Happy May, friend!
It’s my favorite time of year — the time when I get to crack my windows open at night and catch the sweet scent of lilacs in bloom wafting up to my room; when my radishes which I planted by seed have sprouted the most darling little leaves; when the Senate releases their budget proposal…
🎵 One of these is not like the others 🎵 (sing it with me!)
Yes indeed, it’s officially Senate Budget Season on Beacon Hill. The House passed their version of the Budget shortly after we queued up the Scoop last week in which we detailed the House’s Budget process, from consolidated amendments to earmark rewards, in all its shadowy glory.
It turns out, we aren’t the only ones to take an interest in the topic; the Boston Globe published a piece this week exposing the $5 million in earmarks for their districts that those in House Leadership were able to sneak into the budget without even the slightest hint of a transparent process. Most of these leadership earmarks were added into a consolidated amendment on a Friday afternoon, 90 minutes before the end of the multi-day debate. Naturally, the mega amendment passed unanimously, as they almost always do.
“It not only offends principles of fairness among the members and basic ideas about transparency, it potentially opens the door to all kinds of sweetheart deals or even worse,” said former Watertown state rep and current state house reform advocate Jonathan Hecht. “There’s no opportunity for anybody in the public to see what’s being done — until it’s too late.”
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State House Scoop
Senate budget proposal includes free community college, skimps elsewhere
Senate leaders released their budget proposal this week which totals $57.9 billion. This bottom line is similar to the House’s budget, but the two differ in some key ways:
Higher Education. The main headline from the Senate budget (and for good reason) is the proposal to make community college free for all in Massachusetts — a marked improvement from Healey’s overly restrictive Mass Reconnect program which only makes community college free for adults over the age of 25 who don’t have degrees. (Just graduated high school and can’t afford a four-year university? Well, you can enroll in community college to get a degree for free — just wait three years!)
K-12 Education. Both the House and Senate budgets follow the k-12 funding requirements of the 2018 landmark Student Opportunity Act. That being said, because of the unanticipated high levels of inflation, merely meeting the funding levels set out by SOA now means, in effect, defunding our public schools. According to the number crunchers at Mass Budget, that inflation funding gap for the last three years is $465 million.
Public Transit. While the House boasted major investments in the MBTA, including earmarks for capital investments and workforce development, totalling $430 million, the Senate hopes to spend less on the MBTA ($361.5 million) and more on regional transit authorities. In fact, the Senate budget proposes fare-free RTAs — I really like the sound of that. Some RTAs, like Lawrence and Worcester, have already implemented fare-free service, which has significantly boosted ridership. But let’s be clear: neither the Senate nor the House bill come even close to adequately funding the MBTA, which is poised to have a budget gap to the tune of $600 million this year.
Emergency Shelters. Speaking of inadequate funding — like the MBTA, neither proposal allocates enough to the state’s struggling emergency shelter system. Both the House and Senate allocated $325 million for shelters this year, a whopping $415 million short of the anticipated need.
Revenue. The Big 3 (Governor, Senate President, House Speaker) all did their best George H.W. Bush impressions this week when they said, not in so many words but certainly in spirit, “read my lips: no new taxes.” With tax revenues down almost all year, Beacon Hill leaders have had to get creative when it comes to finding revenue to fund the budget. The House wants to legalize an online lottery (which the Senate opposes, thank Cod) and both proposals would tap into one-time revenue sources to make ends kinda sorta meet. But apparently these funding cuts and gaps aren’t reason enough for our legislators to raise new revenue. Vulnerable migrants will get kicked out of the shelter system after nine months due to lack of resources? A-OK with Beacon Hill. Reversing the tax cuts for the rich and corporations passed this fall? Non-starter.
An Ode to Fair Share. Free community college. Universal school meals. Major investments in early education and childcare. Free RTA fares. Transportation infrastructure investments. All of these budget line items are made possible because of the additional $1.3 billion of revenue generated by the Fair Share Amendment last year. As strapped for cash as we are this budget season, and as infuriating it is that our legislative leaders just cut $1 billion in taxes, imagine how much worse off we’d be without Fair Share. Everyone who knocked doors or made calls for Yes on 1 in 2022, these are your victories.
Motivated by Steward crisis, House advances new healthcare reform bill
The House is poised to vote on Speaker Mariano’s new healthcare reform bill next week with formal sessions on the calendar for Wednesday and Thursday. The 98-page bill, which emerged from the Health Care Financing Committee late last month, is largely a response to the Steward Hospital crisis and covers many of the Speaker’s priorities in healthcare reform including strengthening data reporting requirements and increased fines for violations. Note: this bill is purely forward-looking, meaning it aims to set new standards for the industry. It does nothing to address the damage already done by Steward and other disasters caused by the role of private equity and other forms of for-profit healthcare in the Bay State.
The bill would also reform the Health Policy Commission to reduce the number of board members, grant the Speaker and Senate President powers to shortlist their own preferred members, and — suspiciously — remove the power of the State Auditor to appoint members. It’s not like the Speaker would be retaliating against the Auditor for her bid to audit the Legislature, or anything like that, I’m sure. Nothing to see here, folks!
Mariano is promising a lot with this bill: "[t]his legislation focuses on restoring stability to the health care system, and on bolstering accountability within the industry, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that everyone in Massachusetts has access to quality, affordable health care,” he said in a statement to State House News Service. Curiously, however, this comes at the same time the bill for Medicare For All — supported widely by Bay Staters and which has, in various iterations, been before the Legislature for a bit longer than a week (since the 1980's, in fact) — was once again sent to study. For a bill that would actually achieve the goal of ensuring universal access to “quality, affordable health care” to be sent to study yet again in the face of Mariano’s healthcare bill barreling forward shows just how unserious our elected leaders are about actually achieving that end goal.
Despite Medicare for All in Massachusetts’ popularity, us single payer advocates hear one thing over and over again from legislators: “we don’t get calls from our voters about Medicare for All.” I don’t know about you, but I take that as a personal invitation:
CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS IN SUPPORT OF M4A >>
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Missed a Scoop or two? You can find a full archive of all past Saturday Scoops on our blog.
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Act on Mass is proud to endorse Tara Hong for State Rep!
We at Act on Mass could not be more excited to endorse Tara Hong for state rep in the 18th Middlesex District!
From delivering food to families in need to picking up litter to improving access to the ballot, Tara has been on the ground serving the people of Lowell for years. Now, we cannot wait to see him serve his community as state representative.
Tara first ran for office in 2022 where he came within 56 votes of defeating incumbent Representative Rady Mom in the primary. A longtime Act on Mass supporter, Tara distinguishes himself from his opponent on legislative transparency and accountability among other key issues.
LEARN MORE ABOUT TARA’S CAMPAIGN >>
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Take Action
June 1st Audit the Legislature Day of Action in East Boston
Well friend, the day we all knew would arrive has finally come: legislative leaders have decided not to take action on any of the pending ballot initiatives, including the petition to audit the Legislature. That means we now need to collect another 12,000 signatures to ensure it gets on the ballot this November. After successfully collecting the first 75,000 in the fall, we can’t back down now.
That’s why we at Act on Mass are proud to be hosting a Day of Action on Saturday June 1st to do our part to collect signatures to put it on the ballot! We can collect hundreds of signatures in just a few hours, but only if we have lots of volunteers. That means you!
- What: Act on Mass Audit the Legislature Day of Action
- When: Saturday June 1st, shifts from 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
- Where: Just outside the Shaw’s in East Boston (accessible from the Maverick T stop)
Brenna and I will be there all day, and will provide signature sheets, pens, and training. Collecting signatures is easy and surprisingly fun (shout-out to everyone who helped collect signatures for our non-binding ballot questions in 2022!).
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(Thank you to City Life/Vida Urbana for this graphic!)
5/15: Raise Our Wage, Cap Our Rent Rally
SAVE THE DATE: Join Act on Mass, 1199 SEIU, BTU, UU Mass Action, City Life/Vida Urbana, and dozens of other progressive groups for a rally on Boston Common to demand the Legislature raise the minimum wage and pass rent stabilization!
- When: Wednesday May 15 at 12:30PM
- Where: Start at Embrace statue on Boston Common, rally at Monument to Black Civil War Heroes (top of the Common) at 1:00
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That's all for this week! Now that the Scoop's out, it's time for me to get to more important things, like assembling the perfect outfit for Somerville Porchfest later today. Yet another of my [actual] favorite things about May in Massachusetts.
May your lilacs be fragrant and your radishes sprouted,
Erin
Erin Leahy
Executive Director, Act on Mass