On June 3, my team and I faced a potentially impossible task: I was Chairing a hearing of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, at the exact same time two of my top priority bills were being heard by two separate Joint Committees. We wondered how I could possibly be in three places at once.
Thanks to stellar collaboration with constituents and partners like Representative Natalie Blais, we ensured that each of these bills received its time in the spotlight. While I wasn’t able to leave my post as Chair of the Higher Ed hearing, constituents provided powerful testimony on each of the following bills.
Read on to see how we managed to make our presence felt in three places at once.
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Tackling deferred maintenance on higher education campuses across Massachusetts
The Joint Committee on Higher Education is considering a higher education bond bill filed by Governor Maura Healey and her administration, An Act to Build Resilient Infrastructure to Generate Higher Education Transformation (H.54), also known as the BRIGHT Act.
This legislation would allow the state to issue bonds using funding from the Fair Share tax in order to unlock $2.5 billion to improve UMass, state university, and community college campuses across the state. The investments authorized in the bill would decarbonize and modernize facilities, address deferred maintenance and enable major capital projects, including new labs, classrooms and mental health spaces.
Governor Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz, and Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler were among the star-studded (at least in the higher ed world) testifiers at the hearing on June 3.
I asked the Governor and her team about equitable access to grant funding included in the bill, to ensure they are thinking about how institutions with fewer resources have a fair shot at obtaining these funds. Watch the exchange here.
Watch the full hearing here. Pictured below are the testifier panels composed of the Governor and her team, as well as UMass President Marty Meehan and all of the Chancellors across the UMass system.
Standing up for the Quabbin region
In a hearing on water, waterways, wetlands, and climate change held by the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, constituents from the Towns of Pelham, Shutesbury, and Hardwick and Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Kim Robinson testified in person and virtually in support of legislation I filed with Representative Aaron Saunders, An Act relative to the Quabbin watershed and regional equity (S.546/H.1042).
Testifiers spoke powerfully about the financial sacrifices watershed communities have made over years to preserve and protect the Quabbin watershed, saying no to development that would bring much needed revenue to town budgets with entirely or almost entirely residential tax bases.
Constituents spoke about the stewardship provided by volunteer boards and commissions to safeguard Quabbin water. Testimony included the need for equitable representation on the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) Board of Directors and for safe drinking water free of PFAS for Quabbin watershed communities.
Watch a compilation of testimony in support of this legislation here.
Watch the full hearing here.
Pushing for a sustainable future for rural schools
Rural and regional schools are experiencing a fiscal crisis. That’s why the legislature established a Special Commission on Rural School Districts in 2019.
Each session since that Commission completed its work, Rep. Blais and I have filed legislation to implement its recommendations in order to get rural and regional schools on the path to fiscal sustainability.
On Tuesday, our bill, An Act to provide a sustainable future for rural schools (S.314 / H.517) had a hearing in the Joint Committee on Education.
Pictured are Amherst Regional High School students Ella Bradbury and Rose Collins testifying remotely about the brutal funding shortfalls in Amherst that have led to staff and program cuts.
Watch the full hearing here.
