Healey signs law allowing Mass. to compete for federal funds with state savings dollars

Gov. Maura Healey signed legislation Tuesday that enables the state to use the interest generated off its multi-billion dollar savings account as matching funds to compete for federal funds, a move she said is key to beefing up Massachusetts’ infrastructure.

The governor’s signature comes as Massachusetts has already seen a windfall of federal money and as Healey has attempted to position her administration over the past two years to capture trillions of dollars made available by the Biden administration.

Healey’s signature unlocked up to $750 million over three years to fund state or municipal matching requirements for competitive federal grant opportunities, according to her administration.

The first-term Democrat said three bills — the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act — have provided “unprecedented levels of federal funding.”

“We viewed it as our responsibility and our opportunity to go out there and maximize Massachusetts’ ability to bring home these dollars, working with partners,” Healey said from inside her office. “This law will maximize our federal funding wins at no risk to the taxpayer. It’s really, really, really important. We want to take care of taxpayer money. We want to use it and invest it wisely.”

The bill, a priority of Healey’s that she filed in October, was locked away in private talks between the House and Senate for nearly six months before a compromise emerged well after the Legislature had concluded its formal business for the year.

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The two competing versions were largely the same and the agreement that lawmakers hashed out attempts to give Massachusetts an edge over other states in competing for billions of dollars the Biden administration has made available.

The law directs officials to transfer interest earned on the state’s $8 billion rainy day fund on a quarterly basis only if the account’s balance clears certain thresholds. Healey’s budget-writing office could use those dollars to chase after dollars for infrastructure, climate, and economic development projects, among others.

The rainy day fund is expected to generate roughly $250 million in interest each year if it remains at its current balance.

Those dollars were originally deposited directly back into the account but the bill Healey signed allows the comptroller to transfer the money to a separate fund when the total balance exceeds 10% of budgeted revenues of the previous focal year and the balance did not decrease the previous year.

Interest siphoned off from the rainy day fund can only be used to manage Massachusetts’ long-term debt, according to the Healey administration.

Massachusetts Federal Funds and Infrastructure Director Quentin Palfrey said the ability to use the interest from the savings account “will supercharge our federal funding applications and give us the resources to provide game-changing grants, loans, and technical assistance” to local communities.

“This is a fiscally responsible use of taxpayer dollars because each dollar we provide in state matching funds will enable us to multiply the federal dollars we receive in return,” he said.

More than $2 trillion in federal spending is available to states across the country through the three pieces of legislation President Joe Biden signed into law — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS Act.

Massachusetts has already seen millions flow in through those three proposals — an achievement that some credit to Healey’s close relationship with and campaign work for Biden.

But Healey brushed aside that notion Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the federal funding record over the past 20 months is “really the product of work of the teams.”

“The liaising really takes place at the secretariat level, working with analogs, secretaries, and members of their teams across the federal administration,” she said. “Certainly, I never pass up an opportunity to plug Massachusetts if I’m in conversation with the president or with the vice president, and I always plug Massachusetts when it comes to my conversations with secretaries.”

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