Top Democrats in the House and Senate said they were still reviewing a request from Gov. Maura Healey to use $425 million in surplus funds leftover from the pandemic to cover emergency shelter costs through the rest of fiscal year 2025.

Budget-writers working for Healey have said the state is expected to run out of cash to pay for the emergency shelter system by the end of January without another infusion. But Healey filed the bill just as she is dealing with fallout from alleged criminal activity at state-run shelters.

Sen. Michael Rodrigues, who has served as the top budget official in the Senate for years and is expected to retain his post this legislative session, said the chamber is planning to make “as quick work of (the bill) as possible because we know that the accounts are running out of money.”

“We are always concerned when we use reserves to fund any operating costs because we know you can only spend the dollar once. So if we spend the dollars now, we won’t have the dollars to spend in the future. That’s something that we’ll have a conversation about and we’ll do it in as timely a manner as possible,” Rodrigues told the Herald Wednesday.

The spending bill, which will need to clear the House first, proposes tapping the majority of what remains in one-time dollars from the pandemic-era.

The legislation also includes policy measures that would cut down the amount of time families can stay in emergency shelters from nine to six months, a move Healey has argued is necessary to bring down the cost of the system in the face of heightened demand.

Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz, the top budget writer in the Healey administration, said officials believe they can “be in a better position in fiscal year 2026” to reduce shelter spending levels.

“We’ve been actively working through that and modeling that,” he said Tuesday after an unrelated event. “You’ll have to wait and see how we roll out our FY26 budget to fully inform that. I’d say we’re still in the planning stages and things are still undecided in terms of where we’re going to land in terms of funding recommendations.”

House Speaker Ron Mariano acknowledged the spending bill is “time sensitive.”

“We know what the problems are. We know what she has to do and we’ll have discussions,” the Quincy Democrat said.

Mariano did not say whether he would tie the additional funding request to policies that attempt to increase safety or security at emergency shelters. Thousands of pages released to the Herald documented many instances of rape, domestic violence, and possession of guns and drugs.

“We’ll take a look at it. We’ll see what the additional costs would be. But I think you need to have something at the door, obviously, because these people are walking in,” he said.

Sens. Peter Durant and Kelly Dooner, two Republicans from Spencer and Taunton, said they are opposing the spending bill and called on Healeyto include language to amend the state’s right-to-shelter law, the decades-old statute that set up the emergency shelter program.

“Shortening stays in the hotels will not solve the problem,” Dooner said in a statement. “The bottom line is that our taxpayer-funded benefits should only be  available to our legal residents.”