MASSterList: Funding magic formula | Hungry students | Filling the swamp

May 11, 2018

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By Jay Fitzgerald and Keith Regan

05/11/2018

Funding magic formula | Hungry students | Filling the swamp

Happening Today

SJC hearings, Tapper at UMass-Amherst, ‘Banned in Boston’

-- The Supreme Judicial Court will hear first degree murder appeals from Peter Bin, Anthony Moore, Jr. and Mario Cruzado, John Adams Courthouse, Courtroom One, Second Floor, Pemberton Square, Boston, 9 a.m.

-- Higher Education Commissioner Carlos Santiago and Wisconsin HOPE Lab founder Sara Goldrick Rab release the result of the state’s first comprehensive survey of food and housing insecurity and homelessness among Massachusetts college students, Worcester State University, May Street Building, 280 May St. Worcester, 9 a.m.

-- Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan holds a meeting of the Lowell Opioid Task Force, Lowell General Hospital, 295 Varnum Ave., Lowell, 9:30 a.m.

-- Gov. Charlie Baker attends the Propeller Club of Boston Maritime Day Luncheon where he will receive the Port Person of the Year Award, Seaport World Trade Center, 1 Seaport Lane, Boston, 12:30 p.m.

-- UMass Boston Chancellor Search Committee meets with an agenda that includes executive session to consider applicants and a potential resumption of the open session at 1:30 p.m. for an update on the chancellor search, UMass Club, One Beacon St. - 32nd floor, Boston, 12:30 p.m.

-- Jake Tapper, CNN's chief Washington correspondent, will be the keynote speaker at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's commencement ceremony, McGuirk Alumni Stadium, Stadium Drive, Amherst, 4:30 p.m.

-- Urban Improv holds its annual ‘Banned in Boston’ comedy and music revue, with Attorney General Maura Healey among the political figures scheduled to participate, House of Blues, Lansdowne St., Boston, 6 p.m.

For more calendar listings, check out State House News Service’s Daily Advances (pay wall) and MassterList’s Beacon Hill Town Square below.

Today's News

Nantucket: The Lyme disease capital of America

With summer just around the corner, we thought you ought to know: Massachusetts has among some of the highest rates of Lyme disease in the nation – and Nantucket County actually has the highest per capita rate in the entire nation. The Globe’s Matt Rocheleau has the unwelcome details. Now on to all things politics ...

Boston Globe

The Senate budget unveiled: Now the real haggling begins …

With yesterday’s unveiling of the Senate’s proposed state budget for next fiscal year, the real budget maneuvering can now begin on Beacon Hill. Re the Senate's budget, from SHNS’s Colin Young at WBUR: “The Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday unanimously approved a $41.42 billion fiscal year 2019 budget proposal, touting the spending plan's ‘robust and critical investments’ in education, an ‘innovative approach to drug pricing’ and a focus on obstacles to growth. ... The fiscal 2019 budget plan represents a 3 percent increase in state spending over the current year's budget and is based on the consensus revenue agreement that state tax revenue will grow by 3.5 percent in fiscal 2019.”

WGBH’s Mike Deehan and the Globe’s Joshua Miller and Matt Stout have more, including how the Senate budget doesn’t include broad-based tax increases but does rely on new revenues from taxes on retail marijuana sales and, possibly, short-term rentals of properties. CommonWealth magazine’s Bruce Mohl notes the Senate budget includes extra funds for struggling Regional Transit Authorities.

WBUR

… and the Senate hopes to start haggling over a new school-funding formula as well

The Senate not only unveiled a new state spending plan for next fiscal year. It was looking at funding for schools stretching well into the future. From Michael Jonas at CommonWealth magazine: “Two-and-a-half years after a state commission sounded the alarm on school finances, the Senate took a step toward addressing the problem by unanimously passing legislation on Thursday that calls for a revamp of the school funding formula that districts rely on.”

SHNS’s Katie Lannan and Andy Metzger at South Coast Today have more on how “Senate Democrats and Republicans spoke with one voice Thursday, passing legislation that they hope will force state government to give more serious consideration each year to the true costs of public education.”

CommonWealth

Paul Revere’s role in the … Industrial Revolution?

Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of the death of Paul Revere – and Bob Oakes and Yasmin Amerat WBUR explore, with Olin College professor Robert Martello, how Revere not only helped usher in the American Revolution but also played a pioneering role in the Industrial Revolution, via his mastery (with the help of some old-fashioned industrial espionage) of rolled copper.

Meanwhile, the Globe’s Dugan Arnett catches up with a handful of Paul Revere’s descendants and how they’ve fully embraced the legacy of their midnight-riding ancestor – even the bad horse jokes that come with it. Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin has some photos of a Revere commemoration yesterday at the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street.

Public college students: Hungry for an education, hungry for some actual food, too

From Michael Levenson at the Globe: “Nearly half of Massachusetts’ community college students and a third in the state colleges and universities cannot afford consistent access to food and housing, according to a new study that found an alarming number of students unable to meet basic needs as they pursue their degrees. In a state that prides itself on its world-renowned private universities, the survey showed that students in the public higher education system struggle to pay for food and housing in ways that go well beyond the stereotypical image of students scraping by on ramen noodles.”

Boston Globe

DPU orders $220M upgrade of electric grid to improve services and make way for renewables

This is a wonky issue, but a very important wonky issue. From Bruce Mohl at CommonWealth magazine: “The Baker authorized the state’s utilities to spend $220 million over the next three years upgrading the power grid to accommodate renewables, electricity storage, and more efficient ways of detecting outages. An order issued on Thursday by the Department of Public Utilities put off a decision on the purchase of smart meters, which allow consumers to track their electricity usage on a real-time basis at home.” SHNS’s Andy Metzger (pay wall) has more.

Fyi: Bruce Mohl has a separate story on how offshore wind developers are open to the idea of splitting up state contracts for wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts.

CommonWealth

California goes where no state has gone before: Mandatory solar power on all new homes

Speaking of energy: In Massachusetts, we’re arguing about whether residential homes should have updated energy audit scores before they’re sold to buyers. In California, they’re now requiring all new homes to have solar power, reports the New York Times. Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington D.C. have considered requiring homes to be “solar ready,” but those ideas aren’t even close to what California is doing, the Times reports.

NYT

Filling the swamp: Novartis CEO admits ‘mistake’ in hiring Trump’s lawyer

The chief executive of Novartis AG, the Swiss drug maker with a huge presence in Cambridge, said his company “made a mistake” in signing up President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen to give the company insight on Trump’s health-care plans, Bloomberg reports. “Yesterday was not a good day for Novartis,” Vas Narasimhan wrote to employees.

Novartis, which paid $1.2 million to Cohen’s consulting firm, was among a number of firms that hired Cohen to keep them abreast of Trump’s White House, i.e. Cohen was selling them inside access to the undrained swamp on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Bloomberg

Galvin launches review of employees who engaged in campaign work while on government time

From the Globe’s Matt Stout: “Secretary of State William F. Galvin said Thursday he is launching an internal review after the Globe found that more than a dozen of his employees filed campaign paperwork on his behalf on weekdays or during normal business hours — in some cases potentially violating state ethics rules.”

We find it curious that a Galvin spokeswoman says the review will possibly “make recommendations on any disciplinary action.” Disciplinary action? If workers other than Galvin are ultimately disciplined, would that effectively mean Galvin didn’t know what more than a dozen of his office employees were doing while on the job?

Boston Globe

Gerry Studds and the St. Paul’s School sexual-abuse scandal

We missed this story last week by the Globe’s Laura Crimaldi (and the Concord Journal’s Alyssa Dandrea, for that matter) on how two students who attended the elite St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire decades ago are now accusing several former teachers, including the late U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, of abusing them and denouncing the school as a ‘haven for sexual predators.’ But the Herald’s Howie Carr didn’t missed the story and today he’s ripping into Studds.

Underground steam-pipe dangers: ‘It’s terrifying’

NBC10 Boston’s Ally Donnelly reports on how the state “almost never investigates steam pipe leaks, ruptures or other incidents” tied to the vast network of underground heating-and-cooling pipelines in downtown Boston – and how one telecom firm, in a lawsuit, is accusing the system’s operator of failing to maintain its pipelines.

NBC Boston

Meanwhile, lawmakers steamed over Steamship Authority’s lousy ferry-service performance

Mechanical issues have caused more than 500 cancellations of ferry trips between Martha's Vineyard and Woods Hole in the first four months of 2018, as Gintautas Dumcius reports at MassLive, and state Sen. Julian Cyr and Rep. Dylan have written to the Steamship Authority to say the constant breakdowns are “extremely troubling” heading into the busy summer season, as Dumcius also reports.

The woman who would topple Richard Neal

Carrie Saldo at WGBH takes a look at the Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, a Muslim and African-American woman who’s challenging U.S. Rep. Richard Neal in this fall’s Democratic primary in western Massachusetts. "I'm competent, I'm qualified. I know the community, I love the community. I'm a lawyer, I have a strong handle on policy and vision and conviction," she said.

WGBH

THIS WOULD REDUCE THE PROTECTION FOR THOSE THREATENED AND SUBVERT THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW.

Raising a red flag on the red-flag gun bill

From SHNS’s Matt Murphy: “A group of House lawmakers, mostly Republicans, who are concerned with a ‘red flag’ gun bill that House Speaker Robert DeLeo has said he will call a vote on later this month are trying to refocus the debate away from firearms and onto mental health. Rep. Joseph McKenna, a Webster Republican, wrote to Democratic leaders last week urging them to consider an alternative proposal that would create a legal structure for someone's guns to be taken away only after they have been committed for mental health treatment.”

Btw: Boston police commissioner Bill Evans is appealing a court ruling that said his decision to revoke a Boston man’s gun license to carry was “arbitrary and capricious," the Herald reports. It’s not the same issue per se, but it does show the tricky nature of any law that involves taking away someone’s gun rights.

SHNS (pay wall)

Is Amazon ignoring its own criteria in HQ2 search?

Writing in CityLab, Richard Florida issues a scathing review of the Amazon HQ2 process, saying data shows the e-retail giant is ignoring its own stated criteria as it winnows its list of hopefuls and has managed to use the process to get cities with no chance of actually scoring the grand prize to do years’ worth of legwork on where to locate future warehouse operations. But he saves his harshest rebukes for the “mayors and civic leaders of America’s most liberal and economically dynamic cities,” who he writes have been “rushing to subsidize one of the world’s largest corporations and its richest man rather than investing in processing social needs.”

Sound like anyone we know? For what it’s worth, Florida thinks Washington D.C. is going to land HQ2, though he puts Boston in a tiny group of “serious contenders.”

CityLab

SJC urges lawmakers to update independent contractor law to avoid ‘confusion and uncertainty’

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday that a newspaper delivery woman injured on the job wasn’t eligible for workers’ compensation because she was an independent contractor. But the real news was that some justices, including Chief Justice Ralph Gants, also urged Beacon Hill lawmakers to clarify state laws on independent contractors, as Greg Ryan at the BBJ reports. “The practical result of this patchwork statutory scheme is confusion and uncertainty,” the justices said.

BBJ

Lower than low: Sober-home owner charged with trading drugs for sex with addicts

David Perry, a Reading lawyer who owns a Roxbury sober home, has been charged with trading drugs in exchange for sex with addicts, Attorney General Maura Healey’s office announced yesterday, as posted at Wicked Local. It doesn’t stop there. He also allegedly offered addicts legal assistance and other favors in exchange for sex. Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffinhas more.

Wicked Local

Meanwhile, attorney charged with smuggling drugs into jail

A Bridgewater attorney has been charged with using her lawyer privileges to smuggle Suboxone into the Plymouth County House of Corrections for an inmate, Erin Tiernan reports at the Patriot Ledger. Elena Gordon was arraigned Thursday and ordered to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet when out of jail. Tiernan reports it was not her first run-in with the wrong side of the law. A second woman was also charged in connection with the scheme.

Patriot Ledger

In Framingham, councilors question mayor’s ‘Cadillac’ budget

More growing pains in Framingham, where the former town is transitioning to a new city government and where some members of the council say Mayor Yvonne Spicer’s $1.7 million budget request for her office next year—a 33 percent increase—shows she’s trying to grow a mayoral empire too quickly, Jim Haddadin reports in the MetroWest Daily News. Spicer’s budget includes funding for several new positions, including two senior advisers and a communications chief. For her part, Spicer says Framingham voters were clear in their desire to see change in the community when they embraced a new form of government last year.

MetroWest Daily News

Taking on Scott Lively …

Sue O’Connell at NECN interviews GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Lively – and Scott asserts conservative gays really do agree with his anti-gay views. Ed Harding and Janet Wu will have the next media shot at Lively, this Sunday on WCVB. See the WCVB listing below in our 'Sunday public affairs TV' post.

NECN (video)

Commission study: No dent in lottery sales from Plainridge

Sales of state lottery tickets and games dropped slightly in the cities and towns around the Planridge Park Casino since it has opened, but potential lottery sales from inside the slots parlor have more than made up for any losses, the Mass. Gaming Commission has found, as reported by Jim Hand reports at the Sun Chronicle. Plainville itself has seen a strong surge in lottery sales, which the commission attributed to tickets sold at the casino.

Sun Chronicle

Race against the clock: Markey hopes for vote before June 11 net-neutrality rollback deadline

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey said he expects his proposal to override the FCC’s net neutrality rollback will get a vote next week in the Senate, before the planned June 11 end of the federal government’s net-neutrality rule. Tori Bedford at WGBH has more on what Markey says is a high-stakes issue for the Bay State economy.

WGBH

Sunday public affairs TV

Keller at Large, WBZ-TV Channel 4, 8:30 p.m. This week’s guests: Darnell Williams, president Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, and Tom Finneran, the former House speaker, discussing the key issues that will define Boston's future as part of the Boston Next series.

This Week in Business, NECN, 10 a.m. Boston Globe business columnist Shirley Leung and Boston Business Journal editor Doug Banks analyze some of the major business stories of the week including Mayor Walsh’s new Airbnb proposal, the Takeda Shire deal, the Novartis payment to the President’s lawyer and more.

CEO Corner, NECN, 10:30 a.m. Year Up founder and CEO Gerald Chertavian is joined by two alumni of the job training program.

On The Record, WCVB-TV Channel 5, 11 a.m. This week’s guest: GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Lively, who talks with anchor Ed Harding and co-anchor Janet Wu.

CityLine, WCVB-TV Channel 5, 12 p.m., with host Karen Holmes Ward.

Today's Headlines

Metro

Mayor Walsh travels to Ireland - Dorchester Reporter

Rep. Michael Capuano supports limits on MBTA advertising - WGBH

Massachusetts

Uber ignored appeal to curb storm surge - Boston Herald

Massachusetts State Police union says Alli Bibaud controversy disrupted bargaining - MassLive

Worcester man, jailed 16 years, alleges Worcester police fabricated evidence - Telegram & Gazette

Salem State freezes hiring - Salem News

TJX lays off 300 employees - Framingham Source

Nation