There isn’t much state budget writers can do to prepare for the potential suspension of federal revenue bolstering the Bay State, House Speaker Ron Mariano.

President Donald Trump’s push to shave off large swathes of the federal apparatus, including promises to do away with the Department of Education and freeze grant funding from Washington, could ripple across the entire state budget, the Mariano warned. It won’t be easy, the Democrat from Quincy said, but there is little else the Legislature can do apart from being ready.

“When you’re losing one of your partners, it’s tough, and the federal government has always been our partner. The loss of federal funds will be significant in all segments of the budget,” Mariano told WCVB.

Lawmakers on Beacon Hill are in the midst of ironing out the fiscal 2026 budget, and when asked how state budget writers might prepare for Trump’s promised spending cuts, Mariano said simply that “you don’t.”

“There is not much you can do,” he said.

One area of the budget that could see substantial setback due to federal cuts may be education.

Massachusetts currently receives almost $2 billion in K-12 funding from the federal government each year, or about 10% of education costs per student. Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he will order Special Government Employee Elon Musk and the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” to look into the Department of Education in the coming days, and the 47th President frequently speaks openly about shuttering DoE.

“I’m going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education,” Trump said. “We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, of fraud and abuse.”

Mariano indicated this is familiar territory for Bay State lawmakers.

When Trump was in office from 2017 to 2021, the state also faced cuts to popular federally funded programs, and Beacon Hill lawmakers were forced to respond by funding the programs with state tax dollars. That may be the case again during the second Trump Administration, and Beacon Hill will have to adopt a wait-and-see approach until the president’s threats become reality, Mariano said.

“We dug into our revenue stream, our ability to create revenue, and funded those programs. That’s how the school lunch program got started,” Mariano said. “The issue has been and always will be that you have to evaluate the decisions he makes and the impact it has on your constituents and your residents.”