Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the amount of $2,049,000,000 is hereby appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002, to meet necessary expenditures before the enactment of the general appropriation act for that fiscal year, for the maintenance and operations of the several departments, boards, commissions and institutions, including federal grant and Intragovernmental Service Fund expenditures, for local aid payments and lottery distributions, for other necessary services and for meeting certain requirements of law. This amount shall be in addition to the amount made available for the purposes in section 1 of chapter 23, section 1 of chapter 40, section 1 of chapter 47, section 1 of chapter 61 and section 1 of chapter 78 of the acts of 2001. The authorization contained in this section shall cease to be operative as of the effective date of that general appropriation act, and all actions taken under this section shall apply against that general appropriation act. All expenditures made under this authorization shall be consistent with appropriations made in that general appropriation act.

SECTION 2. The state treasurer shall make all first quarterly local aid payments to cities, towns, regional school districts and counties maintaining an agricultural school, including but not limited to those payments made pursuant to sections 3, 6 and 7 of chapter 70, clause (c) of section 35 of chapter 10 and section 31 of chapter 81 of the General Laws.

SECTION 3. This act shall take effect as of July 1, 2001.