Massachusetts House takes up budget bill on eve of benefits deadline

The House plans on Wednesday to advance a revised version of the spending bill that Gov. Maura Healey offered earlier this year to pay for school meals and migrant shelter and care.

House Speaker Ron Mariano confirmed the plans on Monday afternoon, following a meeting with Gov. Maura Healey and Senate President Karen Spilka. The bill remains in committee, and Mariano suggested it would include school meals funding but did not commit to a continuation of enhanced SNAP, or food benefits, for those who are eligible.

COVID-era enhanced federal funds are set to run out on Thursday.

Healey's $282 million spending bill (H 47) is designed to manage a surge in demand for emergency shelter, prevent the free school meals program from running out of money, and to provide an offramp for people on the verge of losing enhanced federal SNAP benefits.

The redrafted version of Healey's bill must first emerge from the House Ways and Means Committee, where it has been for nearly a month, on its path to the floor for Wednesday's formal session. House Democrats have a caucus scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Federally enhanced Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are scheduled to end on Thursday. Unless both the House and Senate pass the bill in two days, more than 630,000 Massachusetts households will face a loss of about a third of what they received in food assistance over the past two years.

Healey's supplemental budget calls for using $130 million to provide recipients with 40 percent of their previously enhanced SNAP benefits for three months, to stave off a more abrupt end to the expanded benefits, according to her office.

Mariano on Monday was unsure of how much was earmarked for the program in Healey's proposal.

"I think some of the SNAP stuff is in there to the tune of $65 million, I believe. Don't quote me on that because I just heard this a little while ago," Mariano told reporters Monday afternoon during a media availability with Healey and Spilka.

When asked on Feb. 14, two weeks after she filed the bill, if Healey believed the Legislature would pass the supplemental budget before the March 2 deadline when extra federal aid ends, Healey said she was hopeful.

"I think that our Legislature understands economic realities facing low-income families across the commonwealth," she said. "I think folks really understand the urgency of making sure families can put food on the table, and the value of these extra dollars."

Asked about the urgency of enhanced SNAP coming to an end, Mariano focused his comments on the emergency shelter and free school meals provisions in the bill.

In addition to the $130 million for SNAP, Healey's supplemental budget includes about $85 million to help the Department of Housing and Community Development address the emergency shelter "crisis," with the governor's office projecting the state will need more than 1,100 units beyond its baseline to meet demand caused by an influx of migrants into the state.

About $21.9 million of that allocation would help schools place a surge of students who have arrived through the process of shelter placements.

"It'll be the aid for immigrants, which we asked the governor to take a look at and get us more precise numbers. She supplied those numbers, we've put in the amount that we think is justified right now," Mariano said on Monday.

The House declined to advance a similar measure Gov. Charlie Baker put forward before the end of the 2021-2022 term, at the time saying they had unanswered questions about the cost. Baker's request was for $130 million to go to the emergency shelters, saying the shelters would be filled to capacity by March.

Mariano voiced his support for Healey's less costly proposal to expand emergency shelters last month as well, saying the new administration "has given us some numbers and reduced the amount necessary."

The Quincy Democrat said on Monday that representatives have been pushing support for the $65 million in the bill to continue the universal school meals pilot program for the rest of the school year.

"School lunches, which has been a huge request from my membership, that we continue to fund the school lunches," Mariano said. "So there's a lot of good things that we want to do to continue the progress that we're making in areas that I think are needed. So I think it's a pretty good supp budget."