$27.6B state budget OK'd; Loss of federal funds forces more cuts.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 25 June 2010

Byline: John J. Monahan

BOSTON - The $27.6 billion state budget adopted by the House and Senate last night slashed hundreds of millions of dollars more than expected to make up potential losses in federal funding that state officials had been counting on.

If federal Medicaid funding is approved by Congress later, House and Senate budget leaders said the budget now on its way to the governor's desk provides for the cuts to be reversed, which would produce a $27.9 billion budget for fiscal 2011.

Hopes for the funding were set back further yesterday when Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked an attempt to vote on a larger bill that included an extension of unemployment benefits.

"This is a terrible blow to Massachusetts," said U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass, of the Republican action. "This can cost our state half a billion dollars in Medicaid funding, jeopardize our seniors access to Medicare benefits and strip unemployment benefits from almost a hundred thousand laid-off workers," in the state.

U.S. Sen...