House Minority Leader Brad Jones speaks with fellow lawmakers on March 27, 2018. Photo by Sam Doran | State House News Service
Weeks after their talks collapsed, House and Senate Democrats got on the same page Thursday and filed a $3.1 billion compromise spending bill packed with money for the state’s emergency shelter system, public worker raises, and special education.
But they could not get the overdue legislation across the finish line in the face of frustrated Republicans, triggering a flurry of finger-pointing between the Democrat supermajority and the minority party that is temporarily wielding the influence Democrats gave to them.
Both branches kept their sessions open for most of the day as legislative leaders worked behind closed doors on a compromise fiscal year 2023 closeout budget. Shortly before 6 p.m., House Republicans, who voted against the underlying bills due to shelter policy concerns, tried to use parliamentary maneuvers to call for a formal session where the final package could be debated and receive a roll call vote.
Democrats referred the order from House Minority Leader Brad Jones to the Rules Committee for review, effectively shelving it. Presiding officer Rep. Paul Donato then answered a pair of inquiries from Republican Rep. Paul Frost of Auburn: representatives cannot take roll call votes during the informal sessions scheduled for the rest of the year, Donato said, nor can they debate or speak on bills at such sessions.
Donato introduced the conference committee report containing the fiscal year 2023 closeout budget, an 86-page, 226-section bill that had just been filed Thursday afternoon, and moved to suspend legislative rules.
Jones asked for a roll call on the motion to suspend the rules, which Donato said was prohibited because the House was meeting in an informal session before declaring the rules suspended.
Frost then doubted that a quorum of representatives was present. With only about 15 of the House’s 159 members on hand, Donato then quickly gaveled the House out with plans to return in another informal session Friday morning.
The parliamentary tumult revealed frustrations among both parties over the process for bringing to the floor a time-sensitive spending bill that Gov. Maura Healey first filed in mid-September.
Republicans sought to use the political muscle they gained as a result of procrastination and infighting among Democrats, but calling for a formal session would likely only slow the bill rather than prevent its passage because the GOP is so heavily outnumbered on Beacon Hill.
“A controversial spending bill of this magnitude should be taken up during a formal session, with debate and roll calls, which is what this order seeks to do,” Jones said shortly before launching his unsuccessful effort. “House and Senate Republicans are united in this position and are asking that both branches reconvene in a full formal session before the end of the year to address the important funding provisions and policy issues contained in this final deficiency appropriations bill.”
While Democrats almost certainly have enough votes to pass it in a holiday-season formal, their rebuff of Republicans signaled an unwillingness – at least heading into Friday – to allow debate or a roll call vote on one of the most important bills to date this session.
“We’ll come back tomorrow. We’re going to be in an informal session at 11 a.m. We’ll try this again and see where it takes us,” House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz, his chamber’s lead negotiator on the bill, told reporters. “We’re just gonna keep doing it. We’ll keep going at it. The fact remains that every day that goes by is another day the shelter money doesn’t get fully funded, it’s another day that goes by that those [public worker] contracts that have been ratified don’t get fully funded.”
“Republicans in both chambers had opportunities to file amendments, to make the debate, and I think they did. They lost overwhelmingly, all those amendments, they voted against the bill,” he added.
Asked if House Democrats would call a formal session to push the bill along, Michlewitz replied, “We haven’t addressed that at this time.”
House Speaker Ron Mariano, who is usually able to power past Republican objections, had to instead watch the bill falter. Afterwards, he said it is “incredibly disappointing that House Republicans are blocking the passage of the supplemental budget.”
“This bill includes $3 billion worth of critical funding for state employee raises and for a number of other pressing issues,” the Quincy Democrat said in a statement. “Despite that, House Republicans are willing to jeopardize the entire package over $250 million that will be used to provide shelter for all vulnerable families in Massachusetts. This is especially disconcerting considering that every Republican amendment regarding the emergency assistance program was resoundingly voted down just a few weeks ago. House Democrats are committed to ensuring that this attempt at obstructionism fails to prevent the vital investments being made in this legislation from being approved as soon as possible.”
Days after business groups urged Beacon Hill to put a brake spending growth, the compromise closeout bill (H 4204) carries a bottom line that’s roughly $300 million higher than the original House and Senate versions. Senate Ways and Means Committee spokesperson Sean Fitzgerald said the additional money consists of legislative prior appropriations continued, calling it “an accounting mechanism quite common in closeout supplemental budgets when state agencies are unable to spend their Fiscal Year allocation.”
It would fulfill a request Healey made more than two months ago to inject $250 million more into the emergency assistance shelter system with some strings attached, but not as extensive as the House first proposed.
The bill calls for up to $50 million to be spent on at least one location to support people eligible for shelter, but unable to be placed due to a 7,500-family limit Healey set.
While negotiators embraced the requirement for at least one overflow site, the final compromise does not feature as much muscle as representatives envisioned. The bill would call for an overflow site to be operational by Dec. 31 and remain in place until June 30, 2024 or the capacity declaration ends. The administration could not spend other funds in the $250 million appropriation until the site launches.
However, the bill does not include House-approved language requiring the Healey administration to lift its cap on family shelter placements if the overflow option is not online within 30 days of the bill’s signing.
It’s not clear whether administration officials have already met the proposed overflow site requirement. Last week, they began using MBTA conference rooms in Boston to temporarily host up to 25 families overnight, and the administration’s point person for the crisis said Thursday he is “focused on the overflow sites and where we’re going to put people as the cold builds.”
At least $75 million of the $250 million would also need to be spent supporting school districts that have enrolled newly arriving migrants.
Senate Ways and Means Committee Chair Michael Rodrigues said the final bill earmarks about half of the $250 million, calling it “a blend” of the House’s more prescriptive proposal and the Senate’s preference to give the administration more leeway.
With a goal of monitoring the ongoing crisis, the bill would order the Healey administration to report to lawmakers every two weeks about the shelter program’s status, and provide at least 30 days’ notice before changing how long benefits can be provided.
An unprecedented increase in migrants arriving in Massachusetts and seeking shelter that state law guarantees as a right, combined with the Bay State’s notorious lack of affordable housing, sparked a crisis this year that pushed the system to the brink.
The state legislature already approved a sizable boost to emergency shelter funding, authorizing $325 million in the fiscal year 2024 budget, or about $61 million more than a year earlier. Another $250 million is unlikely to last the remainder of FY24, which runs until June 30, 2024. Legislative leaders previously estimated the additional funding will keep the system afloat only into the spring.
Other highlights of the bill include more than $2 billion in money for MassHealth, a $100 million transfer to address the state’s unfunded pension liability, and $75 million to help school districts manage increased special education costs.
The legislation funds raises for tens of thousands of public workers who have already ratified new collective bargaining agreements they struck with the Healey administration. The state legislature’s inaction so far has prompted outcry from organized labor groups, many of whom regularly ally with the Democrats, over delayed pay increases.
One House-Senate division that did not survive the talks was a push to clear the way for construction of a professional soccer stadium in Everett. The House had sought such language last session without Senate support, and this time around, the Senate included it in its supplemental budget but the House did not.
The final compromise dropped the topic altogether.
“We didn’t want to have this issue hold up the rest of the bill, and there will be other opportunities,” Rodrigues told the News Service.
House and Senate Democrats failed to complete a deal on the closeout budget despite working past midnight on the final night of formal sessions for the year, fueling a political maelstrom as collectively bargained raises and shelter funding fell into limbo.
Right before they gaveled out, the House and Senate punted the topic into a six-member conference committee to hold talks. But the panel the branches agreed to create never officially gathered before the accord emerged Thursday.
Asked why the conference committee never formally met, Michlewitz said he had “plenty of conversations” with Rodrigues.
“We had dialogue starting before we ended the formal session anyways, and so we just continued that rolling forward,” he said.
State House News Service staff writers Alison Kuznitz and Sam Doran contributed to this story.
