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After the House Committee on Ways and Means released its FY25 budget draft, and the full House of Representatives debated the content, the House passed its proposed budget at the end of April. The debate ultimately failed to yield any new support for food system priorities, but did continue forward some important investments. 

The House budget once again includes $25 million for the Food Security Infrastructure Grant (FSIG) program, matching Governor Healey’s proposal. A permanent FSIG program demonstrates a strong commitment to sustaining local food system enterprises; the FSIG program has been oversubscribed in previous rounds of funding, and this funding will help more local food system enterprises to flourish. The House budget again included funding for universal free school meals, increasing the proposed funding to $190 million as more students eat at school. 

However, funding for HIP fell short with level funding at $15 million compared to the $25 million requested by the Campaign for HIP Funding, which the Campaign estimates may better fulfill the current need by supporting year-round program operation and continued growth in SNAP households using the program. The House also failed to pass a budget that would continue to fund food literacy and the local food policy council grant program, as well as approving other earmarks. Additionally, the House failed to approve the request for funding increases for the Buy Locals and the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program (MEFAP), and failed to renew state-funded SNAP.

The budget process now moves to the Senate chamber, where the Senate Committee on Ways and Means is expected to release its budget draft on or around May 7, 2024; the call for amendments and debate will take place thereafter. Watch the Collaborative’s email and social media calls to action for opportunities to advocate for important food system programs during the debate process. Food system requests are a small part of the budget; if the Senate were to approve all of the Collaborative’s and our statewide partners budgetary requests, state funding dedicated to the food system would equal roughly 0.6% of the total $57 billion in the FY25 budget. 

On January 24 Governor Healey released her second budget proposal, proposing continuing and increasing some important investments in a challenging fiscal environment. The Governor’s commitment to environmental justice is reaffirmed, proposing Environmental Justice liaisons across the EEA agencies to support community outreach, public hearings, and stakeholder involvement, and better align hiring practices and inter-agency coordination with environmental justice principles – in addition to $2 million for a secretariat-wide training program to ensure the principles of EJ are embedded in all EEA activities at all levels.

The governor’s budget proposes $25 million in funding for the Healthy Incentives Program, recognizing the program has grown with the addition of 100 new farmers in 2022. The Campaign for HIP Funding is grateful to the Governor’s administration to see this confident investment in the program, and looks forward to working with the Legislature to support this funding.

MDAR would be re-organized to gain a division of food security under this proposal. This new division would oversee FSIG, MEFAP and local food supply investments. The proposed budget would again support the Food Security Infrastructure Grant program with $25 million. Under this proposal, the program would be moved from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) to the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR). This is an exciting development and we look forward to continuing to work with agency staff on the FSIG program.

The budget for the Department of Environmental Protection supports staff positions that expand their work sampling of landfills and water facilities for PFAS.

The budget increases MEFAP by $2 million to $37 million total, and includes funding for permanent universal school meals at $170 million. As more students have been eating lunch from

The briefs from the Governor’s office talk specifically about the food system in the food security, uplifting rural communities, and sustainable development for the future briefs. Overall, this is a good budget that supports a sustainable, equitable, resilient local food system in a challenging fiscal environment. 

The Governor’s budget is just the first step in a months-long process to determining spending levels for the next fiscal year. The House will propose and debate a budget in late March, followed by the Senate in May. The two chambers and the governor then must reconcile the three proposals into a single budget by July 1. The Collaborative will work with legislators and stakeholders to ensure that food system issues are represented throughout the debate. Please watch our social media and newsletter for opportunities to support these efforts.

The fiscal year 2024 budget has been signed by Governor Maura Healey into law! This year’s budget includes several important wins for a sustainable, equitable, resilient food system. The Food Security Infrastructure Grant program is funded for the first time in the annual budget at $25 million, signaling a strong commitment from the Governor and legislature to make the program, which helps food system business and organizations purchase infrastructure needs to better serve everyone in their communities, permanent for the first time. The local food policy council grant program was funded at $250,000, creating another round of funding for councils which work collaboratively to strengthen local food systems. Thanks to great advocacy from the Campaign for Food Literacy, $1 million will go toward coordination between DESE and MDAR, funds for field trips, and a pilot program to enable several districts to hire food literacy coordinators. The Healthy Soils Program was funded for the first time with $1,020,000, thanks to NOFA-MA’s advocacy after the release of the Healthy Soils Action Plan. 

We were pleased to see permanent, universal free school meals included in the budget, thanks to the work of the Project Bread and Feed Kids campaign! Language establishing a commission to study school food nutritional quality was also included, along with a requirement for DESE to produce a report on school food waste.

All of these wins are a strong signal that the support in the legislature for a sustainable, resilient, equitable food system remains high, thanks to your advocacy. However, we remain deeply concerned that the amount for HIP will not be enough for the program to operate for the entire year, as it was funded at a little under $14 million, with $5 million in new funding and a roughly $8.8 million carryover. The program spent $15.1 million in incentives in FY23.