Mass. House and Senate leaders reach $2.8 billion budget deal, but Republicans block vote

Massachusetts Democratic leaders said they agreed to a roughly $2.8 billion supplemental budget framework Thursday, including $250 million for the state’s overburdened family shelter system.

But Republicans temporarily delayed a vote on the budget Thursday night through a procedural tactic: by doubting the presence of a quorum. There were not enough legislators present in the chamber to continue the informal session, so the body broke until 11 a.m. Friday.

Democrats in the House and Senate had been at a stalemate over the shelter funding for weeks, making this the longest-delayed closeout budget since at least 1995.

Because the legislature is in informal session, the package can be held up by the objection of a single lawmaker.

The budget proposal includes $50 million for a large overflow emergency shelter site; $75 million for school districts taking on additional students; and $5 million for work permit authorization programs.

“The establishment of a state-funded overflow shelter is central to the goal of ensuring that no family in Massachusetts spends a night out on the street,” House Speaker Ron Mariano and Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz said in a statement. “The Legislature is doing everything that it can to support the Commonwealth’s efforts to address this humanitarian crisis.”

Democrats in the House fought hard for a requirement that the state set up a congregate shelter site for families on the waitlist. Senate leaders initially wanted to approve the $250 million Gov. Maura Healey had requested without conditions.

Advocates for migrants and unhoused families praised the shelter funding.

“It was really important that the state take responsibility for the people who they have deemed to be eligible for the program and make sure that they're not sleeping outside or in unsafe places,” said Andrea Park, director of community driven advocacy at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.

The budget language requires state officials to set up a congregate shelter by Dec. 31. Legislators did not specify a site, though Mariano previously has floated the Hynes Convention Center in the city's Back Bay as a possibility.

The bill also requires the Healey administration to report to the legislature every 14 days on developments in the emergency assistance program.

There are currently 7,533 families enrolled in the state shelter system, according to the Department of Health and Social Service. Another 104 are on a waitlist, after Healey set a 7,500-family cap in early November.

The shelter system has been overwhelmed by record demand, which state officials attribute to rising housing costs and an increase in migrant families from Haiti and elsewhere, seeking to settle in Massachusetts.

The shelter funding was the final sticking point in the talks over the supplemental budget. The two chambers had already agreed on the vast majority of the budget details, including hundreds of millions of dollars for collectively bargained raises to state employees, and language moving the next state primary to Sept. 3, 2024.

But when it comes to the state's policy around migrants, House Republicans said in a statement Wednesday that, "there is currently no plan in place to stem the flow of new arrivals and no policy reforms implemented to ensure that longtime residents in need are not denied housing assistance, which is completely unacceptable."

The framework was hammered out in private by the chairs of the House and Senate Ways and Means committees, state Rep. Michlewitz and state Sen. Michael Rodrigues. Although they were part of a standard six-member conference committee, the Republican members said they never met as a full group.

That means most of the high-stakes negotiations over billions of dollars of public funding was shielded from public view. In the past, Michlewitz and Rodrigues have hashed out the details of important bills in texts and emails.

Those communications have little chance of seeing the light of day; the courts have ruled the legislature is exempt under the state’s unusually restrictive public records law.

In a statement Wednesday, House Minority Leader Brad Jones said the Republican caucus was “deeply concerned” by the process and opposed to the shelter funding provisions.

Legislators have to pass the supplemental budget to officially close the books on the fiscal year that ended about five months ago.

The move by House Republicans to block the vote was not a surprise. In Minority Leader Jones’ statement Wednesday, he said they would “strongly oppose” efforts to approve the bill during informal session “minus any meaningful policy reforms.”

WBUR's Gabrielle Emanuel contributed to this report.