Senate Press Release on the Budget

The Senate completed its budget process last night. The next step is conference with the House to reconcile differences with their budget. It was a good process under the new leadership of Senate President Stan Rosenberg and Ways and Means Chair Karen Spilka — a lot of collegiality and openness in the process. I was most pleased by our successful efforts to reach consensus on a big part of the Governor’s MBTA reform package.

Protecting the State from Olympic Liability

In the budget debate this week, the Senate adopted an amendment offered by Senator Tarr which sets in place a clear boundary on state liability for the Olympics. The Boston 2024 group has said all along that they don’t want to use taxpayer funds or put the taxpayers at risk. However, many of us feel it is critical that we put in place clear legal protections so that we are not surprised.

Update on the Film Tax Credit Issue

Over the past two months, I have heard from roughly 200 constituents in my district who are concerned about the Governor’s proposal to eliminate the film tax credit. Some of the most thoughtful constituents indicated that they didn’t like the credit going to out of state movie stars and would like to see it used in a less wasteful way to benefit in-state workers. To further that conversation, in this year’s Senate budget we adopted a very modest compromise amendment, calling for a report.