A governor’s spokesperson says the Healey administration has “provided unprecedented insight” on spending inside Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system and {that a} closing supplemental price range will probably be reviewed as soon as it’s prepared.
High leaders from the Home and Senate are placing the ultimate touches on the Fiscal 12 months ’25 closeout supplemental price range, which can embody an modification to revive common reporting on spending throughout the shelter system, open for public scrutiny.
The Senate unanimously accepted the modification final week, and if it receives Convention Committee approval, Gov. Maura Healey would then resolve whether or not to signal it into legislation.
The Herald first reported earlier this month that the Healey administration stopped publishing a public, common accounting of how a lot the state is spending within the present fiscal 12 months on the system, which homes homeless households and pregnant ladies, as a result of a state legislation mandating the information expired.
“Our administration has provided unprecedented insight into the shelter system, including publishing biweekly reports for the Legislature and the public,” Healey spokesperson Karissa Hand advised the Herald on Friday.
“Governor Healey’s reforms — including residency requirements and criminal background checks — have significantly lowered caseloads and costs, and will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars this fiscal year. She will review the final supplemental budget that reaches her desk.”
The $2.3 billion closeout supplemental price range would additionally require common studies on spending throughout the HomeBase rental help program, together with demographic information of candidates and contributors, reminiscent of family dimension, age, gender and immigration standing.
Final 12 months’s shelter tab of $978.2 million marked the second full fiscal 12 months that taxpayers shelled out larger-than-normal sums to deal with homeless households after a surge of migrant arrivals pushed the emergency help shelter system to a bursting level.
In Could, Healey provided a uncommon nod of approval to President Donald Trump’s immigration insurance policies, saying “some” of the selections the Republican made this 12 months to limit entry for migrants making an attempt to enter the U.S. on the border made “a lot of sense.”
