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Healey Signs $63.4 Billion Budget with No Vetoes
The budget lets prosecutors pursue DNA-linked rape cases without a 15-year deadline and bars mandated reporters from sex with 16- and 17-year-olds.
- On Thursday, Governor Maura Healey signed the $63.4 billion Fiscal Year 2027 budget without issuing any line-item vetoes, concluding a late legislative process nine days into the new fiscal year.
- New provisions criminalize sexual relationships between mandated reporters and 16- or 17-year-olds, while the budget eliminates the statute of limitations for rape cases when DNA evidence identifies a suspect.
- Representing a 3.9% spending increase, the plan allocates $465 million to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and channels roughly $300 million more to local schools, without raising taxes or fees.
- Senate President Karen Spilka said individuals in positions of trust "can't claim the law protects them," while Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden stated, "These are serious crimes and there is now no evading accountability."
- This marks the 16th consecutive year of a late budget, with budget writers declining to include an $800 million cushion against federal uncertainty this year despite ongoing MassHealth coverage challenges.
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New Mass. budget closes sex crime loopholes exposed by 5 Investigates
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed the new state budget, which implements a spending plan for the 2027 fiscal year and also updates two laws that previously limited the prosecution of sexual crimes.
·Boston, United States
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Total News Sources15
Leaning Left6Leaning Right0Center6Last UpdatedBias Distribution50% Left, 50% Center
Bias Distribution
- 50% of the sources lean Left, 50% of the sources are Center
50% Center
L 50%
C 50%
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