Healey: No new taxes or increases being considered in foreseeable future

A woman stands behind a podium as a crowd applauds in front of her

Image | Courtesy of Sam Doran / State House News Service Gov. Maura Healey delivers the State of the Commonwealth address on Jan. 17.

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By Colin A. Young

Having already reset the state's budget management strategy amid tepid tax revenues and souped-up state spending, Gov. Maura Healey made a clear declaration Tuesday morning: "I can assure you that we have no plans to propose new taxes or raise existing ones."

There was no immediate reaction from the packed house of business types hosted by the New England Council, and the governor added, "Instead, we're focused on managing our spending carefully. It's what we have to do."

Seated in the second row alongside other Cabinet secretaries, Healey's budget chief Matthew Gorzkowicz took a big gulp from a coffee cup.

By the end of the week, Gorzkowicz's Executive Office of Administration and Finance must report on tax collections for April. The importance of April receipts is magnified this year as soft fiscal 2024 collections lagged behind the already-lowered expectations by $145 million or 0.5 percent through March. Meeting or exceeding the monthly benchmark of $5.291 billion in April could ease the most dire worries about the state budget picture. But falling short would dig the hole even deeper with just two months left on the fiscal 2024 clock.

The fiscal 2025 budget that Gorzkowicz will eventually be charged with managing is expected to have little wiggle room, and the secretary said in January that he saw the governor's budget proposal as "a glide path for future fiscal years when tax revenues begin to rebound."

Asked after her speech what timeline she had in mind for her tax pledge, Healey said, "That's how I see it now and for the foreseeable future."

"Yeah, no taxes," she said. "I've been focused on trying to lower taxes."

The governor's declaration could also affect Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who was not present at Tuesday's downtown Boston breakfast. Tibbits-Nutt is leading the task force looking at ways to finance sorely-needed transportation infrastructure projects, and Healey's shunning of new or higher taxes would seem to take a second major option off the table for that group, after Healey already ruled out border tolls.

Healey neither embraced nor ruled out the idea of pursuing new tax or fee increases to generate more money for transportation when the task force launched in February. She told reporters at the time that she would instead "wait to see what the task force comes to me with in terms of recommendations."

The governor backed the 2022 push to impose a 4 percent surtax on household income above $1 million, and also made a promise to provide tax relief a centerpiece of her campaign. In October, she signed into law a roughly $1 billion tax relief package that had been in the works for nearly two years.

In January, she proposed legislation that would give municipalities the option to increase or impose new taxes on lodging, meals and motor vehicle ownership. Asked after her speech Tuesday how she squares her "no taxes" commitment with her proposal that could lead to new or higher taxes at the local level, Healey made clear she sees that as a different issue.

"Those are local options, and what we've heard from some communities [is] that they want more tools at their disposal to deal with some of the challenges that they're facing," she said. "And so that simply allows communities to make a decision, not the state."

The governor sidestepped a question about Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's proposal to have commercial and industrial property owners shoulder a greater share of the city's property tax levy as a way to shield residential property owners. If the Boston City Council passes it, the mayor's proposal would also need to be approved by the Legislature and governor.

"It's something the city, I know, has got to work through and figure out. So I leave it to the mayor and the administration and the City Council to work that through," Healey said. "I mean, I'm focused on the state and what we need to do to make life more affordable here to deal with some of the challenges that we're confronting. And we'll continue to focus on that."