Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
A budget bill filed in July by Gov. Charlie Baker to close the books on fiscal 2015 includes $25 million to help cities and towns pay for the cost of last winter’s severe snowstorms.
The $358 million final spending recommendation (H. 3676) is now before the House Ways and Means Committee and is expected to be taken up and adopted in some form before the state comptroller’s Oct. 31 deadline to file the year-end financial report and officially close out the year. The MMA is urging legislators to support the governor’s municipal snow and ice relief proposal.
The spending bill includes funding to cover an anticipated deficiency in MassHealth totaling $203 million. It would also add $32 million for state snow and ice costs at the Department of Transportation and nearly $30 million for various treatment and prevention programs in response to the growing statewide opioid epidemic.
The bill filed by the governor also recommends adding $50 million from the expected year-end balance to the state’s Stabilization Fund and using $140 million to pay down existing state debt.
The final numbers for fiscal 2015 are far rosier than anyone expected earlier in the year, when outgoing Gov. Deval Patrick and incoming Gov. Baker and state lawmakers were grappling with a $1 billion budget deficit that was eventually closed through unilateral actions by the governors and agreement with legislators on a combination of spending and revenue measures. It was also helpful that state tax collections brought in $24.7 billion, nearly $400 million more than expected under preliminary estimates.
Tax revenues for fiscal 2015, when finally certified, are expected to show growth of $1.35 billion, or about 5.8 percent. Lottery revenues also beat the estimate for the year, reaching $864 million in net profits, about $36 million more than the original target.
Fiscal 2016 has opened quietly, as is usually the case over the summer months. State tax collections in July were roughly on target toward the full year estimate of $25.5 billion, although July and August are not bellwether months. The first quarter numbers at the end of September tend to be the first good measure of economic conditions and how collections are doing against the revenue estimate for the year.
According to the July 30 MassBenchmarks Bulletin published by the University of Massachusetts Donohue Institute, the economy appears “to be in the midst of a solid economic expansion that positions the Commonwealth for solid future growth,” although uncertainly in the global economy poses some risk.
Lottery sales figures for July have not yet been released by the Lottery Commission. The Plainridge Park Casino that opened in June, however, brought in $18.2 million in gross gaming revenue for the month, with $7.3 million dedicated to the municipal Unrestricted General Government Aid account for fiscal 2016. The Gaming Commission anticipates that Plainridge will generate $200 million in gaming revenue this year. The Lottery estimates that net profits will total $957 million this year, off about $26 million from fiscal 2015.