GOV. MAURA HEALEY on Wednesday asked the Legislature for permission to drain an $893 million surplus funds account to cover shortfalls in the emergency shelter budget during the remainder of the current fiscal year and the following year.
Even with the additional money, Healey is forecasting that another $91 million will be needed to cover a shortfall in the coming fiscal year.
Healey and her top aides said the remaining shortfall will probably be covered by reducing costs associated with the emergency shelter system, either by moving people out of shelters and into jobs or by securing funds from the federal government to help deal with the influx of homeless migrants from other countries.
“The situation is evolving and we continue to evolve with it,” said Mathew Gorzkowicz, the governor’s top budget official.
The emergency shelter system, swamped by an influx of migrants from other countries, is the one big unknown with the governor’s budget proposal. Spending on the program has grown much faster than expected, prompting the governor to unilaterally change a law requiring the state to provide shelter to families and pregnant women. The governor capped the number of families that can participate and ordered those families who don’t make it in under the cap to be placed on a waiting list.
Lawmakers on Beacon Hill have generally supported Healey on emergency shelter, but a bid to provide an additional $250 million for the system earlier this year turned into a drawn-out struggle that ended only after Democrats returned to Beacon Hill during a vacation recess to push the funding through.
Rep. Brad Jones of Reading, the Republican leader in the House, issued a statement raising concerns about the shelter system’s impact on the rest of the budget.
“Funding for the migrant shelter crisis continues to drain much-needed revenues that would otherwise have been spent on other programs and services, with no end in sight, as evidenced by the governor’s companion piece of legislation filed today that would empty the Transitional Escrow Fund to pay for this program,” Jones said. “It’s telling that using the $863 million available in this fund will still leave a projected funding shortfall of about $91 million, a number that is sure to grow unless meaningful reforms are implemented.”
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