$1.57 Billion Plan Pairs Fair Share Investments with Innovative Policy Solutions; Provides $1 Million in Support for Local Projects
(BOSTON—4/9/2026) The Massachusetts Senate today approved a budget plan that pairs statewide education and transportation investments with innovative policies to spur new multifamily housing construction, boost the family medicine workforce, protect immigrants, and ease strained municipal budgets with regionally equitable Fair Share investments. Senator Cindy F. Friedman (D-Arlington) cast her vote in support of the measure.
The legislation, S.3041, exempts building materials from the sales tax for qualifying housing projects and boosts the primary care workforce by delivering scholarships to UMass Medical graduates who agree to practice in underserved populations in Massachusetts after graduation.
The bill sends significant funding to city and town budgets to help with the costs of heavy winter storms, increases reimbursements for special education services, and strengthens scientific research operations at public universities.
“This supplemental budget not only invests in our statewide education and public transportation infrastructure using Fair Share Act funds, but also contains creative policy solutions to strengthen our health care system by creating a scholarship program for primary care physicians,” said Senator Friedman, who serves as Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing and as Chair of the Senate Committee on Steering and Policy. “Importantly, this legislation includes items that respond to the actions of the federal government as part of the Senate’s Response 2025 initiative through the delivery of additional support to the Immigrant Legal Defense Fund and the creation of a new sales tax credit to incentivize multi-family home production and mitigate the impact of federal tariffs on building materials. This is the second year that the Senate has used surplus Fair Share Act dollars to bring funding directly to local projects in education and public transportation, and I am so excited to support these projects for the benefit of residents here in the 4th Middlesex district and across the state.”
Local Project Funding
Through amendments to this supplemental budget, Senator Friedman secured $1 million in direct funding to support local education and public transportation, road and bridge projects. This funding includes:
- $250,000 for the City of Woburn to fund road, traffic, and pedestrian safety improvements in the area of the New Boston Street Bridge;
- $150,000 for Billerica Public Schools to purchase and replace interactive whiteboards in the district’s elementary schools;
- $150,000 for the Town of Arlington to fund pedestrian improvements near the Robbins Library on Massachusetts Avenue;
- $150,000 for Burlington Public Schools to fund capital improvements at Burlington High School;
- $150,000 for Arlington Public Schools to purchase student transportation vehicles, such as a bus or vans;
- $100,000 for the Town of Billerica to support road, traffic, and pedestrian safety improvements in the Billerica Town Center; and
- $50,000 for Shawsheen Valley Technical High School to fund the installation and upgrade of exhaust and dust collection systems for the school’s Masonry and Plumbing programs.
Legal Defense for Massachusetts Immigrants
In response to federal legal actions targeting immigrants living in Massachusetts, the legislation invests an additional $1 million in legal defense services for immigrants, allocated from the state’s general fund.
The funding comes following the success of an initial $5 million investment by the Legislature that created the Massachusetts Access to Counsel Initiative, which has already provided legal aid to hundreds of Massachusetts residents.
Incentivizing New Housing Construction
The legislation includes a new targeted sales tax exemption for building materials to incentivize the construction of new affordable, moderate-income, and middle-income housing units for certain housing projects.
To target production in areas with the greatest need, the program focuses on projects that include at least 15 per cent affordable units and projects in communities where the median household income is below 120 per cent of the average household income.
Education Investments
As part of the Senate’s $618 million Fair Share investment in education, the legislation addresses Massachusetts’ shrinking primary care workforce with a pilot scholarship program.
The new approach uses $10 million in Fair Share funds to offer full-tuition scholarships for UMass Chan Medical School students pursuing family medicine if they commit to remaining in Massachusetts and serving populations in need for five years after graduation.
The legislation invests $100 million to ensure that Massachusetts’ public universities are able to withstand reductions in federal research funding and continue to strengthen their life-saving research and development operations, grow their renowned talent pipelines, and build strategic partnerships for the future. The funds would buoy the education and scientific research sectors through a new Public Higher Education Bridge Funding Reserve.
The bill features a new $32 million investment to provide immediate relief for strained municipal budgets by increasing special education reimbursement rates in the current fiscal year. That investment is part of a larger $232 million appropriation for special education costs and circuit breaker reimbursements.
The bill also includes $150 million toward supporting high-quality and accessible early education and care; $40 million for early literacy initiatives; and $18.3 million to expand financial assistance offered to Massachusetts students enrolled at state universities and UMass campuses. Additional investments of $2.5 million would boost school-based mental health support, and $1 million would help public schools implement bell-to-bell cell-phone free school policies.
Transportation & Municipal Relief Investments
As part of the Senate’s $763 million Fair Share investment in transportation, the bill sends $100 million to help towns and cities with extraordinary winter costs, including funds specifically marked for communities that were impacted by significant winter storms such as the historic Blizzard of 2026.
The bill also includes generational funding in statewide Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs), funding for unpaved roads, and $535 million in direct support for the MBTA for operational funding, commuter rail support, and the low-income fare relief program.
The legislation’s transportation and education investments are possible because of the Fair Share surtax on households that earn more than $1 million per year. Fair Share revenues have continued to exceed expectations year after year, leading to mid-year supplemental packages such as this one.
Outside of Fair Share investments, this supplemental budget also contains $191 million in general fund revenues to support priorities beyond the education and transportation sectors, such as staffing at the Department of Transitional Assistance ($41.7 million); home heating assistance for households with children, veterans, disabled and elderly people ($20 million); and public defense court costs ($12.3 million).
The Senate and the House proactively split off critical funding for the Group Insurance Commission (GIC), which was originally contained in this bill, and fast-tracked that $300 million supplemental appropriation to the Governor earlier this week.
The Senate Committee on Ways and Means advanced the FY26 consolidated Fair Share supplemental budget to the full Senate with a 16-0 vote on April 2, 2026. All committee votes are posted on the Legislature’s website and full details of the legislation are available in a fact sheet in the Senate Press Room.
The Senate passed the bill with a 35-4 roll call vote today and sent it back to the House of Representatives for further review.
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