Dear MSA Friends,
On Wednesday, MSA received an incredibly disappointing update on the FY24 State Budget process. When Governor Healey signed into law her first annual state budget – a budget that increases spending by roughly 6.2% over last year’s enacted budget – she used her veto pen to roll back our line item from $2.2M to $1.4M. This is by far one of the harshest proposed state budget cuts MSA has ever received. Fortunately, this does not have to be the final outcome. The path forward from here is to work towards getting the House and Senate to override the veto.
Last year, with the support of $2.2 Million in state funding (which leveraged $20M in Federal resources!), MSA supported, funded, and built out the volunteer and service infrastructure at 500+ locations from the Berkshires to Worcester to Lowell to Cape Cod. Through MSA’s funding, over 1,000 AmeriCorps and Commonwealth Corps members answered the nation’s call to serve by mentoring and tutoring our state’s most vulnerable youth, improving our parks and beaches, building affordable, safe homes for economically-disadvantaged families and assisting immigrants and refugees in gaining financial stability through learning English, applying for citizenship, job readiness training, and accessing community services.
And, through our numerous volunteer initiatives, we have supported hundreds of organizations in each region of the Commonwealth get back on their feet after being devasted by the pandemic, including our COVID Resiliency Grants which supported organizations as they had to rebuild and rethink their critical volunteer programs.
MSA looks forward to working with our legislative champions to swiftly reinstate this state funding. We have been grateful for the longtime support of leadership in both the House and the Senate, who have continuously over the years seen the value of our work and supported our dedicated funding.
Beth McGuinness, CEO
Massachusetts Service Alliance
