Month: July 2022

CORRECTION: A previous version of this press release included amended line-item amounts as total funding for certain projects. This information was inaccurate as the amended line-item amount represents the line-item funding after the amendment included.

BOSTON – On Monday, July 18th, the Massachusetts Legislature unanimously passed a $52.7 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23). The FY23 budget maintains fiscal responsibility and makes precision investments to strengthen the Commonwealth’s economic foundation, protects our most vulnerable neighbors, and support the everyday needs of communities and families Massachusetts.

The final FY23 conference report takes into consideration the historic tax revenue of Fiscal Year 2022 and increases projections by $2.66 billion for a projection of $39.575 billion. This budget also transfers $1.46 billion into the ‘rainy day’ Stabilization Fund, for a projected balance of approximately $7.35 billion at the end of the fiscal year.

Several locally focused amendments were adopted in the FY23 conference report as well. Specifically, State Senator Ed Kennedy secured funding of $50,000 for the Lowell Folk Festival Foundation, and an additional $60,000 for the Kerouac Museum and Performing Arts Center. The town of Tyngsborough will receive an additional $80,000 for town center improvements, while Pepperell will receive an extra $60,000 for technology improvements. Senator Kennedy also managed to secure an additional $1,000,000 for the Greater Lowell Technical Highschool, which serves students from Dracut, Lowell, and Tyngsborough, to upgrade their athletic facilities in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“The Fiscal Year 2023 budget is the most robust budget passed by the Legislature yet. It’s targeted investments across education, healthcare, housing, local aid, and economic recovery will ensure the Commonwealth’s future success and improve the quality of life for its current residents,” said State Senator Ed Kennedy (D – Lowell).

Prioritizing funding for education, the Commonwealth’s FY23 budget includes $175 million in a newly created High-Quality Early Education and Care Affordability Trust Fund for utilization in the coming years to support the implementation of the recommendations made by the Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission. Additionally, to ensure resources will be

utilized in the future to support equitable funding for our most vulnerable students, a supplemental payment of $150 million has been included to the Student Opportunity Act (SOA) Investment fund, bringing its balance up to $500 million. This increases the amount of Chapter 70 funding for the City of Lowell to $200,970,019 for fiscal year 2023.

This budget strongly reflects the Legislature’s commitment to the Commonwealth’s municipalities and provides a significant amount of local and regional aid, ensuring communities can provide essential services to the public while rebuilding from a once-in-a-generation pandemic. These investments include $1.231 billion in funding for Unrestricted General Government Aid (UGGA), of which Lowell will receive $29,177,514, an increase of $63 million over FY22, and $45 million in payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) for state-owned land, an increase of $10 million over FY22, providing supplemental local aid payments to cities and towns working to improve access to essential services and programs.

More than 40 percent of the Commonwealth’s budget is dedicated to healthcare. The Legislature’s FY23 budget maintains assistance for the state’s safety net by funding MassHealth at a total of $19.48 billion, ensuring over 2.1 million people with continued access to comprehensive health care services. Additionally, the FY23 budget invests in the human services workforce who provide services to the state’s most vulnerable residents, including $230 million for Chapter 257 rates for health and human service workers, $40 million to continue higher rate add-ons and ensure a smaller wage cliff between FY22 and FY23 for home health aides and homemakers, and $1 million for the Nursing and Allied Health Workforce Development program. Additional investments include funding for programming such as the Elder Mental Health Outreach Teams, the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative Expansion, nine Elder Supportive Housing Sites, and the SHINE Program.

Building on the foundation of last year’s efforts to tackle deep poverty, the FY23 budget supports working families struggling with the economic toll associated with rising costs and includes a record investment in the annual child’s clothing allowance, providing $400 per child for eligible families to buy clothes for the upcoming school year. The budget also includes a 10 percent increase to Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) and Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children (EAEDC) benefit levels compared to June 2022 to ensure the economic supports necessary to provide stability to families across the state.

The FY23 budget provides resources to help with housing stability to keep individuals and families in their homes, including $219.4 million for Emergency Assistance Family Shelters, more than $200 million for Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT), $175 million for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) and $92 million for assistance to local housing authorities. The budget also upholds the emergency-level maximum amount of rental assistance that a household can receive at $10,000 and requires the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) to study and report on the execution of no-fault evictions between 2019 and 2022.

To boost the Commonwealth’s post-pandemic recovery, the FY23 budget invests more than $100 million to bolster job training programs, help connect unemployed and under-employed

people with higher paying jobs and support career services that help students gain skills to apply for future jobs. The budget includes $20 million for Career Technical Institutes to increase the skilled worker population’s access to career technical training opportunities, a $17 million transfer to the Workforce Competitiveness Trust fund, and $15 million for one-stop career centers to support economic recovery. The budget also includes a $1 million investment in Learn to Earn and $1 million for the 1199 SEIU Training and Upgrading Fund.

The budget also continues the Legislature’s focus on environmental and climate protection by investing $375.2 million for environmental services, which include funding increases for state parks, environmental protection, and fisheries and wildlife. Additional measures include promoting electric vehicles and funding for environmental justice and climate adaptation and preparedness.

Having been passed by the House and Senate, the legislation now goes to Governor Baker for his signature.

On Friday, July 15, the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, the Zero Waste Legislative Caucus and several members of the Lawrence City Council toured the UTEC Mattress Recycling Facility located on Canal Street in Lawrence.

In 2015, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection selected UTEC as a qualified vendor to provide statewide mattress recycling services to state organizations including cities and towns. UTEC, a Lowell-based youth services organization picks up, deconstructs and recycles mattresses from many cities and towns and organizations in New England. They contract with municipalities, hotels, schools, universities, assisted living facilities and hospitals. The young adults that participate with the pick-ups and deconstruct of the mattresses at UTEC’s Lawrence facility learn valuable workplace skills.

Starting on November 1, 2022, mattresses will be banned from disposal in Massachusetts. Going forward, mattresses will be redirected to recycling facilities and downstream markets for their metal, foam, fabric, and wooden components. Each of the elements that make up a mattress has recycling potential.

UTEC currently provides mattress recycling services for the following cities and towns: Acton, Cambridge, Framingham, Hanson, Hanover, Kingston, Lowell (weekly curbside pick-up), Marblehead, Medfield, Needham, Newburyport (monthly curbside pick-up), Norwood, Pembroke, Sherborn, and Winchester. For more information or to schedule. a mattress pick-up call 978-856-3997 or 978-856-3910.

State Senate Passes Transformational Bill to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Child Care

BOSTON – State Senator Ed Kennedy (D – Lowell) joined his colleagues in the Massachusetts State Senate in unanimously passing S.2973 An Act to expand access to high-quality, affordable early education and care, on Thursday, July 7, 2022. The bipartisan piece of legislation increases the access and affordability of high-quality early education and childcare for Massachusetts families, strengthens early education providers, improves compensation and professional development for the early education workforce, and addresses the workforce needs of employers in the Commonwealth. This bill draws from recommendations made by the Special Legislative Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission, which was created by the legislature in 2020 and issued its final report in March 2022.

“High-quality, affordable early education and childcare are fundamental to the Commonwealth’s current economic recovery, and future economic growth. By making these necessary investments for both families and providers in the state’s early education and childcare systems, we are ensuring the Commonwealth’s continued prosperity,” said State Senator Ed Kennedy.

Children with access to affordable high-quality early education develop stronger communication, social, and cognitive skills. Early education investments have been shown to yield considerable long-term benefits, such as higher academic achievement and greater lifetime earnings. However, many families in the Commonwealth lack access to high-quality, affordable early education. The financial strain of childcare on families impacts the ability of parents, especially working mothers, to enter or remain in the work force, which is a contributing factor to labor shortages and threatens the Commonwealth’s economic recovery.

“S.2973 crafts a road map for lifting early education program quality and enhancing the lives of early educators across Massachusetts, while dramatically expanding access in the coming years to assist children and families.  We are appreciative of Senator Kennedy’s leadership, his commitment to high-quality early education and for his efforts to pass this important legislation,” said Community Teamwork CEO Karen Frederick and Acre Family Child Care Co-Executive Director Lucas Skorczeski in a joint statement.

S.2973 improves access to high-quality, affordable childcare for Massachusetts families in the following ways:

• Increases subsidy eligibility over time from the current level of 50% of state median income ($65,626 annual household income for a family of four) to 125% of state median income ($164,065 annual household income for a family of four)
• Makes it easier for subsidized providers to offer scholarships or discounted tuition for their private pay families
• Requires the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) to evaluate and eliminate barriers to subsidy access for families on an annual basis
• Requires parent fees for subsidized families to be affordable and updated at least every five years
• Requires EEC to assess the extent of the current supply of licensed childcare availability across the state and the unmet needs of families

Although childcare is expensive for families in the Commonwealth, early education and childcare providers are themselves in crisis. Due to the low wages and poor benefits that providers can afford to pay their staff, providers struggle with attracting and retaining early educators, the majority of whom are women, and many of whom are women of color. Federal pandemic relief funding has been a lifeline for the early education and care sector, but these funds are one-time. S.2973 helps stabilize providers, improve program quality, and expand capacity by:

• Making permanent the operational grants to providers that were first distributed during the pandemic and requires that a provider must be willing to enroll subsidized children to qualify for a grant
• Requiring EEC to use an actual cost-of-quality-care methodology for setting subsidy reimbursement rates and calculating operational grants
• Requiring EEC to reimburse subsidized providers based on quarterly enrollment rather than daily attendance of children
• Taking steps to strengthen the recruitment and pipeline of early educators

Early educators with bachelor’s degrees earn far less than their counterparts who teach in public elementary schools, and one in six early educators lives in poverty. To improve compensation, benefits, and professional development opportunities for the early educator workforce, this legislation:

• Requires EEC to develop a career ladder that links educational attainment and work experience to compensation and benefits and recommends that compensation levels be commensurate with public school teachers who are similarly credentialed
• Establishes early educator scholarship and loan forgiveness programs to provide greater access to higher education and professional development opportunities
• Enables subsidized providers to offer free or discounted seats for the children of their own staff

Additional provisions would further improve and strengthen early education and childcare in the Commonwealth. S.2973 also creates a commission to study and recommend to the legislature ways that employers could provide more support to their workers to help meet their early education and childcare needs. Furthermore, this legislation requires the EEC and the Children’s Investment Fund to report to the legislature on ways to improve and expand the impact of the Early Education and Out of School Time (EEOST) Capital Fund for making improvements to early education facilities. Finally, this bill creates a data advisory commission to work with EEC on expanded data collection and reporting, and the improved use of data to inform the cost and quality of care.

Having passed the Senate, S.2973 now moves to the House of Representatives for further consideration.