(The Center Square) – As the Massachusetts Senate has passed a supplemental budget, one Massachusetts public policy group said the chamber is playing political football.
The Massachusetts Senate approved a $513 million supplemental budget for fiscal year 2023 on Wednesday. The budget would provide relief to hospitals facing financial stress, reduce pension liability, assist with special education obligations, and direct funding to farms and rural communities impacted by natural disasters.
The fiscal pact now goes to the conference committee.
However, Paul D. Craney, spokesman for MassFiscal, said taxpayers are being played under the budget.
“Legislative leaders are using taxpayers as their pawns and holding the annual state budget hostage in order to achieve their own policy goals,” Craney said in an exclusive interview with The Center Square. “Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka are using the budget as a negotiation chip for other unrelated policy objectives.
“The victims here are the Massachusetts taxpayers who rely on their state government working on time. There is no excuse for this type of highly selfish political behavior, and these legislative leaders must be held accountable.”
According to a release, the budget bill proposed to widen simulcast opportunities and harness horse racing while several government agencies will have extended reporting dates. The budget would also ratify collective bargaining agreements.
“Investing in our people is vital to keeping the commonwealth competitive, and that is precisely what this supplemental budget does,” Spilka, D-Ashland, said in a statement. “This budget invests in the services that people around the commonwealth use every day – the hospitals where people receive critical care, the special education programs in our schools, and programs that improve quality of life for individuals and families who are low-income, among other state priorities. It also gives critical relief to farmers around the state who have been devastated by this year’s extreme weather.”
According to a release, the fiscal pact would send $180 million in funding to financially strained hospitals; $100 million in a transfer to the Pension Liability Fund; $75 million for school districts with extraordinary special education costs; and $26.2 million for collective bargaining agreement costs.
