Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has a backup plan to cover direct emergency shelter payments in the event lawmakers hammering out a spending plan for the rest of the fiscal year find themselves mired in negotiations, according to an administration official.
The Healey administration reported spending $53 million on the emergency shelter system over two weeks this month as it also made clear that it is running out of cash to directly pay for shelters this fiscal year, according to a report released Monday.
That comes as House and Senate negotiators are working to produce a deal that could fund shelters for the rest of the fiscal year 2024 and potentially parts of fiscal year 2025. But the clock is ticking as direct funding for emergency assistance shelters is expected to run out the first or second week of April, according to legislative budget writers.
If negotiators cannot find a compromise in time, the Healey administration could turn to other pots of money set aside to respond to the crisis, according to the Executive Office of Administration and Finance.
A spokesperson for the office said Healey has access to $707 million this fiscal year that she can spend on the broader humanitarian response to an influx of migrants from other countries, including the emergency assistance program, overflow shelters, and school reimbursements, among other things.
A backup plan could see the administration use dollars intended for school reimbursements to pay for the emergency assistance shelter program, according to the Executive Office of Administration and Finance.
Some school payments are not due immediately, leaving officials with wiggle room if the Legislature does not find a quick compromise on the spending bill, according to the office. Any dollars used would be backfilled at a later date when money arrives from the Legislature, according to the office.
The administration reported spending $480 million of the $575 million the Legislature allocated for the emergency assistance shelter program as of March 21, and the remaining $95 million could dry up in the next few weeks as more bills come due, according to the Monday report.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate said it is not surprising that the Healey administration is considering an alternative plan to keep shelters funded, but resolving the spending bill is in “everyone’s best interest.”
“We have demands on this program that have a real and significant cost and tapping into some of these remaining surplus dollars to manage through this over a six to nine-month period is okay, provided we’re using that time to figure out what the long-term plan is,” Howgate told the Herald Wednesday.
House and Senate lawmakers this month passed competing versions of a spending bill that would direct hundreds of millions in surplus revenues left over from the pandemic to the emergency shelter system.
The two branches differed in their approach to funding shelters, with the House proposing to hand over $224 million for this fiscal year and the Senate opting to grant Healey access to more than $800 million to cover costs in fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
The two proposals set nine-month limits on families’ stay in shelters but diverge in how families can extend their stay.
The Healey administration projected it would spend $932 million on shelters this fiscal year and $915 million in the next, an enormous tab that has led Beacon Hill to place limits on shelter stays to curb demand on an already strained system.
The emergency shelter system, created under Massachusetts’ decades-old right-to-shelter law, has been at a 7,500-family limit since November. State officials project the shelter network will cost taxpayers about $75 million a month.
The Healey administration reported $53 million in spending between March 7 and March 21, according to the report released Monday.
Of the $480 million spent this fiscal year, just over $39 million has gone to shelter providers, nearly $11 million on clinical assessment and overflow sites, $8.8 million on student aid, nearly $1 million on municipal reimbursements, $203,000 on upgrades to an overflow shelter site in Cambridge, $8,000 for upgrades at an overflow site in Roxbury, and $28,000 on nursing staff at overflow sites.
Another $1.6 million has been spent on payroll for National Guard troops deployed at shelter sites throughout Massachusetts. Healey first called up the Guard in August as families found themselves hotels and motels without staff.
A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said 209 Guard members are at 25 shelter sites. Troops help with “onsite coordination” of food, transportation, and medical care as well as help students enroll in schools.
The Guard members do not provide security or law enforcement services and work in teams of less than 10 during daytime hours, according to the spokesperson.