Is there another budget problem festering on Beacon Hill? Three-plus months into the new fiscal year, the Baker administration has ratcheted down its estimate of revenues available to support the $38.1 billion budget by $145 million and identified roughly $250 million in spending exposures on the other side of the ledger. Administration and Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore, who is waiting on lawmakers to pass another spending bill, this one totaling roughly $350 million, indicated this week she’s mulling “corrective” actions, a proclamation that has budget stakeholders again on edge over possible midyear spending cuts. Governor Charlie Baker has described such cuts as a last resort, while adding that cuts earlier in the fiscal year are preferable to making them later in the year when reductions might need to cut deeper.

Legislative leaders have a little more than four weeks for formal sessions this year before rules kick in calling for only informal sessions through the remainder of November and December. Opioid and energy bills remain under discussion, but action on the supplemental budget appears the most time-sensitive matter since Comptroller Tom Shack needs final data to close the books on fiscal 2015. Despite numerous differences between the House and Senate supplemental budgets, legislative leaders last week did not send those bills to a six-member conference committee for resolution.

Click on the audio link above to hear a conversation between State House News Service reporter Matt Murphy and NEPR’s Henry Epp.