MAR Online Blog

On May 25th, the Senate passed their budget, on the heels of the House’s work in April. Read our post on the FY24 House budget and our Senate budget comments. Some key housing-related notes from the Senate’s FY24 budget:  

Continued investment in housing assistance – following on the steps of the Governor, House, and recent history, the state has continued to backfill funding for key housing assistance programs that proved their effectiveness during the height of the pandemic when the state received a significant influx of federal funds.  

Crumbling Concrete Foundations – The Senate included two REALTOR®-supported pieces related to crumbling concrete foundations, one of MAR’s priority issues for our upcoming REALTOR® Day on Beacon Hill. They are: 

• $50,000 more for the current pyrrhotite home testing reimbursement program 
• Mandatory quarry testing as proposed in S.2242 that attempts to prevent this issue in future home builds. 

Protecting Cape Cod Bay – The Senate also included another REALTOR®-supported policy proposal, the creation of a commission to regulate the dumping of contaminated wastewater from decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Notably, this commission would be empowered to examine economic impacts in addition to environmental, which will likely include housing. The budget language also prohibits the Department of Environmental Protection from approving any wastewater dumping until 30-days after the commission issues its report. 

Expands Pandemic Tenant Protections – Coupled with a proposed 30% increase in funding for the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition Program (RAFT), the Senate included language similar to the House making permanent a pandemic protection pausing eviction cases for nonpayment of rent for tenants with pending RAFT applications. The goal of proponents is to assure tenants and landlords can access state funding and preserve housing stability. However, opponents have raised concerns that the law incentivizes expensive and time-consuming delays. The Senate included some key tweaks including:  

• a reasonableness component,  
• expediting RAFT applications for those with pending cases, and  
• record sealing for tenants in cases where the landlord receives payment. 

Increasing the Community Preservation Trust Fund – The Senate included an additional $30 million in funding for the Community Preservation Trust, which is used to match municipal property tax surcharges paid by homeowners to support local affordable housing, historic preservation and recreation. MAR has supported the Community Preservation Act since its creation just over 20-years ago. Since then, it has generated $3 billion dollars for local projects and been one of the most significant funders of affordable housing. 

Our attention now turns to the Conference Committee, made up of three members each from the House and Senate who will reconcile any differences between the two budgets and produce a final FY24 budget by the end of June.