Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker passed a supplemental budget Monday allocating funds to substance abuse treatment programs, the Department of Children and Families, and a stabilization fund. The bill was passed unanimously by the legislature.
The supplemental budget is the excess of the 2015 fiscal year budget. Of the $300 million in extra spending, the Baker administration gave $27.8 million to opioid treatment and prevention programs, $3.2 million to the Department for Children and Families and $120 million to the stabilization fund, according to a Monday press release
Baker spoke about the issues that he chose to highlight in this bill.
“I am proud to sign an end of year supplemental budget that makes investments to combat opioid abuse and support the mission of DCF, while also depositing money into the Stabilization Fund to bolster our commitment to fiscal responsibility,” Baker said in the release.
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito supported the money going to opioid treatment and prevention programs.
“As I travel to cities and towns across the Commonwealth, I see how the opioid epidemic affects us everyday,” Polito said in the release. “The actions we took earlier this fiscal year are allowing us to deposit money into the stabilization fund and pay down debt early — two important strides to put the state back on sound fiscal footing.”
Jonathan Haughton, an economics professor at Suffolk University, said the money in this supplemental budget is left over from last year’s budget.
“About a third of it is going to go into the rainy day fund,” Haughton said. “So we aren’t going to spend it, we are going to set it aside for a time when we might need that money because revenues have slumped. And hopefully that will never happen but we know it will. But there is a little extra money there and they have put that money into a couple of other things and that is basically what this is about.”
Even though $300 million can seem like quite a bit of money, Haughton said it is actually not much more than one percent of the annual spending. Baker and the administration chose to provide money to issues that are important to them.
“It’s always political,” Haughton said. “The governor has his priorities and so you will see that he put some money into opioid treatment programs because we have had basically an outburst of heroin overdoses and that is a concern. This is a way of getting money quickly into those activities rather than waiting for the next budget cycle to come around.”
Haughton said supplemental budgets have not been common in Massachusetts in a number of years.
“You don’t get a windfall every year and as I said we haven’t seen a windfall like this in quite some time,” he said. “If you go back about a decade you might find windfalls like this but not recently.”
Several residents said opioid addiction is a big problem and something that the government should focus attention and resources on.
“Opioid abuse is definitely an area that needs a lot of attention. I worked in an area where there were a lot of substance abuse problems so money going to that would definitely be a good idea,” said Holly Sullo, 26, of Allston.
Ann Bruck, 36, of Back Bay, commented on how prevalent opioid overdose is in the region.
“New England has always struggled with opioids and leadership has been really trying in the past few years to address the problem,” she said. “I’m glad that those efforts are continuing.”
