Lawmakers hear FY26 budget pitches for veterans, food aid, child welfare, services for people with disabilities and newcomers

WORCESTER, Mass. — Agency leaders told the Joint Committee on Ways and Means at a budget hearing in Worcester that Governor Healey's fiscal 2026 House 1 proposal largely sustains recent investments but also asks the Legislature to weigh supplemental steps as federal funding and program demand shift.

The hearing convened by Senate chair Robin Kennedy and House cochair Representative China Tyler featured testimony from more than a dozen health and human services agencies. The witnesses described significant policy and operations work already under way — and identified risks and gaps the Legislature may need to address before final passage of the state budget.

Why this matters: the agencies testifying account for a large share of the state’s social-services spending and serve populations that include veterans, low-income families, people with disabilities and recently arrived immigrants. Changes at the federal level, agency leaders said, have increased near-term uncertainty and in some cases created funding gaps the state is being asked to fill.

Most urgent: veterans, veterans homes and veteran homelessness

John Santiago, secretary of the Executive Office of Veteran Services, asked the committee to support the governor’s proposed $206 million allotment for the secretariat, describing it as the largest funding level for the agency in state history. Santiago said the administration has implemented “95% of its 40‑plus provisions” from the HERO Act, including increases to the disabled-veteran annuity and expanded benefits under chapter 115. He called out a multiyear effort to modernize the two state veterans homes and to use electronic medical records.

At the hearing, Christine Baldini, executive director of the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea, said the new Chelsea facility is fully integrated into operations and reported high resident satisfaction: “We achieved a 98% favorable rating,” she said, citing a facility quality report. Michael Lazo, executive director of the Holyoke Veterans Home, said construction there has reached a topping‑off milestone and reported that a recent VA survey showed “0 deficiencies.”

Santiago and other witnesses also outlined the state’s end-veteran-homelessness campaign, noting about $20 million in ARPA capital and outreach funds and dozens of units in the pipeline. He said the program has placed veterans into permanent and transitional housing and is working with community partners on supportive services.

Office of the veteran advocate seeks to expand staff and capacity

Bob Notch, the state’s veteran advocate, said his newly established office (FY25 was its first full year) needs a larger staffing footprint and new space to handle rising caseloads and investigations. Notch said a FY26 appropriation of roughly $3.3 million would be required to meet staffing, lease and technology chargeback increases and to provide redundancy for functions that now rely on single employees.

Food support and EBT security at the Department of Transitional Assistance

Jeff McHugh, commissioner of the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), told the committee the agency now serves about 1.1 million SNAP recipients and that SNAP caseloads have grown roughly 40% over five years. He described two priorities in House 1: protecting SNAP and other benefits from fraud, and improving client access and service delivery.

On the security side, McHugh said DTA is transitioning to a new EBT card vendor in a planned short outage and has developed a temporary “lock/unlock” feature in the DTA Connect app that allows recipients to disable card transactions when not in use. The agency also described plans to move to chip-enabled EBT cards, which it said will require a staged statewide card-replacement effort and supplemental funding to implement securely; the transition will not be instantaneous and officials said they are watching other states' pilots for lessons.

McHugh also said the House 1 proposal calls for a rollback of a scheduled 2% increase in some cash assistance grants enacted during COVID, a decision he characterized as driven by broad fiscal constraints. He urged the committee to weigh the tradeoffs given rising client need.

Child welfare, caseloads and support services at DCF

Severn Miller, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, said the department is serving roughly 33,000 children and young adults, about 80% of whom are living with family and 20% of whom are in out‑of‑home placements. Miller told lawmakers the department has reduced average worker caseloads to about 13.6 cases per worker — below a negotiated 15.1 target — and said the FY26 budget maintains funding for child welfare services, family resource centers and expansion of preventive and stabilization programs aimed at keeping families together.

Services for people with developmental disabilities

Sarah Peterson, acting commissioner of the Department of Developmental Services, said DDS serves roughly 49,000 children and adults and expects about 3% growth in the service population next year. Peterson highlighted the annualization of chapter 257 rate increases included in House 1 — which she said supports minimum salaries for direct‑care staff and has reduced vacancies — and additional funding for the turning‑22 enrollment class (young people entering the adult DDS system from school) and adult autism services. She also described efforts to expand day‑program capacity, a new assessment rollout (SIS‑A) to better match supports to need, and a pilot to recruit new direct‑care staff from recent refugee and immigrant arrivals.

Juvenile services and diversion outcomes

Cecily Reardon, commissioner of the Department of Youth Services, said the agency’s committed and detained census has inched up from pandemic lows but remains far below the levels of prior decades. Reardon highlighted the state’s diversion program and said 81% of youth served through diversion completed their contracts successfully — a result the department cited as one mechanism for reducing racial disparities and avoiding more restrictive placements.

Disability services, rebranding and workforce pressures

Tony Wolf, commissioner of the agency recently rebranded as MassAbility (formerly the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission), told the committee House 1 would fund provider rate increases intended to improve recruitment and retention in a workforce that requires specialized training. Wolf highlighted career‑training and home‑and‑community supports, noted growing demand for services, and emphasized that federal funding shifts could affect some programs. Several witnesses across agencies flagged workforce shortages as the top constraint on expanding services.

Access, interpreters and communications for deaf, hard‑of‑hearing and blind residents

Dr. Opelua Chaturnua, commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, told lawmakers there is a statewide shortage of ASL interpreters and CART captioners and described a pilot and mentorship effort to increase and retain the interpretation workforce. Chaturnua said House 1 preserves an after‑hours emergency referral fund and supports quality‑assurance work for interpreter screening.

John Olivera of the Commission for the Blind said the proposed budget adds social‑work and vision-rehabilitation staff in parts of the state that have historically been thinly staffed and includes a new position focused on housing assistance for blind residents.

Office for Refugees and Immigrants: resettlement changes and local response

Christina Aguilera Sandoval, director of the Office for Refugees and Immigrants, described ORI’s work on employment, English and citizenship programs and said the office has scaled up rapid case management and rehousing supports as large cohorts of newcomers arrived. She told the committee the U.S. State Department suspended some resettlement contracts; ORI said it is using state and federal grant flexibility to expand intensive case management and to coordinate with housing partners so newcomers can avoid entering the emergency shelter system.

What lawmakers asked and next steps

Committee members pressed agency leaders on specific tradeoffs: how DTA will shore up EBT security and replace stolen benefits; how DDS will manage residential capacity while meeting growth in turning‑22 and autism enrollments; how DCF will sustain reduced worker caseloads and improve reunification outcomes; and how ORI will compensate for abrupt federal contract changes for refugee placement. Several members urged agencies to provide more granular data on caseloads, residence locations, demographic outcomes and service wait lists as the Legislature negotiates final FY26 appropriations.

Ending

Agency officials repeatedly flagged federal funding uncertainty — from proposed cuts to federal education, Medicaid and workforce grants to disrupted resettlement contracts — as a risk the Legislature should monitor. Committee chairs Kennedy and Tyler invited follow‑up materials and indicated the panel will consider supplemental and technical amendments during the budget process.

The committee did not vote or take formal action at the hearing; agency testimony and written materials will be used in the Ways and Means budget deliberations in the weeks ahead.