The Massachusetts House will vote Wednesday on a $1.8 billion spending bill that would infuse funding into the cash-strapped MBTA, send millions to the state’s elected sheriffs, and pad the state’s World Cup effort with an additional $10 million — addressing a pain point as the state readies to host seven matches this summer at Gillette Stadium.
The bill also works to conform the state’s tax law with changes at the federal level, while tying the changes to an unrelated ballot question to reduce the state income tax.
But the majority of legislation is built around a raft of new spending during a period of economic uncertainty, according to a summary released by House leaders.
The House’s plan leans heavily on surplus money generated last fiscal year by the state’s so-called millionaires tax, proposing to spend $1.3 billion of it. It also includes roughly $500 million, which House leaders said would come from the state’s general fund.
It’s possible the bill could grow further during Wednesday’s debate. But state Representative Aaron Michlewitz, the House’s budget chief, said Tuesday that while lawmakers can add amendments, lawmakers will have “a candid conversation” about “what our flexibilities will be” with the bottom line.
The proposed spending on the World Cup hopes to address a major shortfall facing Boston Soccer 2026 — a host committee dominated by allies of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft — which appears well short of the $170 million fund-raising goal it said it needed to stage a World Cup that could draw 2 million visitors to Greater Boston.
Earlier this month, Boston Soccer 26 revealed it only had $2 million in the bank, though it said it anticipates depositing another $30 million soon. That amount is a fraction of what was envisioned by the organizers two years ago.
The Legislature previously had granted the effort $10 million. The proposal to seed it with another $10 million would give the host committee the $20 million in taxpayer money it had requested from the state. The host committee initially had sought $37.5 million, The Boston Globe has reported.
Michlewitz said the investment signals a desire to “do everything we possibly can to get this event right,” noting that a successful World Cup could better the state’s chances at hosting other large-scale events, such as the 2028 Democratic National Convention, which Boston is vying to host.
“We want to show the rest of the world that we can do big events like this,” he said.
A spokesperson for Kraft Sports + Entertainment, which typically covers security costs for New England Patriots games and concerts at Gillette, referred a reporter to the host committee. The committee didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Other pieces of the bill resurrect portions of spending requests from the state’s sheriffs that lawmakers initially balked at last year. The Legislature last year held back more than $100 million in deficit spending requests from the sheriffs, citing “questionable spending practices” after months of negative headlines and increased scrutiny over the elected offices.
The bill released Tuesday proposes spending $54 million, about half of the remaining deficiency, and requires the sheriffs to report how the funds are being used, according to a summary released by House leaders.
State Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro last month released a legislative-mandated report calling the budget process for Massachusetts’ 14 county sheriffs “opaque, chaotic, and deeply flawed‚” finding that some overspent their budgets annually and potentially violating state finance law.
House and Senate leaders said at the time they would review the findings from Shapiro’s office, which must submit a final report to lawmakers by the end of May.
Michlewitz said the proposal the House released is the first step in a longer-term funding plan for sheriff’s offices.
An official with the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The House bill also pitches spending $740 million on the struggling MBTA — a number that exceeds the $560 million budget deficit officials said the agency faces for the fiscal year that begins in July. That amount includes $60 million for physical infrastructure on the subway system, which was strained under this year’s historic winter storm.
The proposed amount exceeds the $645 million that Governor Maura Healey proposed giving the T in surplus surtax revenue.
Filling the T’s budget gap is a step toward making the T “as good as it used to be,” said Tom Glynn, a former T general manager who, until 2024, spent more than a year as the chair of the MBTA board of directors.
“I think they are trying to prepare for the future,” Glynn said. “At this stage, everybody realizes we need to make more investments in the T.”
In the future, Michlewitz said, lawmakers shouldn’t expect to see supplemental budgets like Tuesday’s proposal. Lawmakers now have a “better handle” on how much surplus surtax revenue they could anticipate, he said, allowing them to budget more tightly to expectations.
The Legislature last spring passed a $1.39 billion agreement that spent surplus revenue from the previous fiscal year. That package dedicated hundreds of millions to the MBTA, and also included a series of earmarks, ranging from $25 million for a parking garage in House Speaker Ron Mariano’s hometown to millions of dollars for projects in the districts of Senate leaders.
“We were going off a brand new revenue source,” Michlewitz said Tuesday of the surtax, which voters approved in 2022. “Next year, that [type of surplus] certainly won’t be the case.”
Jon Chesto of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.