Healey meets with the legislative leadership
Keeping with gubernatorial tradition, Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll met with legislative leaders Monday for the first time since their swearing-in ceremony last week.
Healey, Driscoll, state Senate President Karen E. Spilka, and state House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano met for nearly 90 minutes in the governor’s third-floor office to discuss tax relief and education, among other topics, but did not commit to concrete plans for the upcoming session.
“We talked about a number of things,” Healey told reporters after the meeting. “It was the first opportunity for us to gather as a leadership team. So that was special for the lieutenant governor and myself.”
The meeting notably left out Republican leaders state Representative Brad Jones and state Senator Bruce Tarr, who often joined the leadership meetings at the invitation of former Governor Charlie Baker a Republican. Healey said she plans to meet with the GOP leaders for “continued conversation.”
“We thought it was important for this, the first meeting, that it just be a meeting among the four of us,” Healey said after meeting with Driscoll, Spilka, and Mariano, who are all Democrats. “I think it is appropriate for this initial meeting, as we sit down and talk about the future and what we all want to accomplish together, for us to sit together.”
Jones and Tarr told the Globe in a statement that they were open to meeting with Healey, and had hoped to continue the bipartisan tradition.
“Regular, bipartisan leadership meetings have been one of the distinguishing hallmarks of a state government that operates in a collaborative way, with effective communication between its leaders,” they said. “They have served us well during very challenging times, and are as important now as ever. We look forward to the continuation of these conversations, which are powerful in symbol and substance, and to taking part in them as before.”
One of the preeminent issues on Beacon Hill — and one discussed Monday — is tax relief for the state’s residents, who have been squeezed by inflation for months. The Legislature last year agreed to a $1 billion relief package that included both permanent changes to the tax structure and immediate relief like stimulus checks. The plan, which both chambers agreed to, got torpedoed in the end-of-session chaos when leaders couldn’t agree on how to handle simultaneously giving residents relief and following a 40-yearold law that required $3 billion be sent back to taxpayers.
On the campaign trail and on inauguration day, Healey promised to distribute some of the state’s wealth of resources to its neediest residents, including through an expanded child tax credit and tax deductions for renters. Both policy changes would require action by the Legislature.
Spilka has similarly committed to revisiting parts of the tax relief plan in the new session; Mariano did not commit to any specific policies or proposals.
Healey said the yet-to-be-announced consensus revenue forecast for Fiscal Year 2024 will determine what’s possible when it comes to relief or other spending bills for the coming session.
“We’ll get back to you on that . . . We’ve got to see what the consensus revenue is,” she said. “We’re taking all of this in. We’ve all articulated priorities around the relief we want to provide to residents.”
When asked for his take on tax reform and relief, Mariano pointed to the upcoming consensus revenue hearing, which he said was scheduled for an unknown date.
The leaders also discussed a plan for free community college, a proposal Spilka pitched in a speech last week. Healey proposed a similar plan on the campaign trail and in her inaugural address, though the governor’s plan would limit the free college to students who are over 25 and don’t have college degrees.
Spilka said on WCVB’s “On the Record” Sunday that she estimates the program could cost $50 million, and be paid for with revenue from the newly created “millionaire’s tax,” which is estimated to bring in $1.2 billion to more than $2 billion annually.