Will Gov. Healey sign off on the final 2024 budget?

BOSTON, Mass. (WWLP) – The Commonwealth has missed fiscal deadlines recently, leaving the financial status of the government in question.

The fiscal year ended on June 30th, and Massachusetts is now an outlier when it comes to not reporting year-end tax collections. This delay is longer than any point in the past 20 years.

June was the last month of the 2023 fiscal year, and the Department of Revenue usually has to report on the previous month’s tax collections by the third day of the new month. But the administration does have the power to withhold that information until “the day after the department completes the processing of June tax revenues”.

DOR already announced July collections, but have kept June collections from the public. The June report will paint a picture of the state’s financial well-being. DOR has already said that the tax collections that have been released were running $583 million dollars behind benchmarks.

That was used as guidelines for the 2023 state budget. It is unknown if the governor has the final numbers for fiscal year 2023.

“Obviously, I want to see the revenues, they’ve been somewhat inconsistent,” said Senator John Velis. “I think the state of the commonwealth’s finances, I think we are fiscally strong even if the numbers don’t come back as positive as we want them to be. I think that we have, Massachusetts is in a very strong fiscal point, and I think the numbers will show that. But I think that even if they’re less than anticipated revenue coming in, I don’t think it’s the end of the world in Massachusetts.”

The budget should be in place by July 1st to correspond with the start of the new fiscal year, but the governor was not sent the budget until July 30th. Lawmakers have not sent the Governor a budget before the July 1st deadline since 2013.

Governor Healey has until Thursday to sign off on the final 2024 budget.