Mass. to lift hiring waiver requirement for state agencies come November
Photo I Courtesy of Sam Doran/State House News Service
Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz talks about details of Gov. Maura Healey's fiscal 2025 budget proposal during a news conference Jan. 24.
State agencies will no longer need to solicit waivers to bring on new employees starting Friday, but they will still need to have wiggle room in their spending plans under revised hiring controls from the Healey administration.
An official in the Executive Office for Administration and Finance said Tuesday that Gov. Maura Healey's team will allow guidelines on hiring that have been in place since April to expire on Nov. 1.
The administration will replace those measures, which an official said saved about $21 million through October, with a new package of controls to manage state spending.
Agencies will be able to proceed with hiring without needing waivers if they have sufficient funding in the approved spending plan each office typically develops annually based on appropriations in the state budget.
Those spending plans will take into account waivers requested and approved during the seven-month stretch of previous hiring controls, staffing levels, and some buffer funding to account for future needs.
"The hiring controls implemented by the Healey-Driscoll administration last April have been critical to our ability to manage spending, preserve funding for critical programs and services, and support a balanced budget," Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said in a statement. "Moving forward, we will continue to work together as an Executive Branch to maintain discipline in hiring within approved budgets and actively manage spending in a way that guarantees an effective and affordable state workforce."
Healey and Gorzkowicz first moved to implement hiring controls -- but not an outright freeze -- in early April, requiring many new executive branch hires to be approved by A&F. They later extended those measures through Halloween.
Agencies in the executive branch have hired 2,006 new employees in the past six months, according to payroll data tracked by the state comptroller's office.
Although the state hauled in about $2.2 billion from a new surtax on high earners, far more than was budgeted, other tax collections languished below projections last fiscal year, leaving a budget gap of roughly $233 million.
Healey and legislative Democrats offered different ideas for closing that shortfall, and they have yet to agree on a final approach.
Gorzkowicz in September told business leaders he thinks fiscal 2024 tax trends will continue in fiscal 2025, describing "unavoidable deficiencies" on the horizon while dubbing himself "cautiously optimistic" about the outlook.
Through the first quarter of fiscal 2025, the state has collected $541 million or 5.8 percent more than the same stretch in fiscal 2024, but $44 million or 0.4 percent below the year-to-date benchmark.
The revenue trends only tell part of the story. Beacon Hill regularly increases state spending each year and adds new public programs and services. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and legislative Democrats agreed to a 9.1 percent spending increase in fiscal 2023 and a 6.9 percent increase in fiscal 2024. The fiscal 2025 budget Healey signed in July boosts outlays about 3.1 percent over last year.
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