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By Credit search: State House News Service

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — With unusually high levels of uncertainty circling around the federal funding that buoys more than $16 billion of the state budget, Gov. Maura Healey’s finance secretary said that federal cuts would be too big of a problem for the executive branch to solve on its own.

By CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — A pair of western Massachusetts lawmakers made an urgent plea to their colleagues Tuesday to allow smaller farms to access property tax benefits currently available only to their larger peers.

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Two weeks before the policies are set to expire, the House and Senate took the first steps Monday to once again temporarily extend pandemic-era laws allowing remote access for public meetings in Massachusetts.

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Massachusetts is losing $12.2 million in federal money that had been earmarked for Bay State schools to buy food from local farms and Gov. Maura Healey indicated that the state has no plans to backstop the funding for more than 200 school systems, including virtually every school in Hampshire County.

By ALISON KUZNITZ

BOSTON — In the wake of last session’s clean energy development law, Gov. Maura Healey intends to pursue executive action and legislation in the new term to crack down on steep energy bills that are straining Bay Staters’ wallets.

By CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — Two years after policymakers enacted mental health care reforms designed to mitigate the problem, the share of patients experiencing long waits in Massachusetts emergency departments remains elevated, according to new state research.

By Ella Adams

BOSTON — The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted unanimously Tuesday to put its proposed competency determination regulations out for public comment, and to solicit comment about a second potential pathway to graduation that could still feature use of the MCAS exams.

By ALISON KUZNITZ

BOSTON — Bay Staters struggling to afford hefty energy bills this winter could soon see modest relief, after state regulators instructed utility companies to slash costs.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey is proposing to limit spending on a rapidly growing home care program that is popular among the state’s expanding senior population but has become one of the state’s most expensive budget items.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — As nonprofits across Massachusetts face uncertainty over the future of federal funding, some are also expressing concern over a proposal from Gov. Maura Healey that they fear could further strain their budgets.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey intends to run for reelection in 2026, she said Friday.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — The astronomical cost of housing for Massachusetts households across the income spectrum and a bleak outlook for the new units needed over the next decade underscore the focus of the Healey administration’s new housing plan for the next five years — more production.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Invoking Emily Dickinson, Phillis Wheatley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sam Cornish and Robert Frost, Gov. Maura Healey recently signed an executive order creating a position of poet laureate in Massachusetts for the first time.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Campbell wants to stop students from using cellphones in schools, but education regulators seem unsure how far they should go — especially when that power lies not in the state’s hands, but with local school districts.

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — If President Donald Trump puts a 25% tariff on products coming from Canada starting next weekend, as he said this week he is considering, electricity costs in Massachusetts could increase by as much as $200 million a year, Gov. Maura Healey told business leaders Thursday morning.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Though Gov. Maura Healey maintains that she is not raising taxes, the budget she rolled out Wednesday could apply existing taxes to some purchases, or decrease how much residents are able to write off on their tax returns.

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey announced a plan Tuesday to pump at least $2.5 billion into facilities at the University of Massachusetts, state universities and community colleges by the middle of the 2030s.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Massachusetts has the second-highest family health insurance premiums in the country, according to the Health Policy Commission, and the state Division of Insurance is investigating medical inflation as average premium rates across the individual and small group markets increased by 7.9% over the course of 2024.

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Fueled by the highest immigration levels in decades, Massachusetts saw its largest population increase in 60 years between 2023 and 2024, and the rate of domestic outmigration has significantly slowed, according to U.S Census data released last month.

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey filed a supplemental spending bill Monday, seeking another $425 million from a reserve account to keep the maxed-out emergency assistance shelter program running for the next six months.Healey’s office announced in November...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Fresh off winning another term leading the Massachusetts Senate, President Karen Spilka quickly set her sights on a combination of new and old priorities, including one that will have significant interest in the Pioneer Valley — reexamining...