IF SHE IS ELECTED treasurer, Elizabeth Dionne would be “the voice for local aid” on Beacon Hill and would champion it “in the same way that Diana DiZoglio has raised the profile of the audit,” Dionne said Tuesday.
The Republican angling to unseat Democrat Deborah Goldberg in November appeared on GBH Radio on Tuesday and detailed how she sees the state Treasury addressing “affordability via local aid.”
“The reason that the treasurer has a voice here is because of the Lottery. The Lottery is the fourth-largest single source of state revenue and the single-largest source of local aid. Now, the treasurer has significant power. … She doesn’t appropriate, and that is true,” Dionne, a former corporate attorney who served 10 years in Belmont town government, said. She added, “But what I do have is a bully pulpit and a bullhorn.”
Invoking the Democratic state auditor, she added, “And in the same way that Diana DiZoglio has raised the profile of the audit, I would have the ability to raise the profile of local aid.”
Traditional Lottery revenue makes up part of the unrestricted general government aid the state provides to its 351 cities and towns, and online Lottery revenues fund child care grants. The current budget provides $1.363 billion in so-called UGGA, along with local education funding and more. An October 2025 report from the Massachusetts Municipal Association said that, when adjusted for inflation, UGGA funding has fallen 25 percent since 2010.
Dionne said she is “not even necessarily talking about increasing Lottery revenues, because we already have the highest per capita spending on lottery in the nation.” So to give more Lottery money back to communities without increasing overall revenues, the Lottery would have to pay out less to winners, co-host Jim Braude stated.
“No, actually, what I’m saying is because of the Lottery, I want to argue that the state needs to take more of the rest of the budget and return it to local aid,” Dionne said. “So I am not arguing change of payouts.”
The Mass. Lottery generated $5.904 billion in fiscal year 2026 revenue, down about $59 million or 1 percent from a year before, and turned an estimated profit of $1.045 billion for use as local aid, $22 million than the prior year. Players won an estimated $4.379 billion during fiscal 2026, which featured a 50-year record high prize payout percentage of 74.19 percent. Administrative costs totaled an estimated 2.4 percent of overall revenues.
This year’s state budget provided about $7.65 billion in state Chapter 70 aid that is used to augment property taxes and fund local schools. The school aid is one of the biggest single pots of money in the annual state budget.
