Massachusetts Gov. Healey silent on bill looking to revive transparency on shelter spending

Lance Reynolds, Boston Herald on Oct 30, 2025

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BOSTON — A bill sitting on Maura Healey’s desk would mandate that reports on spending within Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system be published regularly to the public, but there’s no indication whether the governor will sign it into law.

The governor’s office did not respond to a Boston Herald inquiry Thursday on whether Healey will approve the Fiscal Year ’25 closeout supplemental budget that state lawmakers sent to her desk, containing that amendment.

Senate Republicans are celebrating what they are describing as a “victory for transparency” after the successful inclusion of an amendment that would hold the Healey administration accountable for how taxpayer dollars are being spent on the emergency shelter system.

The Herald first reported earlier this month that the Healey administration stopped publishing a public, regular accounting of how much the state is spending in the current fiscal year on the system, which houses homeless families and pregnant women, because a state law mandating the data expired.

Since the beginning of this fiscal year on July 1, Healey officials quietly stopped including key sections that documented in real-time how much taxpayers had spent on shelter costs, programs designed to move families out of shelter, and municipal supports.

In place of the data, the Healey administration only notes that Beacon Hill Democrats approved $276 million in this year’s state budget for the shelter system, the average amount spent on families in shelter each week, and the total amount of cash spent from a reserve fund.

But the $2.3 billion closeout supplemental budget, if it receives Healey’s signature, would revive that transparency, directing the state Executive Office of Administration and Finance to publish detailed, biweekly spending reports to the public.

It would also require regular reports on spending within the HomeBase rental assistance program, including demographic data of applicants and participants, such as household size, age, gender and immigration status.

“Public reporting on the costs related to these two programs is essential to transparency and accountability, and necessary for the legislature to have the timely information needed to act to ensure that they have integrity and cost-effectiveness,” Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Republican, said in a statement.

The lack of information about fiscal year 2026 spending comes as the Healey administration spent $978.2 million in fiscal year 2025 on the emergency assistance program and related services, according to the available data

Last year’s shelter tab marked the second full fiscal year that taxpayers shelled out larger-than-normal sums to house homeless families after a surge of migrant arrivals pushed the emergency assistance shelter system to a bursting point.

The administration spent $894 million in fiscal year 2024.

The biweekly reports were created through a supplemental spending bill signed by Healey in December 2023 after Beacon Hill Democrats and Republicans battled over one of the first attempts to cough up more cash to pay for shelter services amid an influx of migrants.

Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Republican who advocated for the original legislative language behind the reports, told the Herald earlier this month that the transparency provided lawmakers and the public the ability to ask tough questions.

He added that if the Healey administration did not voluntarily include real-time spending data, the Legislature would amend state law, mandating the reports to become public again.

The initial law called for the reports only required the Healey administration to provide details on the total amount expended on shelters, supplemental school district costs, municipal supports, any “other” spending, and projected deficiencies through the end of fiscal year 2025.

“For the Healey Administration to claim transparency and accountability, only to cease the biweekly reports, undermines the spirit of the law we helped pass,” Fattman said in a statement. “I appreciate the bipartisan correction the Senate adopted by passing this amendment, which now will require the reporting of costs in perpetuity.”