Dazzled by the stars

Last week, I voted with a surprisingly small minority to curtail the state’s film tax credit, which was expanded under the leadership of former speaker Sal DiMasi. Mike Widmer, the President of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation, has stated that “All the evidence shows that it is a very costly tax credit with minimal economic impact, …

Ethics Commission Required Training

I just completed this training which is now required for all state and municipal employees. The scenarios are reasonable and even sometimes interesting, but they are also confusing because a lot (over 2/3?) of the training is for state employees and does not seem to apply in the same way for municipal employees — or …

Durations of non-competes should reflect shortened job tenures

It’s critical to reduce the length of non-competes as the longevity of startup companies decreases, reducing the average job tenure for many startup employees. During the tech bubble the average job tenures I observed on many resumes decreased dramatically. The trend appears to have continued unabated since then, which is easy to confirm with a …

State employee payroll totals

The spreadsheet below compares census data on state payroll as of March 2008 with March 2000, responding to comments on this post. Most areas other than higher education, which is not funded primarily on the state budget, show cuts. The increase in higher education more than accounts for the growth in state employment — without …