BILLIONS OF DOLLARS are going to be pumped into the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund, but there is no guarantee the money will solve the fund’s problems. A special legislative commission set up to find solutions to the long-term problems that have plagued the fund was unable to come to any consensus last week, which […]
State Government
Posted inCriminal Justice
House plans vote on prison construction moratorium
THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE is set to vote on language this Thursday that would impose a five-year moratorium on new prison construction. The language is tucked into a large government bond bill, which would authorize state government to borrow $4.88 billion for a wide range of building projects touching on myriad facets of state government. But, […]
Posted inState Government, State House News Service, Transportation
East-West rail authority not in transpo bond bill
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE $9.75 BILLION infrastructure bond bill that cleared the Transportation Committee does not include any language creating a new rail authority to oversee a passenger train extension to western Massachusetts, bucking a prediction Congressman Richard Neal made last month when he and state officials announced a historic agreement to advance the […]
Posted inState Government
State workforce shrinks to 2012 levels
MASSACHUSETTS STATE GOVERNMENT lost the equivalent of 1,409 full-time employees in one year during the pandemic, the steepest drop in state government employment since the Baker administration intentionally cut the state workforce in 2016. The drop was felt most heavily in higher education but also extended to executive and judicial branch agencies. State officials say […]
Posted inHousing, State Government
Baker’s housing efforts meet resistance
IF COUNTLESS OPINION COLUMNS, university studies, and pledges by multiple governors were enough move the needle on housing costs, we’d live in one of the most affordable states in the union. Instead, nearly a quarter century after the then-newly launched Greater Boston Interfaith Organization took on the state’s housing crisis as its first major cause, […]
Posted inHousing, State Government
The Sprawl Doctor
When incoming Gov. Mitt Romney named Doug Foy to be the state’s first chief of Commonwealth Development, one of two new “super cabinet” positions Romney created in December as part of his plan to restructure state government, more than a few heads turned. Not only had the venture capitalist who pledged to bring business sense […]
Posted inState Government
Beacon ill
IT’S A STEAMY afternoon in late July, and you might expect the temperature to be rising even higher beneath the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House. The state Senate is getting ready to vote on the biggest tax increase in state history, a $1.2 billion tax package designed to plug a gaping hole in […]
Posted inState Government
The Speaker Who Believed in Democracy
ASK SOMEONE today, “Who is George Keverian?” and the typical response is a blank stare. Those who recall him at all might say he was the portly Speaker who presided over an out-of-control House of Representatives that bungled the state’s response to the fiscal crisis of 1989-90. But even among Massachusetts politicos, Keverian has faded […]