State Senate Begins Budget Debate

The state’s budget process is well underway. This week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee released its own $38 billion budget proposal. The full Senate debate on its budget will begin next week on Tuesday, May 19th.

This is the third budget proposal of state budget season. In March, Governor Charlie Baker released his budget proposal and in April the House Ways and Means Committee released its proposal and approved a $38 billion budget.

Just as the full House debated, changed, and approved a budget based on the House Ways and Means budget proposal, the full Senate now gets its chance. Senators are now filing amendments to the Senate’s Ways and Means proposal. The line items may seek to increase or decrease spending line items, add or remove funding line items, or change aspects of the so called “outside sections” that seek to effect the law but do not directly allocate funding.

Once the full Senate approves a budget, the House and Senate will come together in Conference Committee. Both the House and the Senate will appoint three members to the committee. They will work out the necessary compromises to arrived at an agreed upon budget. This will be sent to Governor Baker for his approval.

The State’s website has online tools to help you dig deeper into the budget process:
https://malegislature.gov/Budget

Stay tuned for MALC blog posts on what you can to help support senate budget amendments that will help our community and oppose ones that will hurt our sector.