Healey Vetoes Hit Multiple Sectors

Reentry services, job training programs and rest homes could soon feel the impact of Gov. Maura Healey's budget vetoes that were left intact after a chaotic end to formal lawmaking.

The House overturned some of Healey's fiscal 2025 budget vetoes during last week's formal sessions, but the Senate did not pursue any overrides of her line item reductions. Healey vetoed $317 million across 60 line items in the nearly $58 billion budget.

Lew Finfer, director of Massachusetts Action for Justice, said Monday he was worried about multiple vetoes, including Healey slashing $2.5 million from the Community Empowerment and Reinvestment grant program, which he said support dozens of reentry programs serving formerly incarcerated individuals. That leaves $7.5 million for the line item, which last fiscal year received $15 million.

"There are a lot of barriers people face," Finfer said, as he spoke about the need to connect people with housing, mental health and drug treatment services after they exit correctional facilities. "When their lives get derailed, it may mean they commit some new charge and they're back in prison, to the detriment of themselves and their families. That's why reentry programs are really important."

Leslie Credle, executive director of the Boston nonprofit Justice 4 Housing that provides services like case management and family reunification for formerly incarcerated Bay Staters, said Healey's veto is "not good."

"A lot of organizations rely on that money for reentry work, and so that means that we don't get to service as many participants as we would like to," Credle said.

Healey, in budget documents, said she reduced the grant funding to "the amount projected to be necessary due to the availability of alternative trust funding that can be maximized to support similar programming." She also said the "Executive Office of Economic Development will work towards utilizing the Workforce Investment Trust Fund to offset the funding being vetoed." But Finfer and the Healey administration said the stalled economic development bill needs to be passed to tap into that fund.

"Look, our economy is strong, our bond rating is excellent, we've got money in our rainy day fund. But it's also our responsibility to make sure that we're being fiscally responsible in a time where there's still some uncertainty as to economic conditions. And we would rather be in a position of budgeting accordingly now, rather than facing the specter of having to make cuts later. Better to plan than to have to make cuts later," Healey said about her overarching veto strategy last week. "We think these vetoes were vetoes that were well-managed. $317 million, it's more than last year. But again, we think we've done so in a way that is responsible and also doesn't do harm to the delivery of service."

Healey also cut $10 million across two line items affecting the state's "supplement" to the Supplemental Security Income program for "aged and disabled" individuals, as well as to the Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children cash assistance program.

Ronald Pawelski, president of the Massachusetts Association of Residential Care Homes, said that money was intended to boost reimbursement rates for the commonwealth's 75 rest homes, which offer a level of care that falls between assisted living facilities and skilled nursing homes. The majority of rest home residents are receiving some type of public assistance, and "a number" of them were previously homeless, he said.

Pawelski said the Legislature in recent years has supported incremental funding requests, as he cited positive working relationships with the House and Senate budget chiefs. When an official from the Department of Transitional Assistance notified him about the budget vetoes last Monday, Pawelski said that it "came as a complete surprise because we were assured, based on multiple meetings, that the amount would be included."

"We are concerned. We're fearful that this veto could lead to a new round of closures, and we will be working very closely with our members to monitor the impact across the industry," said Pawelski, who noted more than 100 rest homes have closed in Massachusetts since 1998.

He added, "We're at a loss to understand why rest homes didn't receive $10 million in incremental funding based on the important role that we believe we play on the health care continuum."

Healey cut the SSI funding by $6.3 million and the EAEDC funding by $3.7 million to the "amount projected to be necessary," she wrote. The veto documents explain for both line items, "Based on historical spending and expected demand, this level will support the continuation of current services."

A spokesperson for the governor did not directly answer News Service questions Monday about why the administration cut funding for the reentry and EAEDC programs.

"The FY25 budget signed by Governor Healey makes significant investments that deliver on shared goals to make Massachusetts the best place live, work and grow a business, to drive our state forward with urgency and purpose, and reflects the need for fiscal responsibility," Matt Murphy, spokesperson for the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, said in a statement Monday. "Given recent slow growth and uncertainty surrounding our tax revenues, we view the package of vetoes as necessary to keep spending in line with available resources and best position ourselves to end the year in balance. These cuts were largely targeted at areas in our budget where we were able to identify alternative funding sources to maintain services or keep spending in line with the budget recommendations that we made in House 2."

Finfer, of Massachusetts Action for Justice, also sounded the alarm about the governor's cuts of $750,000 to career technical institutes in vocational-technical schools, $1 million to MassHire Career Centers, and $500,000 to a summer jobs program for at-risk youth.

The voc-tech veto could mean institutes that offer evening training opportunities in areas like welding, plumbing and carpentry may need to scale back on the skills they teach, Finfer said. Finfer said the MassHire cut could limit job training and services for unemployed residents, while he said the summer jobs veto would harm a program that's already dealt with "major cuts" this season.

"All of the youth have to be from low-income families, so the job helps them -- most of them contribute wages to help their family income," Finfer said.

Healey in budget documents said she reduced funding to the summer jobs line item "to the amount projected to be necessary due to the availability of alternative resources," as she invoked the Transitional Escrow Fund. She also pointed to the fund as a resource to offset the voc-tech and MassHire vetoes.