BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey said her budget office is ready to slash millions in legislative earmarks for local projects and will seek the extraordinary power to cut spending across all state government in an effort to prep for potential federal funding cuts that could spell disaster for Massachusetts.

The first-term Democrat also announced plans Friday to extend an executive branch hiring freeze through fiscal year 2026, pause salary increases for some employees under her purview, and eliminate health insurance coverage of a weight-loss drug for public workers.

Healey is setting herself up to weather a potential financial disaster that her aides argue could be brought on by the massive tax break and spending cuts bill President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign Friday, and his repeated decisions to reduce wide swaths of federal funding.

The governor, who is up for reelection next year, made the announcements the same day she signed and vetoed about $130 million from a roughly $61 billion state budget that maps out spending for the next 12 months.

“We are also signing this budget in a moment of great dysfunction in Washington. The president is poised to sign a bill that’s going to kick hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents off their health care, increase energy and groceries prices, and cost people their jobs,” she said in a statement.

Healey detailed her plans hours before Trump was expected to stamp his approval on a nearly 900-page-long bill that is chock-full of tax breaks, spending cuts, and money for Republican priorities like national defense and the deportation of immigrants.

Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said the Healey administration was not immediately resorting to cutting local earmarks to balance the state budget, but instead planned to wait to shuttle cash to municipalities until later this fall, or about several months longer than usual.

He said the delay would give state budget writers time to assess federal funding impacts. But he made clear that Healey would entertain cutting local earmarks if economists predict a financial downturn in state revenues or Massachusetts finds itself facing any other financial difficulties.

He did not provide an explicit timeline for when a decision would be made on whether to release cash for local earmarks, but said he has a statutory responsibility to certify that there is sufficient money on hand to pay the state’s bills by Oct. 15.

Any cuts to local earmarks would be sure to draw pushback from state lawmakers who shepherd the requests through the annual budget process and often take credit for the financial victories when cities and towns in their legislative districts eventually put the money to use.

As Healey put her name to the fiscal year 2026 budget, she also filed a $100 million supplemental spending bill that would give her office expanded emergency budget-cutting powers, often referred to as 9C cuts.

Massachusetts law allows a governor to cut spending during emergencies only within the executive branch if they determine there is not enough money to pay the state’s bills. Healey slashed $375 million in 2024 after the state missed revenue projections for six straight months.

But Gorzkowicz said the proposal Healey filed Friday attempts to go further.

The bill would allow the Healey administration to slash spending across the entire state budget only in fiscal year 2026 if revenues come in $400 million below initial projections or federal policy changes leave a $400 million hole in the budget.

That means if the measure is approved as written, Healey and Gorzkowicz could reduce spending across a vast array of programs and agencies, as well as other constitutional offices like the Attorney General’s Office, the Legislature, or the State Auditor’s Office.

In another move to contain costs, Gorzkowicz said the Healey administration plans to forgo a 2% salary increase for roughly 3,600 non-union managers in the executive branch that was scheduled to take effect in January. He said the move will save about $17 million.

Budget writers will also extend an executive branch hiring freeze that Healey put in place in May to cover the next 12 months.

Gorzkowicz said the longer pause on hiring new employees is an essential piece to making sure the Healey administration can live within lower budget appropriations and manage a responsible bottom line.

Healey also decided to veto $130 million from the nearly $61 billion fiscal year 2026 budget she signed Friday, including $26 million to eliminate coverage for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs under health insurance plans for public employees.

Gorzkowicz said the decision is consistent with what commercial insurance providers have decided to do in the last year and comes after there was a sizable budget deficiency at the Group Insurance Commission, the agency that manages public employees’ health insurance.

“Gov. Healey is directing GIC to approve a mid-year health insurance plan change for state employees to eliminate coverage in all cases except when medically necessary, such as for patients with diabetes,” the administration said in a statement,

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