In Massachusetts, our Legislative year ends on July 31, on the second year of our term. That doesn't mean that we stop working. Far from it. There are still informal sessions every few days where noncontroversial matters or home rule petitions are heard and passed. There are projects and hearings and work on committee deliberations and initiatives. There is an opportunity to get back to the district more often and meet with constituents. There is time to tour businesses and meet with groups. I plan on holding an informational hearing on winter fuel prices and what, if any, our options and opportunities are to deal with this crisis. So the time is busy but the schedule is more flexible. That is good because after being in the Legislature for twenty-two years and being a chairman for the last seventeen, my time in Boston as opposed to the district grows each year. It is good to get back more and recharge my batteries, so to speak.
More on the district in a future post, but with two weeks left in the session, I have a full list of things that I need to get done. We are close but need to get the broadband bill, to bring service out to unserved areas in Western Massachusetts, finalized and passed. We need to complete the work on the the dairy stabilization bill that so many rural Legislators worked on. I have passed the Creative Economic Council bill in the House and would like to see action in the Senate. I have a few local bills such as an expansion of the Adams Fire District and completing the land transfer for the North Adams Armory to the City of North Adams. I am still hopeful for some movement on an Optometry bill that I have filed for years.
I have a bill to create a creative index for our schools to spread best practices at challenging our school kids to be more innovative and creative. We are hopeful of finalizing in committee and then passing the Green Jobs bill filed by the Speaker of the House. We have several capital bond issues that have important initiatives or projects for my district. For example, the science building at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams is in the higher ed bond bill. There is money to refinish Rt.116 in the town of Savoy in the transportation bond. As co-chair of the regional transportation caucus, I would like to see forward funding passed for the RTA's. As a member of the IT advisory board, I am interested in the bond to modernize our state IT system. That is a pretty daunting list and I know that there is more
There are other bills that I think are important to finish before the end of the year such as the health care cost containment bill that the Senate President filed. This is a very good bill and contains initiatives on e-health management which is something I have written about for a number of years. And of course, there are a number of budget vetoes that I feel we should override. These are small local earmarks that are important for my district. I think of these as additional local aid that gives a boost to local initiatives that would not be funded if they weren't included as earmarks, yet are so important to our districts.
So we have two weeks in which to accomplish this. I will let you know at the end of the session on our success in getting this list done.
4 comments:
It would be rather ironic if you could successfully complete the transfer of the Armory and not be able to override the Guv's veto of the money for the HVAC system. Based upon what I read in the various media, his line-item slashing was overwhelmingly focused on groups with little political influence.
Is this accurate?
I would say that there was no rhyme or reason to the vetoes. Why cut the Berkshire Theater and not Tanglewood? Why Hancock Shaker Village and not the Barrington Stage? I am not sure how these decisions were made. I am not advocating any cuts; it just makes one wonder how these cuts were determined. I feel that these earmarks, which represent less than one half of one percent of the budget, are forms of local aid. Legislators get to bring a little money back to local projects that have tremendous impact in that particular community.
I would also point out that the total amount vetoed was about $122.8 million. I am also worried about the budget next year as we see things slowing down in the economy. However, at the same time that the Governor filed his veto message, he filed a supplemental budget that spent more than this amount. This would indicate that the budget vetoes weren't about saving money but were about different priorities. I respect the fact that we may have different priorities but I also want to override the vetoes so that I have a say in the priorities for my district.
Some of the vetoes made little sense. Our ability to grow the economy in the Berkshires hinges upon such things as our creative economy and our efforts are concentrated through the Berkshire Economic Development Corporation. The Governor's vetoes hamper our efforts to improve our economy and by extension, improve our revenue generation. The same with the cuts to the layoff aversion program run by SBANE and the STEM program to improve our education in new technologies and job base.
Dan... Looking down the road to this winters heating fuel and the electric utility cost crisis, is anything being considered to help out monetarily wise or other wise? All those other "pie in the sky" things are wonderful but that's not what people are really worried about. It would be nice if there were a few bills advanced that DIRECTLY have the consumers interest at heart. You want to bring back real legislation that you can be prod of?... Bring us back home legislation that will keep my family from starving and freezing to death in the dark this winter! Your attention to these matters would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening.
Jack, There are a few things. We are working on getting a forum together here in North Berkshire to let people know what services are available. Second, we added another $10 million for fuel assistance in our state funds. We also have a working group that the Governor brought together to figure out what else we can do and they should be reporting back soon. As you know, most funding comes from the feds and the Bush administration has been against any increases in the fuel assistance account. And a group of Senators filed legislation to double the fuel assistance account for this year, but it was blocked by the Republican party as they wanted to add offshore drilling. (They still have enough votes to filibuster and block closure to that.) Off shore drilling isn't going to help people this year and we need to get assistance to people now. Within the next week we will be issuing a press release on this forum I mentioned. I am very aware that we are in a crisis here.
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