11. The governor’s instruments | Commonwealth

Section summary

Governor Healey vetoed no local earmarks in FY2025 or FY2026; her instruments have been the mid-year cut and the hold. In January 2024 her 9C cuts halved local earmarks, and in FY2026 she held all $125 million of them from July 4 to October 20, 2025, then released them in full (the administration’s counts). Which earmarks survive is settled upstream, in conference, where the record does not show who decided.

In May 2017 the Senate adopted Amendment 862 to the FY2018 budget, filed by Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Webster Republican, with Sen. Michael Moore of Millbury: $30,000 for weed control in Lake Singletary in Millbury and Sutton. It went into the enacted budget as a clause in the watershed management line of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, item 2800-0101.

Governor Baker reduced that line. It was one of 169 items he vetoed or reduced that July, $320.3 million in all. The Legislature restored it: the House voted 121 to 33 on October 4, 2017, and the Senate 31 to 6. According to Sen. Moore’s office, the $30,000 was among the money cut and restored.

That was the practice then. A governor struck local earmarks item by item, and the Legislature put most of them back by two-thirds votes. Governor Healey vetoed no local earmarks in FY2025 or FY2026. In FY2026 she held all $125 million of them for three and a half months and then released them, and no override was needed.

Sources: Senate Amendment 862 to S.3, FY2018; FY2018 General Appropriations Act, item 2800-0101; House Yea and Nay No. 219, October 4, 2017, and Senate roll call 153 of 2017 (malegislature.gov); Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, FY2018 veto summary; Office of Sen. Michael Moore, October 20, 2017.

Governor Healey has largely set aside the line-item veto for local earmarks. She vetoed none in FY2025 or FY2026 and, in the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation’s words, “largely avoided” them in FY2024. Her instruments have been the mid-year cut and the hold. In January 2024 her 9C cuts to the FY2024 budget halved local earmarks (the administration’s count). Her FY2026 vetoes, 28 items worth $130.2 million, fell on statewide program lines. The one named institution was the Tufts veterinary school in Grafton, cut by $700,000. By contrast, Governor Baker’s FY2017 vetoes eliminated or reduced 495 of 633 earmarks (the Foundation’s count).

In FY2026 she used the hold. On July 4, 2025, she signed the FY2026 budget and froze all $125 million of its local earmarks (the administration’s count), more than 1,100 items, citing federal cuts and a possible slowdown. On October 20, after the revenue estimate was certified, she released the money in full, three days before the Senate’s override votes.

The hold changed the timing of the FY2026 earmarks, not their amount. The program vetoes fared worse: about $70.4 million was restored by override and about $60 million stood. Most of what stood was money the administration said had other funding, matched its own budget, or reflected a policy choice on drug coverage that the Legislature did not contest.

Which earmarks survive is settled upstream, in conference, where the record does not show who decided. In the FY2026 conference, the members who lost all or nearly all of their earmarks included the two senators who voted against both the Senate budget and the conference report, Republicans Ryan Fattman and Kelly Dooner. Anecdotally, the Boston Globe reported that Sen. Fattman lost all $500,000 and Sen. Dooner all but $15,000. Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, who voted for the budget, said earmarks “shouldn’t depend on how a legislator votes.” The data show the association. They do not show the reason.