Shelter Tab Rises, and Veterans Get Bumped by Migrants

This was one of those weeks that told you more about the future than it did about what was immediately at hand.

And there was plenty at hand this week: three days of House deliberations (there was very little debate) on a spending bill for July 2024 - June 2025, agreement on a long-discussed shelter funding and reforms bill, a brouhaha over things a Cabinet secretary said, an approaching deadline in the slow-motion Steward crisis, tensions bubbling over around student protests and encampments, consumer protection action in the Senate, and a cameo from the pope.

During breaks in that action, we got glimpses into the future.

A Helter Skelter Shelter Bill

A decidedly July breeze wafted through the State House on Wednesday when the News Service reported that private talks over funding and reforms for the overburdened family shelter system were about to produce an agreement. With the House Chamber full for budget debate and the Senate preparing for its own formal session, there was a little end-of-session buzz in the building.

"I mean, we're here, and we're going to be here for a while. Time to do the supp budget and get it out of the way," Rep. Paul Donato of Medford, who plays a big role in House operations, said Wednesday as word of a shelter deal got out.

Reps and senators talked on and off the chamber floors about the deal Democrats struck to again re-up shelter funding, this time with the imposition of a nine-month stay limit. What was clear was that the unknowable and uncontrolled costs of the shelter system will remain the thread stitched through every other discussion on Beacon Hill for the foreseeable future.

"What we have before us is a funding bill to kind of keep the problem going in Massachusetts," House Minority Leader Brad Jones said of the measure, which ultimately got to Gov. Maura Healey's desk without a single vote of Republican support.

During Friday's House budget debate, Republicans proposed an amendment aimed at prioritizing veterans for eligibility in the Right to Shelter Program. But a solid wall of 129 Democrats voted against this amendment, resulting in its failure to pass.

MassGOP Chair, Amy Carnevale, immediately took up the cudgel, saying she was shocked by the decision by Democrats to block this amendment stating, “It is utterly appalling that Democrats have opted to prioritize migrants entering our country over our esteemed veterans. Today's events mark an abhorrent display of disrespect towards veterans across the Commonwealth." For good measure, Carnevale added, "This decision is not just disappointing; it's a slap in the face to those who have sacrificed so much for our freedoms.”

Jones also said the shelter crisis "is absolutely crowding out our ability to do any number of other things that we need, want and should do in the commonwealth," and others in his GOP caucus advanced that theme during debate over the fiscal 2025 budget.

It's a good bet to also be a theme in the House debate of a major housing bill in the next few weeks, in debate over a final compromise FY25 budget in June or July, and possibly even during debate over yet another FY24 shelter funding supplemental budget.

It doesn't help that the state is seeing things go the other way on the revenue side of the ledger. As shelter costs have soared, state tax collections have slumped. Going forward, that makes every conversation involving a dollar sign even more fraught.

Rep. Kim Ferguson, a Republican from Holden, reminded her colleagues Thursday to think about the messages that Beacon Hill is sending with spending decisions "in a time that we are constantly being told that it's raining, that it's going to be a rough budget year, and that we need to tighten our belts."

"I'm already getting texts and calls from my municipalities asking why certain things haven't been included in the budget. And then they're saying, 'but yet, you'll spend $35 million on the no-cost calls.' So it's a concern," Ferguson said during debate on an unsuccessful Republican push to defund the free prison calls policy.

And regardless of whether it's the shelter crisis, the dour revenue picture or the combination of the two crowding out other spending or initiatives, this week also suggested there could be a knock-down-drag-out debate coming over how to pay -- and who should pay -- for transportation upgrades that nearly everyone agrees are necessary.

Healey and Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt started laying the groundwork for a transportation revenue debate months ago, but an especially candid speech the secretary made to the Walk Massachusetts advocacy group earlier this month sparked talk about specific ideas, expanding tolls on Bay State roads chief among them.

"I'm going to talk about tolling," Tibbits-Nutt, who chairs Healey's task force on transportation revenue options, said. "And when I'm talking tolling, I'm talking at the borders. I'm not talking within Massachusetts."

Conservatives slammed Tibbits-Nutt, and one influential member of the revenue working group she leads suggested her comments are going to set that group's work back.

"There's a divisiveness and alienation that has been created by some of these comments," Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce CEO Jim Rooney told CommonWealth Beacon. "It makes it hard."

But one of the most powerful people on Beacon Hill said she was at least open to talking more about the idea of border tolls: Senate President Karen Spilka, who represents a district that lies along the tolled Massachusetts Turnpike and for years has highlighted the fact that people in her part of the state have to pay tolls far more often than people who live along untolled highways.

"I believe that -- and I've said this publicly -- if tolls are such a great idea for the Turnpike, we should look at them for funding for other areas of the state. I have filed, in the past, bills to put tolls at the border. So I do believe that we need to be creative about our funding. And I do believe that it needs to be fair, because I believe the tolls system right now is not fair at all," she said Monday. "So I would certainly be willing to have discussions about creative and fair ways to raise revenues for our many infrastructure needs."

Sen. Brendan Crighton, co-chair of the Transportation Committee and a member of the task force, also did not rule the idea out. He told CommonWealth Beacon that, "It would be foolish for us not to look at all the options."

Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh knows a thing or two about looking at all the options. She told lawmakers this week that state officials have been thinking, talking and strategizing about the potential next steps in the simmering Steward Health Care financial crisis -- be it receivership, bankruptcy or something else.

"Every day at 7:30, we have a stand-up call with leaders across government, external counsel, people across the health care system, other colleagues in other parts of government, to discuss what we know, what we've learned and how we're going to proceed," Walsh told the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee. "We also have expert advisors to guide us with respect to a national bankruptcy if that were to occur."

Walsh said Wednesday that "there's not a one-size answer, there's not a sweeping answer to 'What happens when if Steward leaves our market?'"

"We still don't know exactly what's going to happen or when it's going to happen," Walsh said. "But we have a prepared, thoughtful, coordinated response."

SONG OF THE WEEK: Few barbs are thrown on the House (or Senate) floor these days, and most of them launched during this week's budget debate were of a friendly nature. That included Rep. Mike Day of Stoneham quoting Rep. Dan Cahill of Lynn and paying his fellow chairman a back-handed compliment when talking about budget funding for anti-hate initiatives. "The gentleman from Lynn, the chair of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, said to me, 'hate ain't great.' Simple man, simple words. But true words," Day said.