BOSTON (AP) - The Massachusetts House is preparing to consider whether to dip even deeper into the state’s rainy day fund than what Gov. Charlie Baker has proposed when they debate a $46 billion state budget plan next week.
The budget proposal won’t include any new broad-based taxes, according to Democratic leaders in the House. Instead it will focus on areas like supporting students during the pandemic, enhancing food security and boosting substance addiction services, domestic violence and sexual assault treatment and prevention, and legal assistance.
“This is a crisis budget that pays bills but concentrates on those who are most in need of help,” Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo said Thursday.
The proposed spending plan also aims to increase assistance to renters, many of whom have struggled to pay rent after losing income during the coronavirus pandemic.
The plan would restrain courts from finalizing evictions if a tenant has a pending application for rental assistance. It would also increase funding for a rental support program by $50 million.
Baker last month also unveiled a $171 million initiative that he said will help tenants and landlords cope with the fiscal challenges of the ongoing pandemic.
A temporary state ban on evictions and foreclosures expired last month.
The House budget proposal would withdraw about $1.55 billion from the state’s rainy day fund. That would leave the account with just under $2 billion in reserves.
The withdrawal is $200 million more than what was recommended by Baker when he unveiled his budget proposal law month.
The withdrawal is needed to help the state cope with a plunge in tax revenues when businesses were forced to close their doors during the early weeks and months of the pandemic.
DeLeo said in past recessions, the first year of the crisis typically required the largest withdrawal from the fund.
“This budget takes a reasonable withdrawal from this fund, while still keeping significant reserves to help us weather the expected storm next year,” DeLeo said.
Among all the other chaos the pandemic has brought to Massachusetts, it has also upended the state’s budget-making process.
Baker had initially unveiled a budget plan in January, just before COVID-19 gripped the state. The usual process by which lawmakers and the governor come to a deal on a final budget was abandoned as the state raced to put in place emergency measures to help limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Last month Baker tried to restart the budget process by submitting a new spending plan for the current 2021 fiscal year that began on July 1. Baker said his budget avoids deep cuts to core services and increases health spending.
During the first several months of the current fiscal year, the state has relied on temporary spending plans until a final budget is finalized.
The budget process now heads to the Legislature, where lawmakers in the Massachusetts House and Senate must come up with their own budget proposal.
Baker has said he hopes to get the budget back from lawmakers by Thanksgiving - when his administration will begin working to pull together the budget for the 2022 fiscal year that begins in July of next year.
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