Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Ways and Means released its state budget proposal for fiscal year 2018. It’s a $40.3 billion budget proposal that would make critical investments in high-quality early education and care.

In her cover letter for the budget, Senator Karen Spilka (D-Ashland), the chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, writes:

“We can sustain our common wealth by focusing on the fundamentals: education, health and wellbeing, and housing.

“Education has always been Massachusetts’ lodestar, from the origination of our Constitution to the birth of public education under the guidance of former Senate President and Franklin native Horace Mann.”

To support education, the Senate’s budget calls for supporting the early education workforce with a $10 million rate reserve. Last month, the House’s proposed budget funded the rate reserve at $20 million.

The budget allots $9.5 million for Head Start, a $400,000 increase over the House level.

And the Senate would also invest $15.1 million in preschool expansion (line item 3000-6025). Building on the state’s Preschool Expansion Grant model, these funds would go to at least five more communities – and $100,000 would be set aside to fund planning grants for new communities.

“Helping each other has been a core Massachusetts value at least since the time of Horace Mann,” Spilka concludes in her letter. “We are about to be tested by difficult times, and the Senate believes that our response should be to continue to turn to each other and care for each other. Doing otherwise would cause us to forfeit the legacy of our Commonwealth, which is to foster our common good, protect our common values and sustain our common wealth.”

Amendments must be filed by Thursday, May 18, 2017, at 5 p.m., and the budget debate begins in the Senate on Tuesday, May 23, 2017. Stay tuned for updates.

Visit our website for specific line items and funding levels. For more budget information contact Titus DosRemedios at tdosremedios@strategiesforchildren.org, (617) 330-7387.