Senate Passes Budget With Joyce Priorities

BOSTON – The Massachusetts Senate passed a balanced budget that includes many priorities laid out by Senator Brian A. Joyce including; tracking down and eliminating government overlaps and redundancy, paying down pension liabilities to save taxpayer money in the future, and supporting early childhood education, mental health and substance abuse treatment services, senior home care and veterans’ services.

“The budget we passed helps protect vulnerable residents while reining in debt practices to save taxpayer money,” said Joyce. “Our projected budget state spending is less than the rate of growth, allowing us to move prudently forward with our continued economic recovery.”

Other Joyce priorities included in the in the budget are:

• Boosting school funding by nearly $100 million;
• Enforcing mental health parity rights for Massachusetts residents;
• Increasing funding for substance abuse treatment to combat the growing tide of opioid addiction in the state;
• Reducing the waitlist for early education services; 
• Changing debt issuance practices to encourage competition in state and municipal bidding to save taxpayer money;
• Creating a Government Efficiencies Commission to study overlaps and redundancies in state government, and;
• Supporting Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities allowing residents to more easily age in place.