Mass. lawmakers working on a deal for $250M funding toward migrant crisis

Who wants to make a deadline day deal?

About eight hours remain until the calendar flips to Thursday. At that point, legislative rules call for lawmakers to shift into a holiday break when controversial business cannot take place, and House and Senate Democrats still have not signaled any breakthrough on a spending bill featuring money for the over-capacity emergency shelter system.

While the branches share a stated desire to steer $250 million more toward the crisis -- plus a continuing frustration with the federal government's unwillingness to send aid -- legislative leaders have different visions for how that funding should be deployed.

The House appears more dissatisfied with the Healey administration's response and wants to dictate certain steps, while the Senate wants to let the governor and her deputies continue to take the lead.

Top Democrats have made a habit of leaving big decisions until deadlines are looming or have already passed, and they typically hash out compromises behind closed doors. Five hours after gaveling in Wednesday, the House and Senate had not formally moved to negotiate their differences.

Republicans in both chambers voted against the spending bills, and the House GOP caucus on Wednesday morning was weighing whether or how to keep up its opposition if the proposal is not resolved by the time the Legislature's holiday break begins.

Based on the way previous terms have played out, there appear to be three primary options for legislative leaders this time around.

The House and Senate could take the most common, traditional route and convene a conference committee, which brings together three representatives and three senators to negotiate a final bill.

Any conference committee report cannot be amended on the floor of either chamber, so that route would prevent Republicans who opposed the underlying bills from attempting to change the ultimate product. About five hours into concurrent House and Senate sessions Wednesday, lawmakers have not made any motion to name a conference committee.

The two Ways and Means Committee Chairs, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Michael Rodrigues, might opt to work out a more informal deal between themselves and advance a compromise through the floor amendment process.

That option also has downsides. Other lawmakers -- including the Republicans who fought to alter the shelter response during hours of previous debate -- could try to offer further amendments, potentially slowing or even derailing a bill's final passage.

A third option is one that lawmakers have embraced time and time again: procrastination.

Top Democrats could punt some or all of the wide-ranging $2.8 billion closeout budget, either into the uncertainty of upcoming informal sessions in which a single objection can stall any legislation or until formal sessions resume in January. But they might hesitate over the material impacts or political optics of failing to reach a deal.

There's also a perennial issue, one that legislators don't seem to take that seriously, of procrastinating on wrapping up budget work for the previous fiscal year. The state comptroller is supposed to file a state annual financial report by Oct. 31, but can't meet that statutory deadline until lawmakers wrap up the pending supplemental budget. 

After months of allowing the Healey administration to call all the shots, House Speaker Ron Mariano and his deputies pushed via the supplemental budget to require minimum amounts of funding to be spent on certain shelter needs. They also sought to use their legislative muscle to ensure overflow sites are available for families unable to access shelter immediately.

Waiting until later in the winter to resolve emergency shelter policy would leave House Democrats in a holding pattern for the moment and the families they sought to support with no guarantees as the weather grows colder.

The Healey administration set a limit of 7,500 families in the shelter system, warning that the state does not have the providers, space or funding to continue expanding capacity. Nearly two dozen families were on a waitlist as of Monday, hoping for a spot to become available.

Sarah Barrese, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities' deputy chief financial officer, wrote in an affidavit two weeks ago that the $325 million appropriated for the shelter system in the annual state budget would run out by Jan. 13, 2024 if no cap was in place and capacity continued to grow at previous rates.

Formal legislative sessions may resume, under legislative rules, on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. 

Regardless of the near-term outcome, the debate over shelter funding and humanitarian aid to migrants will be a recurring one.

Michlewitz and Rodrigues have both said they believe the additional $250 million will keep the system funded only into the spring, signaling that another debate and vote on the topic might be necessary even before completion of the next annual budget.

"I don't think this additional $250 million for migrants, on top of the $325 million we gave [the shelter system] in the FY24 operating budget, is going to be enough to get us through this current fiscal year," Rodrigues told the News Service on Monday. "We're going to need to deal with that sometime probably next spring."