Executive Summary A Note from the Secretary for Administration and Finance

Over our first year as an administration, we have celebrated many successes and confronted unforeseen challenges. We passed historic tax cuts and a Fiscal Year 2024 budget that invested record amounts of funding in our schools and climate resilience, boosted financial support for students attending community colleges and universities and made a down payment on child care affordability.

We have also grappled with slowing tax revenues and the need to balance pressing demands with fiscal responsibility.

Putting together a state budget is challenging under any circumstances, but with this Fiscal Year 2025 budget recommendation I am confident we have hit the mark. And we did so thanks to the collaboration and input from our partners both inside and outside of state government.

I want to thank Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kimberley Driscoll, and their team, for their leadership as we put together a budget that advances their priorities and sets us up for both short-term and long-term success.

My colleagues in the Cabinet, and their staff, have also been tremendous partners, working with us every step of the way to make sure that this budget is both balanced, but also reflective of where we aim to go as a Commonwealth.

We have heard from many legislators and advocates about ideas for new investment and thoughts on how to spend available resources. And we have worked hard to be responsive and incorporate that feedback, where possible, so that this budget is a plan everyone can be proud of.

I’m especially grateful to my team at the Executive Office for Administration and Finance for their hours of hard work and creativity in crafting this budget. This would not have been possible without everyone leaning in and working together – Thank you!

Finally, thank you to Chairman Aaron Michlewitz and Chairman Michael Rodrigues, and their respective staffs. Their partnership over the past year has been vital to our success, and it is in that spirit that we enter 2024 with the goal of building on our relationship with the Legislature as begins its work of reviewing our budget recommendations thinking about their own plans for Fiscal Year 2025 and beyond.

Sincerely,

Matthew J. Gorzkowicz

Secretary