Senate lawmakers passed a $425 million spending bill Wednesday that shuttles money to cash-starved emergency shelters after an hours-long debate that showed cracks among Democrats over universal background checks and an independent review of state spending.
Republicans and Democrats scorched the legislation as it passed the chamber on a 33-6 vote, with elected officials arguing it either placed too many limits on the system and risked forcing families to sleep outside or was too weak a proposal to address exorbitant costs.
Several close votes on amendments and tense debates around shelter security and wasteful spending accentuated what has long been a heated conversation on Beacon Hill around who and how many people should access state-run shelters in Massachusetts.
Senate budget chief Michael Rodrigues said the tight votes on amendments show that “people are very concerned about this issue, that we really want to get the cost of the shelter under control, that we want to provide suitable measures to ensure public safety.”
“People have different ideas,” he said. “We don’t expect people to walk in lockstep with us.”
The Westport Democrat spent much of the debate defending the spending bill he helped craft as one that “strikes a balance” between supporting families in crisis while “responsibly” managing taxpayer dollars.
Rodrigues said lawmakers have seen a decrease in shelter demand but public accounts of unsafe shelf conditions and incidents of violent crimes have “undermined public confidence.”
“We all know that we must further prioritize public safety and protect our communities at this critical time. Our residents and the communities we represent need confidence that their tax dollars are being allocated responsibly to support a shelter system that is safe and secure,” he said.
But Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr hammered policies in the bill for not actually addressing key issues. At one point during the debate, he called out a measure that bars non-Massachusetts residents who are not lawfully in the country from receiving services as “very marginal.”
He said the residency requirement written into the bill relies on a definition in state law that is “a very easy bar to meet and a very easy bar to manipulate.”
“If we are to be serious about a residency requirement, it needs to be clear, it needs to be definitive, and it needs to be such that everyone can understand what it means and what it requires,” he said.
The supermajority Democratic caucus found itself split several times, including on a vote over unsuccessful language from Tarr that would have required background checks for shelter applicants to also cover state, national, and international criminal records.
Tarr said background checks, including those against the Massachusetts criminal offender record information system, used in the emergency assistance program are “very limited” in their geographic scope.
“That is clearly a shortcoming that’s unacceptable,” Tarr said.
The amendment failed on a 12-26 vote that saw Democrats join with the five-member Republican caucus.
Rodrigues pressed his colleagues to reject the proposal because the Senate had already adopted an amendment calling for a feasibility study into the use of enhanced background checks.
Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Sutton Republican, said Beacon Hill lawmakers have debated policies and funding for the emergency shelter system for years and are only now talking about background checks.
“I find it outrageous that we’re sitting here debating this issue when it should have been happening years ago. It’s an unfortunate failure,” he said.
Democrats also found themselves at odds over an amendment from Sen. Becca Rausch that called on the Inspector General’s Office to produce an independent report by May on areas where money could be saved in the emergency assistance program.
Rausch said it was clear Beacon Hill needed “some fresh eyes to look at this.”
“The Inspector General and his team are trained experts in this specific type of work, and it is squarely within their jurisdiction to do the work described in this amendment,” she said. “We need this independent review.”
Sen. John Keenan, a Quincy Democrat, said lawmakers have learned through the press that “there are problems” in the emergency shelter system, including with the procurement of goods and services.
“Given the magnitude of the money being spent … I believe we have an obligation to the taxpayers to make sure that the money is being spent properly, that goods and services are being appropriately and properly procured,” he said.
Rodrigues and Sen. Nick Collins, a South Boston Democrat, opposed the amendment, arguing the Legislature cannot tell the Office of the Inspector General what to investigate.
“Its independence and privilege insulates them from politics, something a legislatively mandated independent investigation would be in conflict with,” Collins said.
The funding in the bill is time-sensitive because the Healey administration said it ran out of cash to pay shelter providers at the end of January, leaving those who serve the system largely relying on their own lines of credit until the state can pay them back.
Tarr said the extra cash for the shelter system is coming at a time when Healey has proposed closing two mental health facilities in the state and laying off case managers at the Department of Mental Health.
“We need to admit to the very real situation that hundreds of millions of dollars are being consumed here while dramatic reductions are being proposed in a whole host of important areas, two of which I’ve cited, but many more which could be brought to our attention,” he said.
Rodrigues told reporters earlier in the day that additional money for the shelter system and an attempt to save the mental health facilities are “not mutually exclusive.”
“We’ll be talking about the fiscal year 2026 budget in the near future,” he said. “We will assess what we can do with fiscal year 2026. I always say you can only spend a dollar once. So we understand that any reserves that we use and we spend on any program can only be spent once. We fully understand that.”
