The first-term Democrat laid out her $56.1 billion plan on Beacon Hill Wednesday. Healey’s second budget proposal comes amid a surprise, billion-dollar revenue shortfall that saw earmarks slashed mid-budget. Now, legislators are preparing to take up debate of the bill before the new fiscal year starts in July. Fellow Democrat Tricia Farley-Bouvier represents Pittsfield in the State House.
“She has a budget that reflects only less than a 3% and increase, which is about half of what we've been doing and expecting over the last few years," Farley-Bouvier told WAMC. "So, we're definitely tightening our belts, which is exactly what we need to do to be responsive to taxpayers and then being able to also make the investments in the things that we really care about here in Pittsfield, and I think highlighted is in that is full funding of the Student Opportunity Act, which is such a significant investment in Pittsfield when it comes to dollars and cents. Local officials are also going to be really interested in the increase in unrestricted local aid and the 50% increase in Chapter 90 money.”
“I'm very pleased with the focus on education and focus on items of transportation, I think that demonstrates a commitment to using the Fair Share tax revenue for what is what it's intended for, which is education and transportation," said Democratic State Senator Paul Mark of the Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire district. “I'm already hearing some pushback about maybe some of the ideas of how she's going to pay for some of the stuff, including taking some of the money out of the rainy-day funds. But all in all, I think it was a really good proposal sets a lot of really good aspirations delivers on what she was talking about in her state of the state speech.”
Mark said Healey’s move to invest $15 million for rural school aid bodes well for his district.
“She's starting the conversation where we left the conversation off last year, and that was a tripling from the year before," he told WAMC. "So, if $15 million is our is our baseline now to work from – hopefully, again, recognizing that things are slowing down and revenue is not coming in very hot – but boy, if we can get that up a little bit more, every penny we get into that goes to the schools that need it most, goes to the communities that need it most. And I was really glad to see in transportation in the governor's budget for the first time she proposed another $24 million for the rural road money set aside that we came up with for the first time just this past year in the Chapter 90 bill.”
Mark said he remains skeptical of Healey’s plan to address the influx of migrants, which has strained the commonwealth’s emergency shelter system to capacity.
“The numbers she's predicting, represent that somehow the families in the shelters right now, half of them have found homes by, I guess, by July 1st, and if she knows something I don't, if she sees promise, and she turns out to be right, I think that's awesome, and that will be a testament to great management and great cooperation," said Mark. "If things stay the same, then that's going to be a shortfall and that's not going to be an accurate reflection of what the administration is going to need to handle that crisis- And there's projections that it could go up to a billion dollars if something doesn't change. So hopefully, federal resources are going to come in and really help us out of that gap.”
One potential area for legislative disagreement could be Healey’s “Gateway to pre-K” plan, a push to provide universal preschool to every 4-year-old in Gateway Cities like Pittsfield, Springfield, and Holyoke.
“For a legislator like myself, that's a good thing," said Mark. "Pittsfield is a Gateway City, I want this to come to Pittsfield, I want us to be able to pay for this new initiative in Pittsfield, I want students in Pittsfield to succeed from the moment they get to school. Then there's the other 56 communities I represent that aren't going to be able to take advantage of this. And so, my colleagues in even our delegation – Representative Barrett in North County and Representative Pignatelli in South County – their districts aren't going to receive a direct benefit for them. So, they may be a little cooler to this idea. So like, those are the kinds of kinds of conversations that are going to be reflective of what are the priorities of an individual legislators district? And you know, how are we going to get to a place where no, no, no student or no future student at the early childcare level is going to be left behind is going to have a disadvantage, because no one should have a disadvantage in their educational career based on where they happen to live or where they happen to be born.”
