Extraordinary Special Education Costs

The Senate adopted a budget amendment #142 sponsored by Senator Brownsberger titled “Extraordinary Special Education Costs.”  This amendment would make $500,000 available for communities, like Watertown, in which “special education costs exceed 25 per cent of the total district costs and in which tuition and other circuit-breaker eligible costs for placements at an approved private school …

Report on the Consensus Revenue Hearing

Today the financial leadership of the House, the Senate and the Governor’s office held their annual “consensus revenue hearing”. In short, the outlook is fair — a continuing moderate budget squeeze with some warning flags about long-term issues. But those long-term issues — health care, pensions, and financial reserves — mean that the budgetary choices over the next few months won’t be easy.

Time to reform MA Records Access and stop Government Extortion (Support MA H.2772 and S.1676)

Will — Please support H.2772 and S.1676 Background http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/03/19/how-massachusetts-keeps-secrets-from-you/NatKrY9ISxepNBOLDSfzYK/story.html When the watchdog group the State Integrity Investigation graded states on how well they make public information available, Massachusetts failed. State Sen. Jason Lewis and Rep. Peter Kocot aim to improve the state’s reputation with a new bill that would increase public access to records. But …