In April, the House debated and passed their Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal. House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz mentioned the Healthy Incentives Program during a press conference and on the House floor (you can watch this in the recording from day 1 of debate here, starting at 14:05), and Chair of the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Christine Barber spoke about Massachusetts’ food system while speaking in support of consolidated amendment F on the floor (you can watch her speech here, in the recording from day 3, starting at 40:30). More than half of the House, 88 representatives, cosponsored Rep. Hannah Kane’s amendment #20 to increase HIP funding to the full $25 million. The final House budget included funding for HIP at $20 million, and did not include funding for food literacy, food policy councils grants, or increase the MDAR administrative budget.
On Tuesday, May 6th, the Senate Committee on Ways and Means released its budget proposal. In the proposal, HIP was fully funded at $25.4 million (read more about it in MassLive here), a third round of grants for local food policy councils was funded at $250,000, and the MDAR administrative line was funded at $10.2 million. Please email Senate President Karen Spilka, Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues, and SWM Vice-Chair Jo Comerford to thank them for their leadership on food system issues! Food literacy was not funded in the Senate Ways and Means proposal and the Campaign for Food Literacy will be working to add funding during the debate.
