This spring, the legislature will consider a voter initiative to raise the income tax on people earning over one million dollars. A hearing is scheduled on Tuesday, 1/19, from 10:30 AM-1:00 PM in room B-1 in the State House. I am fully committed to vote to put the proposal on the ballot and ultimately, you the voters will decide its fate. I’m very interested in your thoughts.
Budget
budget and local aid updates, community preservation act, financial outlook, local aid policy, priorities/requests, resources, revenue, taxes
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 …
Legislature Passes Final FY 2015 Supplemental Budget
We share this press release from Senate Ways and Means on passage of H.3829, the FY15 Supplemental Budget. It now goes to the Governor.
Senate Passes FY15 Close Out Budget
We share this press release from the Senate Committee on Ways and Means on the passage of the supplemental budget to close out Fiscal Year 2015.
The technical fight about ambulance rates
For municipal government buffs and for the record, here is a discussion of a technical issue that we voted on as an amendment to the recent supplementary/deficiency budget. The issue is insurer reimbursements to municipalities for ambulance service.