NORTHAMPTON — Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, appearing before City Council last week, presented the state House’s proposed $63.41 billion budget, highlighting aspects of the budget intended to bolster education, healthcare, housing and transportation.
Gov. Maura Healey announced her $63.36 billion budget in January, prompting the state’s Ways and Means Committee to spend 70 hours mulling over the next year’s budget in multiple public hearings. The House’s budget, she added, consists of a proposed $2.3 billion, or 4%, increase from the current $60.97 billion budget.
The House budget includes $1.7 billion in surtax spending for education and $975 million for transportation. Sabadosa explained that it works to close a budgetary funding gap in the ballpark of $3.5 billion through use of capital gains and one-time revenue.
Of the budget bill’s $1.73 billion in education funds, the representative explained, 31.9% will be allocated toward expanding the state’s Student Opportunity Act, while 27.8% is proposed for early childhood education, 15% put aside for higher education, 11.5% for universal school meals and 3.6% for school transportation reimbursements.
“Every single one of my colleagues are very proud that we are one of the few states that has retained universal school [and] preschool meals for students, and we want to keep doing that,” Sabadosa said. “We also did some investments in school transportation reimbursements, which will be important.”
Of the House’s FY 27 transportation funds, 48.2% of the funds are allocated to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority —a portion of transportation funds that Sabadosa said she intends to reduce, since the MBTA only serves riders in and around the greater Boston area.
Twenty-two percent of the House’s transportation budget aims to benefit the Mass Transportation Trust Fund, while 19% went to the Regional Transit Authority and 10.3% for Health and Human services transportation.
“Money that goes into that trust fund helps fund those [Department of Tranportation] programs … that’s where we are putting state dollars into those capital projects,” Sabadosa said. “I will never argue that we should not give money to the MBTA. It is important; however, you all know that the MBTA does not serve our district or at least half of the state, and so we are constantly trying to push more funding into the RTA service.”
Despite limited policy changes to the budget this fiscal year, Sabadosa said the proposed House budget includes changes to teacher retirement benefits, changes to healthcare benefits for those employed by large companies, dental benefits policies and Health Safety Net changes.
The House, Sabadosa added, is trying to fill the budgetary gap — in-part through policy changes to MassHealth, the state’s affordable healthcare program. This includes a provision requiring large employers to compensate employees at a higher rate, so that they can afford not to use the MassHealth system.
“We have about a $3.5 billion gap between what we think we’re going to have and what we need to spend in order to just maintain our services, so we did that through use of capital gains, use of some one-time revenue and a lot of conversation about the Mass Health program,” Sabadosa said. “Our argument is, if you are a big employer, you should be paying your employees and they should not have to be on MassHealth.”
With healthcare spending taking up the largest portion of the budget, Sabadosa explained that after federal reimbursements, the state expects to be on the hook for $8.27 billion of its gross $22.77 billion in healthcare expenses.
The House’s FY27 healthcare funding package marks a $644 million increase over the current fiscal year and includes a $30 million earmark for nursing facilities, $3.2 billion for The Group Insurance Commission (GIC), and most controversially, lifting the cap on adult dental benefits from $1,000 a year to $1,750 per year.
“this has been one of the most hotly-debated topics, because, as you all know, dental care is extremely expensive; it is one of the biggest cost drivers in MassHealth,” Sabadosa said. “We’re trying to figure out how to balance keeping those costs down, but also making sure that people have access.”
The budget also includes $1.22 billion for housing stabilization, homelessness prevention and housing assistance, which accounts for a $67.3 million, or 5.8% increase over the current fiscal year.
“This is about stabilization, keeping people in housing through the shelter system,” Sabadosa explained. “We had increases to two of the most important programs that we run as a state — the MRVP program, that’s the Mass rental voucher program … and RAFT, [which] is a program that you can apply to if you are having trouble paying your mortgage, paying your rent, paying your utilities.”
Both the House budget, as well as the Senate’s proposed $63.29 billion budget, include a $2.7 billion supplemental “Fair Share Budget,” which Sabadosa explained, leverages Chapter 90 tax revenue collected through the state’s 2022 Fair Share Amendment, or “millionaire’s tax” to be allocated toward education and transportation.
In addition to the $2.7 billion in proposes general budget Fair Share funds, the House passed an additional $1.8 billion supplemental budget comprising remaining Fair Share funding, which allocates $885 million for transportation and $417 million for education.
“[Fair Share funding] is supposed to be divided between education and transportation. If you look at the numbers … you will see that this supplemental budget leans much heavier onto the transportation side,” Sabadosa said. “When we look at this budget, you’ll see that it slants much higher toward transportation. The FY 27 budget goes more toward education.”
The proposed supplemental budget, Sabadosa said, fills funding deficiencies left over from the current fiscal year and delays tax changes brought about by the federal “Big Beautiful Bill,” which was passed last summer.
Explaining that the proposed FY27 budget presents a ‘moderate increase” over fiscal year 2026, Sabadosa said the state legislature is weighing unpredictable economic factors — the possibility of war, inflation or further federal cuts — as it budgets conservatively.
“It is a surprise to no one the federal government passed a bill that they sometimes call the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill.’ We just call it OB-3, because I find very little beauty in it,” Sabadosa said. “We just saw the proposed federal budget from the president; it has about an $8 billion cut to states for federal education funding, cuts to housing … the states are in a difficult position, and we we look forward to a time when we have federal partners again.”
The Senate released its proposed FY27 budget on May 5, and is expected to discuss the proposed budget at its May 19 hearing.
