House, Senate leaders announce ARPA/surplus accord

Late on Nov. 30, House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz and Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues issued a joint statement announcing that the House and Senate negotiators had reached agreement on a $4 billion COVID recovery spending bill.

The House and Senate chairs, who led the negotiations, said the agreement still needed to be finalized, and no further details were immediately available.

“Once the agreement is finalized, the conference report will be filed,” the statement said. “We look forward to discussing the details of the agreement publicly then.”

The House and Senate adjourned their final formal sessions of the calendar year on Nov. 17 without a compromise on a nearly $4 billion spending package funded by the fiscal 2021 state surplus and state allocations under the American Rescue Plan Act.

Under the Legislature’s rules, no formal legislative sessions can be held until the beginning of January. During an informal session, a vote on any bill can be blocked by a single legislator.

On Nov. 30, House Speaker Ron Mariano told the State House News Service that he did not anticipate any trouble in passing a compromise bill during informal sessions in December if a deal could be struck. He added that his preference would be not to wait until January.

For months now, the MMA and municipalities have been expressing their desire for the administration and Legislature to act with urgency on plans for the state’s portion of ARPA funds, in order for municipalities to maximize their own ARPA allocations.

The House passed its $3.82 billion bill to spend a significant portion of the state’s multi-billion dollar fiscal 2021 surplus and its allocation from the ARPA State and Local Coronavirus Relief Fund on Oct. 29. The Senate passed its plan, with the same $3.82 billion bottom line, on Nov. 10.

Both the House and Senate bills included major investments in housing, water and sewer infrastructure, environmental infrastructure, economic development, workforce, and health and human services.

The MMA sent a letter to House-Senate Conference Committee members on Nov. 15 outlining support for municipal priorities in the bills.

Gov. Charlie Baker proposed his plan to spend roughly half of the Commonwealth’s State and Local Coronavirus Relief Funds in June. And in August, the governor filed a separate supplemental budget bill to spend a large portion of the fiscal 2021 state surplus.

The Legislature passed a scaled-back supplemental budget in October, but decided at that time to delay decisions on spending much of the state surplus, preferring to work on a combined ARPA/surplus bill.