michlewitz asked about the potential for financial savings from Healey's proposed reforms, the current operations of the overflow shelter system, U.S. citizens in the system who are not Massachusetts residents, or the background check procedures in place before the governor announced changes on Jan. 15. Michlewitz's office did not respond when asked whether the chairman was satisfied with the administration's response. The chairman forwarded the administration's letter to fellow House members Tuesday afternoon and told them he looked forward 'to continue working with all of you in the near future on this critical issue.' It appears the soonest the governor's shelter supplemental budget could come before the House is next week, when funding for the system is projected to be down to its final days. House Speaker Ronald Mariano's office told representatives Tuesday afternoon that Thursday's House session will be an informal one, after having told them Friday to prepare for a potential formal session — the kind where a spending bill could emerge. Among the details included in the administration's Monday letter: the EA system is currently seeing between 15 and 20 families applying for shelter each day, down from 30 to 40 families per day in the fall of 2023; December saw over 600 exits from the EA system, the highest monthly total in the last decade; and there are now fewer than 55 hotels being used for EA shelter, down from a high of more than 100. The letter details the administration's proposal to remove a 'presumptive eligibility' mandate that was added to the emergency assistance system line item in 2005. The secretaries said the mandate was not part of the shelter law before then and requires the state to place families into shelter based on self-attestations of eligibility. It does not allow the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to verify eligibility requirements prior to placement, including a family's identity, proof of familial relationship to children, eligible immigration status, Massachusetts residency, income and assets, and reason for secretaries said that roughly half of all families that apply for shelter 'are determined to be ineligible for the benefit based on their initial application materials and prior to being placed in the system' and that the state's conservative estimate is that at least 6% of families are determined to be ineligible after being placed presumptively based on initial information they provided. The cost of one month of 'presumptive eligibility' in the EA shelter system is between $10,000 and $15,000 per family, they said.'We propose to return to the original intent of the Right to Shelter Law by removing the 'presumptive eligibility' mandate from the line item and reverting to the prior practice of requiring pre-placement verification of eligibility for most families. We recommend empowering EOHLC to waive pre-placement verification on a case-by-case basis where a family reasonably lacks the necessary documentation at the time of application, such as in cases involving homelessness due to natural disaster or domestic violence,' Gorzkowicz and Augustus wrote to Michlewitz. 'EOHLC is confident that this change to 'presumptive eligibility' will further reduce demand on the EA system by allowing EOHLC to make necessary ineligibility determinations prior to the provision of benefits.'The secretaries' letter to Michlewitz also touched on the thinking behind Healey's proposal to change some of the core eligibility criteria for the EA system. Right now, families can be eligible for shelter based on several types of no-fault eviction or if they are in a housing situation 'not meant for human habitation' — but there is nothing imposing a geographic limit on those criteria, which means people who lost a home in another state could come to Massachusetts to get state one-third of families that applied for EA benefits in the last six months said on their applications that they did not live in Massachusetts at some point within the 90 days prior to their application, Gorzkowicz and Augustus wrote, and 'we have seen numerous instances in which applications for shelter were based on homelessness that occurred in one of our border states.' The secretaries said 4% of families that leave the EA system transition directly to housing in another state.'Once again, we believe that the existing language in the line item diverges from the original intent of the law, which aimed to address homelessness occurring in Massachusetts and impacting Massachusetts residents,' they wrote. 'We therefore propose, consistent with the original intent of the law, to amend these two eligibility criteria to require that an eligible no-fault eviction or unsafe housing situation occur in Massachusetts.'Augustus and Gorzkowicz said that eligibility for EA shelter benefits has 'consistently required individuals in shelter to demonstrate Massachusetts residence' but they said the state has been 'constrained in its ability to enforce the residency requirement' by the presumptive eligibility mandate. The governor's proposal is to add a 'bona fide residence' requirement in the EA line item, consistent with language that was in place until 2022 and language that remains in state regulations.'This approach aligns with the law's original intent by restoring the statutory requirement of residency and reverting to the historical practice of verifying residency prior to placement. If our proposed change becomes law, individuals would be able to prove residency through the types of documentation on Attachment C or by showing physical presence in Massachusetts for a period of three months, tracked from the first day of documentable presence in the state.' Mostly Republican lawmakers last year made unsuccessful efforts to impose a six-month Massachusetts residency requirement for shelter applicants and some have indicated they will seek similar requirements this session. Democrat Sen. Michael Rodrigues said this month that he thought a proposed residency requirement 'raises constitutional issues,' but did not foreclose considering secretaries said the law distinguishes between 'bona fide residence' and 'durational residence' requirements, with 'bona fide residence' requirements generally conditioning eligibility for a benefit on simple proof of state residency while 'durational residence' requirements unconditionally predicate eligibility on proof of a certain period of continuous physical presence in the state. The latter, they said, 'often trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny and, in some cases, have been struck down as unconstitutional.' All family members looking to stay in a state shelter would also have to prove their lawful U.S. residency under the governor's proposal, unless a child in the family already has lawful residence. Currently, only one member of the family unit must show citizenship or lawful presence.'For purposes of this proposal, a 'family' would be defined in accordance with 760 CMR 67.02, which treats a 'family' as a household with parents, stepparents or caretaker relatives and a child younger than 21 years of age, or a household with a pregnant woman without any children. Under our proposal, the entirety of a family with a child with lawful status would be eligible for benefits,' the secretaries wrote. 'In all other cases, a person's lack of lawful status would make only that particular person ineligible for shelter benefits.' The administration also wrote in its letter to Michlewitz that it does 'not anticipate that any of our proposed changes would result in a meaningful displacement of children currently enrolled in school districts this school year' and said it intends to continue funding school aid at the $104-per-student rate in the fiscal 2025 budget, including for districts taking on children in the EA system. The impact of President Donald Trump's recent immigration-focused executive orders on the EA system are still being assessed along with the attorney general's office, the administration said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
