State Rep. Bud Williams, chair of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.
Chair secures $40M in additional state funding
Members of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus last month proposed an additional $419.3 million in spending to the House budget for next year. They secured $40.6 million.
A 9.7% success rate at work would worry most professionals, but in political calculus, it amounts to a surplus of talking points, at least for a while. Every hard-fought dollar in the House budget remains subject to deletion later when a secretive committee meets to reconcile that spending plan with the state Senate’s budget, which is scheduled to be debated this month.
The chair of the Black and Latino Caucus, Rep. Bud Williams of Springfield, asked for the most of any caucus member: $235.6 million. A single amendment made up most of the experienced legislator’s
proposed spending: about $200 million for Mass- DREAMS. The program
funded by federal Covid relief covers down payments for disadvantaged
firsttime homebuyers.
Williams’ amendment was not voted on directly in the House in April, but was consolidated with many others.
Consolidated
amendments spare Beacon Hill’s members from casting tough votes that
could get them in political trouble. Instead, hundreds of amendments are
approved at once. If included, many proposed spending amounts are
halved or worse. Other amendments are omitted from the package.
Funding
proposed in Williams’ 38 budget amendments was overwhelmingly left out.
Just $1 out of every $500 he proposed was included, the lowest ratio of
any caucus member. His 11 successful amendments included, besides the
homebuying program, $435,000, mostly for youth programs, community
services, veterans groups and cultural events in Springfield.
Boston’s
five caucus members secured only 6.8% of their proposed spending. Rep.
Chris Worrell of Dorchester offered the largest successful amendment of
the group, $1 million for the New Commonwealth Fund, which makes grants
to minority-led nonprofits.
Beyond
that, $500,000 was appropriated to the Black Economic Council of
Massachusetts. Two representatives filed amendments for that funding,
Brandy Fluker Oakley and Russell Holmes, both from Mattapan.
In
her second term, Fluker Oakley is well-positioned for a future in House
leadership. She sits on powerful committees — Judiciary and
Transportation. She is also vice chair of Beacon Hill’s Racial Equity
Committee.
Already,
she was able to sway the House to adopt earmarks for Boston’s Big Sister
Association, the Massachusetts Sickle Cell Disease Association and
Harbor Health Services, which operates the Geiger-Gibson and Neponset
health centers in Dorchester.
Filing
31 amendments — more than double the number most caucus members
submitted — Roxbury Rep. Chynah Tyler won the debate over five. The
House budget contains $700,000 she directed toward Dimock Health Center,
Warren Gardens tenants, the Nathan Hale school, Nubian Square
Foundation and the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.
Lagging
the caucus by both absolute and proportional measures was Jamaica Plain
Rep. Samantha Montaño. Of her 18 amendments to the House Ways and
Means
Committee’s draft budget, only two survived consolidation. They total
$70,000, to be split between the Hyde Square Task Force and her
district’s Main Streets organizations.
In
percentage terms, the caucus’ most effective budget advocate was Rep.
Frank Moran from Lawrence. Proposing $48.8 million in amendments,
Moran’s were consolidated into $33.2 million of spending. Overall, $340
of every $500 Moran’s proposed spending was adopted by the House. Of his
23 filings, 17 were included by consolidation in some form.
The
biggest haul was $30 million more for hospitals with high rates of
MassHealth patients. Another multimillion-dollar amendment by Moran
increased reimbursement rates to municipalities hosting Commonwealth
Charter schools by about 10%.
Some freshman members of the caucus were similarly effective, while pushing more modest spending proposals.
Rep.
Manny Cruz from Salem had five of his six amendments adopted, although
often in diminished forms. Rep. Estela Reyes of Lawrence got four of her
five amendments in.
Other
caucus members moved money towards their priorities in the House
debate, notably Reps. Carlos González of Springfield, Andres Vargas of
Haverhill and Kip Diggs from Cape Cod.
Most
caucus amendments this year were direct appropriations for funding. Of
14 amendments to the budget’s policy language, only two made the House’s
last draft.