“It protects and advances the progress we made this past year fully funding the next phase of our historic tax cuts, tax cuts that save money for residents across the state," said Healey. "It continues free breakfast and lunch. It preserves no-cost community college for students 25 and older through MassReconnect, which will strengthen our workforce and is something our employers are counting on.”
Healey said the plan will support promises her administration has rolled out in recent weeks around education.
“It will fund 'Gateway to Pre-K,' our plan to make childcare affordable to thousands of families across Massachusetts, while setting us on an important path to universal pre–K in all 26 cities and beyond," she said. "It will establish Literacy Launch to make sure that our youngest students are all getting the quality reading instruction that they deserve and need.”
The governor says her budget would expand small business support and advance her $4 billion Affordable Homes Act introduced last fall.
“We're proposing new investments as well to turn the climate challenge into good careers with funding for the Mass Clean Energy Center to support workforce training and advance our leadership global leadership, I promise, in what will be a clean energy revolution," Healey continued. "This budget will also invest in safe, reliable, affordable transportation across Massachusetts. It bolsters Chapter 90 investments in local roads and bridges to record levels with additional funding from the Fair Share funding.”
“We're really proud of the budget that fully funds the fourth-year phase in of the Student Opportunity Act," said Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll. “This is a $6.9 million budget item for Chapter 70 Education, representing a 4% increase over fiscal year 2024, helping all 351 cities and towns. The budget also recommends an overall investment in local aid to our cities and towns of $8.7 billion, a 3% increase, which includes a 3% increase in unrestricted government aid. In addition, we're proposing to use $100 million from Fair Share funding in this budget to boost Chapter 90 transportation funding to a total of $300 million in fiscal year 2025 to help cities and towns repair crumbling roads and bridges.”
“We know that 80% of roads in the Commonwealth are local roads, the ones you drive on every day," said Driscoll. "That's where these dollars are so precious and so important. We're also recommending a 35% increase in funding for local resilience projects that protect communities from flooding and other climate related impacts, investments in culverts and dams and ways that we can future proof infrastructure.”
The budget announcement comes after a surprise billion-dollar tax revenue drop that lead to slashed earmarks statewide.
“Tax collections in FY 24 have not kept pace with projections, and for FY25, we expect revenue growth to be flat," said Secretary of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance Matthew Gorzkowicz. “The good news is that economists tell us that we should expect to see a soft landing in this fiscal year, and a recovery in the [latter] half of FY25 into FY26. After a series of years with unprecedented revenue growth and enhanced federal resources, the FY25 budget responds to this fiscal climate by limiting growth to 2.9% over the last year's fiscal year [General Appropriation Act], excluding spending tied to surtax and Medical Insurance Trust Fund, which of course has dedicated revenue sources.”
The budget now goes to the Massachusetts legislature for debate.
