The Senate budget proposes a big hike in funding for regional transit authorities, including money to eliminate fares, but a new report says the state needs to lay out clearer principles to RTA funding.
Are state’s 15 regional transit authorities ready for prime time?
Posted inState Government
Former prison in Norfolk to reopen as overflow shelter
A razor fence around the facility will be removed, according to a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
Posted inCourts
Uber, Lyft say they aren’t transportation companies, liken themselves to travel agents
The latest leg in a multi-front worker classification fight kicked off in Suffolk Superior Court on Monday, with the start of Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s lawsuit against ride-share giants Uber and Lyft.
Posted inOpinion
It’s past time to move Bridgewater State Hospital out of the Department of Correction
THE REPORT RELEASED in March condemning Bridgewater State Hospital —Massachusetts’s state psychiatric facility — felt more like a broken record than a revelation. The 87-page document outlined issues that have […]
Posted inThe Codcast
Senate leadership breaks down the budget
This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon’s Jennifer Smith is joined by Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka and Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues to discuss the Senate’s budget proposal. They get into differences between the Senate and House proposals, potential revenue measures, transit and shelter funding, programs supporting families and youth, and more.
Posted inState Government
Senate readies for budget ‘dance’ with familiar clashes between chambers
While waving off the question of new tax streams for another time, Senate leadership is touting its proposed budget as first and foremost an “education budget” that takes a meaningful swing at the underlying barriers to full participation in the workforce and educational attainment.
Posted inMarijuana
Social equity marijuana businesses sold ‘bag of dreams’
The entire cannabis industry is struggling as pot prices have plummeted and operators deal with the unique challenges of working with a substance that is illegal under federal law. But those who got into the industry based on state promises of social equity seem to be in particularly dire straits.
Posted inBy The Numbers
New poll finds rise in voters who see Mass. on wrong track
Forty-eight percent said the state is heading in the right direction, down from 59 percent in a similar poll done for the business group a year ago. Thirty-nine percent say the state is on the wrong track, up from 29 percent.
Posted inGovernment
Abolishing BPDA costing many employees their strong job protections
The loss of the job protections has received no public attention, but it has stirred anxiety among some of the affected employees, all of whom declined to comment for fear of alienating their new city bosses.
Posted inOpinion
House health care bill needs some work
A health care reform bill headed for a debate and vote in the House next week has some very good elements, but it also has some worrisome provisions, in particular the well-intended but flawed effort to raise commercial prices paid to the lowest-paid hospitals.
Posted inOpinion
Climate action, equity must go hand in hand
Equity must be embedded in the fabric of climate initiatives and economic development plans. We must ensure that the benefits of climate innovation and economic growth are justly distributed, reaching those who have historically been excluded.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: The Dan Rea primary | Satanists bedeviling Boston City Hall
Elizabeth Warren’s two Republican challengers go on the radio, while federal judges suggest Satanists bedeviling Boston City Hall might have a point.
Posted inOpinion
Fed action on social media parental controls needed
A federally regulated verification system puts the decisions in the hands of parents. They can decide when it’s right or wrong for their teens to download apps in the most streamlined manner.
Posted inGambling
Wynn, Everett at odds over casino expansion across Broadway
“It has become apparent that we are unable to negotiate an agreement with the City of Everett regarding property taxes, impact fees, and infrastructure improvements in a timely fashion,” the company said in a statement that replaced the website for the project.
Posted inHealth Care
Steward landlord denies its rents are excessive
Edward Aldag Jr., the chairman and CEO of Medical Properties Trust, and other members of the firm’s leadership group told financial analysts that the rents the Alabama-based company is charging Steward for its hospitals are not excessive and that they fully expect those rents to remain at or near current levels when the hospitals are sold to “better qualified operators” over the next several months.
Posted inGovernment
Boston’s taxing war of words
To head off a spike in residential taxes, the Wu administration wants to raise the tax rate on commercial property. But the city already taxes commercial owners at a much higher rate than residential taxpayers – the highest level allowed by law – so it needs approval from the Legislature to raise that rate further.
Posted inBallot Questions
SJC appears open to letting tipped-worker question go to ballot
MULLING A CHALLENGE to a tipped-wage initiative proposed for the November ballot, justices of the Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday seemed skeptical of arguments that they should keep the measure […]
Posted inOpinion
Housing challenge brings with it an energy challenge
Left unaddressed, the cost and availability of energy are poised to become deciding factors on when, where, and how fast new housing developments are built.
Posted inTransportation
New tone for Healey transportation funding task force
The task force met on Wednesday and several members, who asked not to be identified, indicated afterward that the group is no longer going to work on developing a transportation funding plan. Instead, they said, the group intends to focus on developing a “tool kit” that could be used by policymakers to develop a transportation funding plan.
Posted inBook Review
The promise — and problems — of the US construction industry
More than 80 percent of construction work was union labor after World War II, but that dropped in single generation to 20 percent. Mark Erlich takes stock of what it would take to bring that number back up — and with it make construction work again a solid path to the middle class.