Reps approve $61.5 B budget

House lawmakers wrapped up work on a nearly billion fiscal year budget plan after two and a half days of proceedings that added tens of millions of dollars in spending and spotlighted fault lines on a series of broader approach issues Representatives took the final - vote on the budget plan just after p m Wednesday capping off another year in which bulk of the amendments filed were dispatched with a handful of mega-amendment bundles crafted behind closed doors Republican Reps Nicholas Boldyga of Southwick John Gaskey of Carver Marc Lombardo of Billerica Alyson Sullivan-Almeida of Abington Kenneth Sweezey of Pembroke and Justin Thurber of Somerset voted against the bill Democrat Rep Christopher Flanagan of Dennis who is facing federal fraud charges was the only representative who did not cast a vote The seven so-called consolidated amendments together tacked on about million in spending mostly in local earmarks to what began as a roughly billion budget The updated bottom line still stands roughly half a billion dollars below the version Gov Maura Healey filed in January before a series of Trump administration developments raised fears about potentially disruptive federal spending cuts As the final votes were tallied House Speaker Ron Mariano praised staff on the House Procedures and Means Committee for a great job under very laborious circumstances living with the stresses and strains coming out of Washington daily and not knowing what number you were trying to balance to But not all the reaction was positive Beacon Hill has once again shown its commitment to secrecy over sound fiscal guidelines The House tacked on million in new spending over their original proposal This was negotiated behind closed doors and rammed through massive opaque consolidated amendments reported Paul Diego Craney Executive Director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance The secretive process demonstrates just how broken and dysfunctional Beacon Hill is and how badly the masses necessities the legislature to begin to abide by the audit law they passed in he continued The multi-day proceedings which in typical fashion featured long stretches of inactivity in the House Chamber while representatives made key decisions in private ended with one last speech from Chelsea Rep Judith Garcia who praised a million line item designed to provide legal aid to immigrants and refugees Garcia recounted her mother s decades of work on an assembly line making hot dogs your famous Fenway Franks as she put it with long hours and no complaints In the modern day plenty of workers still carry that same spirit but they also live with the daily anxiety that each walk to and from work could bring not just a paycheck but a setback Garcia announced This is the complexity of our immigration system It s not black it s not white it s deeply nuanced and too often unforgiving And while the challenges are vast one thing is clear access to legal representation should not be determined by your paycheck or your profession The state Republican Party criticized that funding proposal and circulated a quote from Lombardo calling it unconscionable Beacon Hill Democrats have gone so far left that they completely don t represent the hardworking taxpayers anymore This line item makes this budget vote an easy No ' Lombardo announced in a comment provided by the party Over the discipline of the two and a half days of budget sessions the House dipped into miniature debates about civil immigration detainers crisis shelter eligibility no-cost calls for incarcerated individuals clean strength mandates the MBTA Communities Act and more In virtually every situation Democrats shot down Republican attempts to make major agenda tweaks The only amendments that the House approved were the seven consolidated packages and a further amendment calling for scrutiny of school sports instead of new restrictions on transgender athletes One measure quietly tucked into Consolidated Amendment G would increase salaries of the eight Governor s Councilors from to Multiple of the elected councilors continue their careers outside Beacon Hill typically as attorneys while serving on the panel that vets and confirms judicial nominees The final mega-amendment adopted Wednesday would also create a small business ombudsperson to help businessowners tackle a complicated landscape and convene a commission tasked with studying the factors that impact the decisions of individuals and businesses to relocate to and from the commonwealth That panel s review would be due by July Consolidated amendment F adopted earlier Wednesday included million for investments to assistance entrepreneurial fellowships enabling the translation of research into businesses products and jobs in the power transportation and buildings sectors as directed by the Clean Force and Atmosphere Plan to the town of Maynard for the continuation of mitigating water store issues for a effort of collaborative research by the Division of Marine Fisheries through the Marine Fisheries Institute in collaboration with the School for Marine Science and System at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth to apply innovative instrument to assess the biomass of fish in the region managed by the New England Fishery Management Council and hydrodynamic modeling of coastal waters to accurately assess delineation of shellfish growing area classifications and other applications to improve management of marine fisheries materials to the Boston Celebrations Foundation Inc for the Boston Pops fireworks spectacular and July Independence Day celebrations along the Charles River to the Boston Constituents Arena Association for the operation and programing at the Boston masses region to the town of Wakefield for a pollinator garden and for the town of Andover to repair and reinstall the town s historic World War I cannon The House will reconvene in a lightly attended informal session Thursday The budget now heads over to the Senate which traditionally unveils and debates its own proposal in May before a crew of House-Senate negotiators crafts a final version to send to the governor Lawmakers routinely fail to complete the annual spending plan by the July start of the fiscal year and in modern years have leaned on interim budgets to keep state authorities operating while they finish their deliberations Senators are also on the verge of advancing their rewrite of a surtax spending bill which carves up billion in available revenues for schooling and transportation the House approved April