Window Into The State House

Housing and Other Issues On The Docket – Or not!

For those looking to Beacon Hill for action on issues from the high cost of housing to the MBTA — don’t hold your breath. A little over two months into the current session, lawmakers appear to be dragging their feet even as growing frustrations over a lack of affordability in the Bay State and worsening transit matters — including a gruesome return of traffic gridlock — have reached a fever pitch. Gov. Maura Healey has yet to deliver on her promised housing secretariat. She blew past her self-imposed March 6 deadline to install a safety chief at the MBTA, where a pile-up of problems appears ever-growing. Tax relief and other affordability proposals remain pending without a sense of urgency to act. The next moves are up to the House when it comes to many of these issues, but Speaker Ronald Mariano seems to be in no rush. Both branches have passed a version of Gov. Healey’s fiscal year 2023 supplemental budget and bonding bill, which addresses some of the “immediate needs” the governor identified, but the House has yet to move the differing House and Senate bills into a conference committee where a compromise can be hashed out. Meanwhile, Healey has already

Childcare continued from front page tives in Gov. Maura Healey’s first budget proposal, which included a near-even split of the $1 billion raised by the voter-approved “millionaires tax” for education and transportation. The bill earmarks $510 million for child care and education initiatives with $100 million targeted in the form of grants to child care providers.

Low pay for childcare workers, and the resulting shortage of staff for childcare centers are key issues, according to indi - filed another $734 million supplementary spending bill. Mariano’s office has booked a “potential” full formal session for 11 a.m. Thursday, but offered no further details. The Senate has only informal sessions planned for this week. No hearing has been scheduled on the tax reform and relief proposal Healey filed more than two weeks ago, and leaders in the House — where the tax bill must pass first if it is to become law — appear in no rush. Mariano said last month that “the situation has changed” since both chambers last session agreed to a similar, but ill-fated proposal that later died. The Quincy Democrat last month mentioned having “some hearings” on tax relief, but none have been scheduled.

Bay Staters will get a better idea of the House’s attitude toward relief in mid-April, when its Ways and Means Committee releases its rewrite of Healey’s $55.5 billion fiscal year 2024 state budget. The governor’s spending plan was built on the assumption that her tax package would advance in tandem, but the House might have other ideas.

Movement on a sweeping longterm care reform bill — legislation that Mariano said “would probably be” first on the House’s agenda after being left unfinished last session — remains stalled. Rep. Tom Stanley’s viduals who work in the field.

Those workers and educators in local communities are hopeful for what changes the new proposal might bring.

As an example, The Early Childhood Center at Hevreh in southern Berkshire County provides year-round child care to the surrounding community. However, with the high demand and limited space, the center has encountered its own set of challenges that have left some families on waiting lists and bill (H 648) was sent to the Joint Committee on Elder Affairs a month ago — no hearing has been put on the calendar. Mariano or Senate President Karen Spilka have also been mum on T oversight issues that have taken a front seat during the first weeks of Healey’s administration.

Legislative committees blow past big organizational deadline

Thousands of bills have been filed, they’ve been sent to committees, and the next step is to let the public weigh in. But out of 33 committees, all 33 are delinquent on an initial step in setting up shop for the two-year term.

After they take their seats, committee chairs have four weeks to develop internal rules that will direct the flow of business before their panels over the following 22 or so months.

Dire fire: Leaves ignite along Orange Line tracks

Another day another problem on the MBTA. T riders waiting for the Orange L had to beeline away from the tracks during rush house on Tuesday when dry leaves ignited on the tracks at Oak Grove.

Will Boston’s 3 fired cops stay fired?

After city officials announced the firing of three Boston police officers — two of whom made inappropriate comments on social media about the Jan. 6 insurrection, and a third whose list of alleged violations is 38 pages long — the question remains, writes Danny MacDonald for The Boston Globe. History has shown Boston police officers who have been fired have overturned their dismissals through arbitration to get reinstated.

Commuters outside the I-495 corridor want ‘easy’ East-West rail Western Massachusetts commuters are begging the state to expand rail service to their neighborhoods. The MBTA’s commuter rail network only goes as far as Worcester. Amtrak offers passenger rail service to points further west, but on its current schedule, just one train per day. An $11.4 billion infrastructure bond bill former Gov. Charlie Baker signed authorized an initial $275 million toward a system expansion.

Thieves robbing social safety net services sees ‘substantial increase’

A “substantial increase” in people being robbed of their public benefits by fraudsters and scammers, has prompted Acting Commissioner Mary Sheehan to ask lawmakers to support a proposal in the governor’s budget that would allow the Department of Transitional Assistance to offer recipients a new way to protect their accounts.

Stitching

Chinatown

Back

to

gether with Boston

The city won a federal grant to study a new park over the Mass. Turnpike and rail lines in Chinatown. Boston has landed a $1.8 million federal grant to examine laying a park atop the six-line highway and placing five rail lines beside it.

classrooms short on staff. “We need to start viewing childcare as a public good,” said center director Ellen Marcus in an interview. “It’s really not a sustainable or healthful model to fund all of our operations via tuition. Even with tuition that is in the higher range of what is charged within the community, compensation for teachers is limited.”

Low wages for educators in the field have left many centers without adequate professional support. In turn, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, the lack of qualified workers in areas of child care has cost Massachusetts families nearly $1.7 billion a year in lost wages.

In order to change this financial model and urge more federal investment, families and school staff have been advocating for an increase in funding to initiatives like Head Start, a federal program that offers comprehensive early child care for low-income continued on page 6