The Healey administration on Tuesday blasted out a press release warning that Massachusetts faces $3.7 billion in budget cuts, and pointing people to an updated dashboard tracking impacts of federal policy changes.
The announcement specifically warned, “President Trump and Congressional Republicans have cut $3.7 billion from the Massachusetts state budget this year alone.” As the governor’s staff considers whether to mark down state revenues for this year and make its own cuts, the $3.7 billion claim could be seen as an immediate hit to state finances, but the actual dashboard shows the projected spending cuts unfolding over four or more years.
A spokesperson for the governor clarified that the $3.7 billion figure represents decisions made in the first nine months of Trump’s term, rather than impacts for the current state budget.
“Yes the cuts impact multiple fiscal years,” Healey spokesperson Karissa Hand said. “That sentence is meant to convey that President Trump and Congressional Republicans have made all of these cuts this year alone — in the first 9 months of his presidency.”
State budgets are crafted annually, giving their authors time to recalibrate revenue and spending assumptions.
The dashboard projects $1.346 billion in federal losses between fiscal 2025 and 2026, though it’s still unclear how much of that will be felt in the current fiscal year. When asked about the specific impact on the three-month-old fiscal 2026 budget, Hand said the administration is “still assessing” those details.
The dashboard estimates $843 million in losses in 2027 and another $1.553 billion in fiscal 2028 and beyond. The largest share of the $3.7 billion in projected losses will fall on health and human services programs, which are expected to absorb about 43.5% of the total, or roughly $1.6 billion.
