Despite Belt-Tightening, Hundreds Of Earmarks Made It To Gov's Desk

On Friday, Gov. Charlie Baker signed the fiscal 2017 budget, bringing an end to a particularly tortured budget season in which legislators wrestled with budget revenue projected to be in the hundreds of millions.

One little piece of business, however, remains outstanding: Along with his stamp of approval, Baker issued $256 million worth of line-item vetoes, which the legislature can (and often does) override with a two-thirds vote by each branch.

Among the governor’s vetoes are many (though not all) of the hundreds of earmarks inserted into the budget by legislators this year, specifying funding for specific organizations, projects, and businesses, usually in legislators’ districts.

Earmarks are introduced by lawmakers as legislative amendments to the budget.

WGBH News reported in April that the 1,311 amendments to the 2017 budget offered by House members were the largest number since at least 2012. Massachusetts senators offered 1,167 amendments this year, up from 942 last year.

Even after rejecting many of those amendments on the chamber floors, House and Senate leaders went into the closed-door conference committee with more than 1,600 amendments approved between the two chambers.

Not all amendments are earmarks—some involve policy, revenue sources, prioritizations, and other bigger-picture issues. And the conference committee does not publish a list of which amendments eventually made their way into the budget.

But an analysis of the finalized budget by WGBH News found roughly five hundred earmarks—defined as specific sums of money directed to specific recipients outside of state government—in the budget submitted to Governor Baker.

Among the items funded by these earmarks:

Earmarks are a long-standing tradition and can range from small pet projects to critical state programs: they pay for many of the Commonwealth’s homeless assistance programs; they fund drug treatment programs, environmental remediation projects, infrastructure repair, and public works projects.

But they also represent funding method that circumvents many of the processes, checks and balances normally required for government-funded programs. Recipients of earmarks aren’t generally subject to competitive bidding and other contracting requirements; earmarked programs are selected for funding not through departmental review but by legislative fiat. 

Last year, the legislature overrode the majority of Baker's vetoes.