Saturday, June 22, 2024
Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, Vice Chair Ferrante, and Vice Chair Friedman,
Thank you for your ongoing work in negotiating a final budget for the upcoming fiscal year. We were very pleased to see a number of the new initiatives in the budgets passed by each chamber, and we would like to call attention to the role the Fair Share Amendment has played in making new investments possible.
As you continue such negotiations, we urge you to include the following provisions in the final budget:
- New Investments in Early Education and Child Care: Advancing the Common Start Coalition’s vision of a more robust early education and child care infrastructure with greater stability for providers, better pay for educators, and more affordability for families, as reflected in various parts of both the House and Senate FY 2025 budget.
- Universal School Meals: Fully funding universal school meals by dedicating $190 million to School Meals For All (Line Item 1596-2422, as funded in the FY 2025 House budget).
- Access to Counsel: Providing $2.5 million for implementation of a statewide Access to Counsel pilot program to increase access to legal representation for low-income tenants and low-income owner occupants in eviction proceedings (item 0321-1800 in the House FY 2025 budget).
- Cash Assistance for Low-Income Families: Providing a 10% increase to TAFDC cash assistance grants for very low-income families with children (line item 4403-2000), as both House and Senate FY 2025 budgets did, a 10% increase to EAEDC cash assistance grants for older adults and people with disabilities (as in line item 4408-1000 of the Senate FY 2025 budget), and an increase of $50 per child to the annual TAFDC children’s clothing allowance (also the Senate budget). These increases are essential, and families in deep poverty should not have to wait until next April for them to take effect.
- No Cost Calls Funding: Dedicating $35M in the Communications Access Trust Fund for no–cost calls in prisons and jails (item 1595-6153 in the House FY 2025 budget). This was an exciting victory last year, and we need to ensure committed funds for robust implementation.
- No Cost Calls Reporting: Making technical fixes to the No Cost Calls reporting requirements, so that policymakers have the information they need to effectively monitor free communication (Section 29 A&B of the Senate FY 2025 budget).
- Voting Access: Eliminating barriers to voting access by ending MA’s outlier status as the only state where if a voter doesn’t return the annual municipal census, they’re placed on the Inactive Voter list (Section 57 of the Senate FY 2025 budget). We need to continue the work of expanding access to voting.
- New Flag, Seal, & Motto: Continuing the work to develop a new state flag, seal, and motto (as funded in line item 7008-0900 in the Senate FY 2025 budget).
Thank you again for your work.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
