The chief spending pressures on state government will come from delivering on the first installment of a seven-year promise to boost K education spending and picking up costs associated with the mammoth MassHealth program in the face of a curtailment in federal aid, according to the report. Baker in November. Legislators last year refused to release community-by-community or aggregate fiscal education aid estimates as they pushed the education bill through.
The MTF report arrives a week before Baker is scheduled to deliver his State of the State address and unveil his fiscal state budget proposal, which will offer the first official look at planned K education aid under the new education reform law. In arriving at its estimate of a projected budget gap, the business-backed foundation, which monitors state spending and revenues, used a more conservative revenue base than the one agreed to Monday by the Baker administration and legislative leaders.
While budget writers officially agreed that fiscal tax revenues will grow by 2. The revenue slowdown is already occurring, and the big question in is how slow can it go. Tax collections midway through fiscal are up 4.
Foundation analysts also expect new challenges ahead in paying for MassHealth, a program that provides health insurance to about 1. Other big cost centers within state government, like public employee pensions and other health and human services programs, are projected to grow larger, and at a faster rate than state revenues, according to the report. The report said costs associated with providing public services through the Department of Developmental Services, Department of Mental Health, Department of Public Health and Department of Children and Families have increased about 5 percent per year in recent years.
The MTF budget model assumes state programs and services outside of the major ones identified in the report will see a 2. More in News.
