In 2022, the Massachusetts Teachers Association threw its weight behind a ballot question to instate a new 4% tax on the commonwealth’s millionaires to build new public funding reserves for education and transportation.
“The MTA was central to winning the passage of the Fair Share Amendment, the so-called millionaires’ tax, and as we predicted, it brought in over $2 billion this past year," MTA President Max Page told WAMC. "The legislature underestimated how much it was actually going to bring in. So, we have the wonderful opportunity now, or the wonderful gift of an extra billion dollars to spend on one-time expenditures. That's the way the law works. Anything beyond what the legislature authorized now can be spent on only one-time things like, fixing schools and roads and college buildings.”
Page says the union is bristling at Healey’s request last week to use $225 million from the Fair Share tax to balance the Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
“The governor, however, proposed to use a bunch of the money from this excess money, we'll call it from the Fair Share Amendment, on basically filling holes in her last year's budget, meaning rather than investing in new things, which is the whole point of Fair Share, fixing our buildings, investing more in free community college or school meals," he explained. "She wants to simply use it to solve a deficit in the budget, and unfortunately, that deficit was in part created by a $1 billion tax cut that she and the legislature passed, a big chunk of which goes to the wealthiest individuals, the very people we had taxed with the Fair Share Amendment.”
In a statement, the Democrat’s Executive Office for Administration and Finance tells WAMC it disagrees with the MTA’s framing of the move:
“The supplemental budget filed by the governor maintains [the Fair Share Amendment’s] commitment by proposing to use a limited amount of surplus surtax for education and transportation programs like universal school meals and child care provider grants. This approach aligns with how surtax revenue was budgeted in Fiscal Year 2025 and is necessary to close Fiscal Year 2024 in balance."
The Democratic State Senator who represents Berkshire County in Boston is himself a card-carrying member of the MTA.
“It’s interesting- Unfortunately, the first I've heard of it was when you emailed me that notice from the MTA this morning. I'm surprised they didn't also email that directly to the legislature yet," said Paul Mark. “It looks like she's trying to apply this to early education grants and some of the school universal school meals and MassDOT, so, transportation. So, I'm actually going to reach out to MTA and find out in a little more detail what the concern is, because obviously we want Fair Share revenue, under Article 121 of the Constitution as specified, we want that money going to education and transportation.”
So far, Mark says Healey has used Fair Share monies appropriately. But he says he understands the MTA’s anxiety around the issue.
“I think it sounds a little sharp, but I'm going to say in their defense, you have to be sharp sometimes, because it is extremely easy for things to get blurry, and then for something that is intended to be going to a certain place to end up totally where it's not," the state senator told WAMC. "I've seen moments where money for, that’s coming out of car inspections ends up just going into the general fund, and that's not what it was intended to, it was intended to be part of a trust fund. So, I don't blame them for maybe jumping the gun, and like I said, if they end up that they're just being overly protective, overly cautious, and it turns out everybody's satisfied, then that's great. I'll say, in the governor's defense, it's not like she is proposing this for mowing lawns, or even the Green Bank – something I 100% support – but certainly would not be in line with the intention.”
For now, Page says the MTA’s plan is to keep the pressure up on Healey.
“This is what's called the closeout budget," he told WAMC. "Basically, they pass a budget – the legislature, signed by the governor – sometime in the fall to kind of close the books. That's why it's called closeout, close the books on the FY24 budget, last year's budget, and I think there will be extensive debate in the coming months, it could even be two months, it certainly has to happen before the end of the calendar year. So, there will, I expect, be robust debate, partly because the governor also put in other kind of legislative language into this supplemental budget, controversial language, some of which is good, some other people would disagree. So, I think there's going to be a lot of debate, and we will be absolutely putting forward that the money, the excess money from Fair Share, needs to go into public colleges and universities and public schools and roads, bridges, and transportation going forward, new investment.”
Page and the MTA previously criticized Healey for failing to mention the Fair Share Amendment and the windfall it brought to Massachusetts coffers in her State of the Commonwealth address, and attacked her tax-cut plan as being too friendly to the very residents the new tax was aimed at.
