Jul 27, 2026 · 6 min · 5 segments
Less than a week after signing the new Massachusetts budget, Gov. Maura Healey filed a supplemental budget seeking an additional $100 million for public schools this year.
Carrie HealyHost
Less than a week after signing the annual state budget, Governor Maura Healy is already back with a supplemental budget request for $100 million in school funding.
Does this move signal the governor was unhappy with the budget the lawmakers settled on? Or is this a political move to curry favor with the teacher voting block? After all, she is seeking reelection.
The governor signed the new annual budget without making a single change.
She didn't cut $1, she didn't change one single sentence in it, and she said it was a good budget that didn't need to be changed.
And so then following it up with this new $100 million ask, it struck me as an opportunity to have another press conference and to talk about her support for public education.
But if she really wanted to get this money into classrooms sooner, the faster way to do that would have been to try to amend the budget that lawmakers had just sent her.
So I think this one is a bit more about messaging than actually how she felt about the budget.
They just, in their budget, set out a new commission to study the school funding formula.
And by supplementing schools with the new $100 million before that commission even gets going, I think lawmakers are afraid that it would really up the expectations of cities and towns, and they might not be comfortable with that.
Less than a week after signing the annual state budget, Governor Maura Healy is already back with a supplemental budget request for $100 million in school funding.
Does this move signal the governor was unhappy with the budget the lawmakers settled on? Or is this a political move to curry favor with the teacher voting block? After all, she is seeking reelection.
The governor signed the new annual budget without making a single change.
She didn't cut $1, she didn't change one single sentence in it, and she said it was a good budget that didn't need to be changed.
And so then following it up with this new $100 million ask, it struck me as an opportunity to have another press conference and to talk about her support for public education.
But if she really wanted to get this money into classrooms sooner, the faster way to do that would have been to try to amend the budget that lawmakers had just sent her.
So I think this one is a bit more about messaging than actually how she felt about the budget.
They just, in their budget, set out a new commission to study the school funding formula.
And by supplementing schools with the new $100 million before that commission even gets going, I think lawmakers are afraid that it would really up the expectations of cities and towns, and they might not be comfortable with that.
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