BOSTON — Fresh off winning another term leading the Massachusetts Senate, President Karen Spilka quickly set her sights on a combination of new and old priorities, including one that will have significant interest in the Pioneer Valley — reexamining the state’s education funding formula.

That’s one of several legislative priorities for the 2025-2026 session previewed by Spilka during her inaugural speech on Wednesday. Other initiatives include pressing for primary health care delivery reform; pushing again to expand juvenile court jurisdiction to include young adults aged 18; and investing $100 million into career and technical education.

The Senate president called for her chamber to closely examine K-12 funding and policy, as the so-called Student Opportunity Act enters its final year of scheduled aid increases. She said she’s heard from a lot of senators that their districts are having issues with education funding, even as the Student Opportunity Act has ramped up investments.

“So I think every 10 years or so, it should be re-evaluated and looked at... Things are changing so rapidly in schools and in education, so it’s time to take a look at the formula,” she said.

When it comes to primary health care delivery reform, a hospital oversight bill (H 5159) currently on Gov. Maura Healey’s desk would create a 23-member task force focused on improving primary care access, delivery and financial stability. The group is charged with recommending ways to develop standardized data reporting requirements, establish primary care spending targets, propose payment models to increase primary care reimbursement, and create workforce development plans, among other objectives.

Spilka said there is more to do, however.

“I do feel that we are at a really important inflection point in health care in the commonwealth,” Spilka told the News Service. “I think that providers are having trouble and concerns insurance companies, formerly known as the carriers, are having trouble. Patients, clearly, are having concerns and trouble getting the care that they need.”

Spilka also outlined other items she hopes the Senate looks at in the next session.

Among those are rebooting attempts to “Raise the Age,” which would gradually expand juvenile jurisdiction to include young adults ages up to age 18, meaning people ages 19 and older would be subject to the adult criminal justice system. The Senate has pushed for this reform in the past but met resistance in the House.

The Senate would again try to shift the burden of broker’s fees from renters onto the party who contracted with the real estate broker, typically a building’s landlord.

“It’s an important consumer protection and making housing more affordable for our residents here,” Spilka told the News Service about the policy.

Asked if she would pursue that as a standalone policy bill or part of a larger omnibus housing package — after the Legislature passed a large housing bill last year — Spilka said, “It could be, or it could be a bill onto itself.”

She would not commit to whether Senate Democrats would again support transfer fees on high-dollar property transactions to raise money for affordable housing — a controversial policy that got support in that chamber last year, but never made it to conference committee.

“It will probably come up in one form or another,” she said, when asked about it. Pressed on whether Senate Democrats would support the policy, Spilka said, “I don’t know, we’ll have to see what the session brings.

Rules changes

Also on her agenda, after a session that she called “historically productive” but was criticized in the press and public for missing deadlines and leaving important work until the last minute, Spilka proposed a number of rules changes to make the flow of legislative work more efficient and “transparent.”

Following the swearing-in of members, Spilka gave a speech that backed rules changes to allow lawmakers to continue work on unfinished, controversial bills during election season. Existing legislative rules for decades have called for formal sessions to end July 31 in election years.

After receiving criticism for leaving nine major bills related to health care, climate change, substance use, economic development and more on the table after July 31, lawmakers swore to continue working — and circumvented their own rules to do so — into the fall and winter. Spilka proposed Wednesday to make the change permanent to allow votes on conference committee reports to continue through the full two-year session, including during and after election season.

Spilka said that practice last year “allowed us to complete vital work.”

“The bills that emerge from conference committees contain provisions that have been vetted by one or both branches and have been reported upon — sometimes extensively,” Spilka said during her inaugural speech from the Senate podium on New Year’s Day, after senators were sworn in for the 194th legislative session.