House Ways and Means To Release Budget Proposal

The Massachusetts House of Representatives’ powerful Ways and Means Committee will release its Fiscal Year 2016 (FY16) budget proposal tomorrow. The House is scheduled to meet in full formal session at 11 a.m. and a press conference regarding the proposal might be held around 1 p.m.

The creative sector will be directly impacted by the final budget when it gets signed into law by Governor Charlie Baker this summer. It is important for arts advocates to pay attention to the budget process and speak up so that our priorities don’t get overlooked. In the budget, priorities are represented as  “line items” to be funded and/or come as proposed budget amendments if they are not included in the budget(s) as “line items”.

In March, Governor Baker released a $38.1 billion budget proposal. Tomorrow, advocates, lobbyists, elected officials, and concerned residents of Massachusetts will look to see where the  Ways and Means proposal differs and aligns with Baker’s.

The full House of Representatives will then get to work crafting amendments to the budget proposal. And that’s when the hard advocacy work begins. At MALC, we’ll be focused on every detail of tomorrow’s budget proposal that impacts the creative sector. We’ll be working with individuals and groups throughout our sector to keep our priorities at the forefront of the budgetary process.

Stay tuned for more MALC budget coverage!