Budget Veto Overrides

Effective advocacy by MTA members was crucial to successfully overriding vetoes made by Governor Charlie Baker to key portions of the fiscal 2017 state budget.

 

Baker’s $412 million in vetoes sought deep cuts to funding in all sectors of public education and placed unfair burdens on public employees. These changes would have had serious repercussions for MTA members.

 

Instead, after members sent thousands of e-mails advocating for such action, legislators overrode numerous vetoes. The overrides:

 

·         Protected state employees from increases in Group Insurance Commission premium contributions. Baker cut funding by $30 million and allowed for employee premium contribution increases that would have placed an unfair burden on public employees.

 

·         Preserved a moratorium on premium split increases for certain municipal retirees and ensured that cities and towns would not be able to balance their budgets on the backs of retirees.

 

·         Restored $3.7 million in funding for the Special Education Circuit Breaker.

 

·         Restored $2.4 million in state university incentive grants.

 

·         Restored $750,000 in community college workforce grants.

 

·         Blocked a deferred compensation proposal by Baker that would have eroded collective bargaining and unfairly punished all employees for the highly publicized payouts received by some high-level managers. 

 

Let’s continue to do our part in protecting the quality of public education and the rights of public employees. Please urge your legislators to ask for swift passage of language and funding included in House 4517, which will finalize the collective bargaining process for the Massachusetts Community College Council Day Unit. Click here to contact your legislators now.