In April and May, the MA House and Senate voted on their respective budgets for the next fiscal year. As they reconcile the differences in a Conference Committee, it's vital that chambers put aside the inter-chamber jockeying and procrastination that so often characterizes these negotiations and instead commit to embracing the best of both budget proposals.

What would that mean? It would mean doing things like the following:

• Early Education and Child Care: Advancing the Common Start vision of a more robust early education and child care infrastructure with greater stability for providers, better pay for educators, and more affordability for families, as reflected by various parts of both the House and Senate budget

• Universal School Meals: Fully funding universal school meals by dedicating $190 million to School Meals For All (Line Item 1596-2422)

• Free Community College: Investing $117.5 million in a free community college program (Line Item 1596-2501 in the Senate budget)

• Access to Counsel: Providing $2.5 million for implementation of a statewide Access to Counsel pilot program to increase access to legal representation for low-income tenants and low-income owner occupants in eviction proceedings (item 0321-1800 in the House FY 2025 budget proposal)

• Cash Assistance for Low-Income Families: Providing a 10% increase to TAFDC cash assistance grants for very low-income families with children (line item 4403-2000), as both House and Senate FY 2025 budgets did, a 10% increase to EAEDC cash assistance grants for older adults and people with disabilities (as in line item 4408-1000 of the Senate FY 2025 budget), and an increase of $50 per child to the annual TAFDC children’s clothing allowance (also the Senate budget).

• No Cost Calls Funding: Dedicating $35M in the Communications Access Trust Fund for no–cost calls in prisons and jails (item 1595-6153 in the House FY 2025 budget proposal)

• No Cost Calls Reporting: Making technical fixes to the No Cost Calls reporting requirements, so that policymakers have the information they need to effectively monitor free communication (Section 29 A&B of the Senate FY 2025 budget proposal)

• Voting Access: Eliminating barriers to voting access by ending MA's outlier status as the only state where if a voter doesn't return the annual municipal census, they're placed on the Inactive Voter list (an amendment that included in the Senate budget and that earned the support of a majority of representatives)

• New Flag, Seal, & Motto: Continuing the work to develop a new state flag, seal, and motto (as funded in line item 7008-0900 in the Senate FY 2025 budget)

Can you write to your legislators to urge them to express their support for these provisions to the Conference Committee negotiators?