Ticker: Healey files interim budget; Charitable giving declines in US 

While lawmakers continue to hash out a compromise budget for the new fiscal year that begins July 1, Gov. Maura Healey bought them some extra time Tuesday with the filing of an interim budget that would keep state operations going through July.

The $6.66 billion budget would authorize spending on “necessary services” through July 31 or until a complete fiscal 2024 state budget is signed by the governor. The bill would also allow Treasurer Deb Goldberg to advance local aid payments to cities, towns, regional school districts and independent agricultural or technical schools that demonstrate “an emergency cash shortfall.”

Asked about the interim budget Wednesday, Healey said filing it “was the prudent thing to do” and also said she is hopeful that lawmakers will send her a completed budget soon.

Charitable giving declines in US

Charitable giving in the United States declined in 2022 — only the fourth time in four decades that donations did not increase year over year — according to the Giving USA report released Tuesday.

Total giving fell 3.4% in 2022 to $499.3 billion in current dollars, a drop of 10.5% when adjusted for inflation. The decline comes at a time when many nonprofits, especially ones providing services to those in need, report an increase in requests for help.

However, Josh Birkholz, chairman of the Giving USA Foundation, which publishes the report and provides data and insights about donation trends, said the results are actually much better than they could have been considering the tough economic climate of late 2022.

“I go back and forth on whether it’s encouraging or discouraging,” Birkholz told said in an interview. “There was a 20 to 25% decline in the stock market and an 8% inflation rate, but Americans still gave nearly a half trillion dollars.”