BOSTON — State Rep. Donald Wong, whose district includes most of Saugus and part of Lynn, backed the state House of Representatives’ supplemental-budget bill for fiscal year 2023.
Legislators are continuing to hammer out the details of a budget for FY24, which began on July 1.
The supplemental budget contains funding to assist struggling hospitals, along with temporary provisions to help ease the school-nurse shortage, Wong’s office said in a statement. The House passed the bill unanimously on July 13, sending it to the state Senate for consideration.
The bill provides $180 million to assist “fiscally strained” hospitals, the statement said. Of that $180 million, $91.4 million will be set aside for hospitals that are eligible for a Medicaid supplemental payment, $58.5 million for nonprofit and municipal acute-care hospitals with a high percentage of Medicaid patients, and $30 million for acute-care hospitals “that demonstrate significant financial need.”
In addition to supporting hospitals, the bill proposes a series of temporary changes to the state’s hiring process for school nurses in both 2023 and 2024. Under the proposed changes, the commissioner of education would be able to issue a temporary certificate to a registered nurse who does not meet the certification testing requirements but is authorized to practice as a registered nurse in Massachusetts and has been employed as such for at least three years.
Wong noted that House Bill 3982 includes a $75 million reserve account to reimburse qualifying school districts for “extraordinary relief” from out-of-district special education placement costs. Though the list of communities that would actually be eligible for relief based on the formula included in the bill has yet to be determined, the bill does exclude from eligibility school districts that still have unspent money received from federal grants as part of COVID-19 relief.
Specifically, the bill excludes districts that still have unspent Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief money received under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, the American Rescue Plan Act, or any other federal act that provided COVID-19 response funds.
The bill, if it clears the Senate and is signed into law by Gov. Maura Healey, would also increase the annual cap on tax credits authorized under the Housing Development Incentive Program from $10 million to $57 million in calendar year 2023, with any funding remaining at the end of 2023 to be carried over to subsequent years and the annual cap to be set at $30 million beginning on Jan. 1, 2024; transfer $100 million to the state’s Pension Liability Fund; fund $226.2 million worth of collective bargaining agreements; extend simulcast racing authorization by five years; authorize the state’s Department of Public Utilities to allow electric distribution companies to recover expenditures and payments associated with the cost increases resulting from delays in the planned transmission line carrying hydroelectricity from Quebec; create a $60.3 million payroll reserve for the Department of Transitional Assistance’s caseworkers and staff serving applicants and clients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled, and Children program; and appropriate $506,140 for costs incurred by the Commonwealth through its interstate compacts for flood control.
