BOSTON – Gov. Maura Healey released her 2025 fiscal year budget of $56.1 billion this week.

Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said Healey’s proposals don’t include many changes for the average Massachusetts resident.

Even though spending is up by $2.1 billion over the previous year’s budget, quite a bit is staying the same – it’s just more expensive.

This past month, the Healey administration announced a large, unexpected shortfall in tax revenues. Howgate there is an adjustment for that in the budget.

Howgate also said Healey is being more policy-driven than in her first year, earmarking funds for things she has promised, like childcare.

“I think it's a budget in a time of transition,” Howgate said. “So, we've had a few really robust spending growth budgets over the last three years. Last year was the first where there started to be a sense that revenue trends were not as strong as they'd been. And then this is the first one where that's really kind of priced into the budget.

“And what we were really looking for, which I think has been critical in this budget proposal, is bringing ongoing spending growth down from the 7%, 8% it was in recent years. What do you see in the governor's budget as a spending growth rate in between, say, 3% and 4%? That's really, I think, critical for this year.

This is just the beginning for the budget. It will now go to the state Legislature, where lawmakers will add their thoughts and the debate will likely be lengthy.