THE SENATE moved to leave nearly $348 million in underfunded accounts untouched Tuesday, breaking off only a piece of a spending proposal to backfill reimbursements to child care providers who serve low-income families.
Six days after the House approved a $530 million supplemental budget (H 4151) to replenish a string of state programs, the Senate gave initial approval to a scaled-back version appropriating nearly $190 million for child care services that could soon run out of money.
The bill, which needs another Senate vote before the House can respond, leaves decisions about hundreds of millions of dollars for an unspecified future date as lawmakers deliberate several other major spending bills.
The redraft produced by the Senate Ways and Means Committee (S 2521) includes $95.6 million for the Department of Children and Families and Department of Transitional Assistance-related child care, plus $94 million for income-eligible child care.
It leaves out nearly two-thirds of the House-approved spending, including $43 million for rent assistance, $60 million for home care services and $15.5 million to replace electronic benefits cards vulnerable to fraud.
Committee spokesperson Sean Fitzgerald said the panel’s chair, Sen. Michael Rodrigues, was unavailable for an interview Tuesday. Fitzgerald said those additional funding requests remain in play.
“Today Senate Ways and Means reported out an in-part supplemental budget that only includes critical deficiency funding for EEC childcare financial assistance programs,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “These two items have imminent runout dates, and we felt it best to expedite this portion of the supplemental budget to ensure that childcare providers experience no interruption in funding. The Senate looks forward to considering remaining items in the House’s supplemental budget at a later date.”
Pressed to specify when the child care programs will run out of money, Fitzgerald deferred to the Executive Office for Administration and Finance. A spokesperson for that office did not immediately provide an answer.
Early Education and Care Commissioner Amy Kershaw warned providers two weeks ago that, because of legislative inaction on the supplemental budget, the reimbursements they regularly receive from the state to run the programs might be delayed.
She said the department would be able to make payments to providers through the end of May, but that reimbursements in June would run up against inadequate funding.
“We are serving more children than we ever have in our Child Care Financial Assistance Program, as you all are aware,” Kershaw said during a board meeting earlier this month.
Gov. Maura Healey filed a $756 million supplemental budget at the beginning of April. The Legislature and governor already peeled off and passed one piece of that bill — $240 million to rescue the budget of the Group Insurance Commission, which administers health insurance for state employees and retirees.
The House approved the remainder of Healey’s package 149-1 during a formal session Wednesday after dispensing with 65 amendments, in the process adding another $7 million in spending as well as language codifying protections for English language learners and students with disabilities.
Reps. Alice Peisch and Frank Moran, who filed the amendment, described it as a precaution against potential federal changes.
The Senate gave its scaled-back bill initial approval in a lightly attended informal session Tuesday, then adjourned without taking the engrossment vote that would return it to the House. The Senate could hold that vote as soon as Thursday, when they will meet in another informal session.
Two members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Republican Sens. Kelly Dooner of Taunton and Ryan Fattman of Sutton, did not take an up or down position on the bill. Sixteen other members voted in favor of advancing it.
Lawmakers have devoted most of their attention in the first five months of the term to spending. The supplemental budget is the fifth spending bill to receive votes so far, following measures to replenish the underfunded emergency shelter system, spend available surtax revenues on transportation and education measures, bail out state employee and retiree health insurance accounts, plus the annual state budget.
House and Senate budget chiefs on Thursday will simultaneously convene conference committee talks on the standalone surtax spending package and the fiscal 2026 budget.