Entries by Pioneer Institute

Start Here Before Cutting Into the Safety Net

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This policy brief recommends $311 million in savings between now and the end of the fiscal year, through emergency and targeted cuts, returning the state workforce to 2004 levels, ending corporate welfare, and consolidating several state functions. By combining these with a $300 million withdrawal from the rainy day fund and a reasonable 4 percent cut in local aid ($200 million), the Governor could avoid further cuts to the safety net and core services.

Core Academic Knowledge

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Thank you for being here today and caring enough about this important and timely issue. I’m here as the warm up act to the main event; here to introduce Professor E.D. Hirsch and to provide some Massachusetts context to our ongoing discussion about the nature and level of expectations to which we can appropriately hold our public school students.

Hard Decisions, Needed Leadership

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This report seeks to identify savings to help close a looming $1 billion to $1.5 billion gap in the Commonwealth’s FY09 budget. As a follow-up to a Pioneer press release outlining $600 million in immediate cuts, dated October 8, 2008, we have scoured the budget for savings and reforms, with an eye toward actions that can be undertaken immediately. This report identifies $700 million in budget savings.

Regionalization: Case Studies of Success and Failure in Massachusetts

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Regionalization is a perennial favorite. In its various incarnations – inter-local agreements, shared services, regionalism – it is popular in theory and universally acknowledged to save money but not as widespread as one might expect. The urge to regionalize goes through periods of intense interest when budgets are tight, then is frequently ended by bureaucratic inertia and parochialism.

Wellness Health Incentive Payment Program

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Sustainable healthcare should always involve an accountable partnership between the payor and the third party insurance administrator. The Wellness Health Incentive Payment (WHIP) Program facilitates better health/wellness outcomes by holding health insurance vendors fiscally responsible for health and wellness activity. The WHIP rewards or penalizes health insurance administrative vendors according to the vendor’s wellness activity performance against nationally recognized health and wellness standards.

Massachusetts State Taxpayer Funded School Construction Grants

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Like many other states, Massachusetts has struggled with out-of-control spending on school construction, often putting money into many unnecessary projects at the expense of more deserving ones. State Treasurer Tim Cahill, a long-time entrepreneur who took office in 2003, traced the wasteful spending to poor administrative organization, a lack of oversight, and an antiquated system of reimbursements whose legacy had become exorbitant debt and a backlog of projects. Applying his business acumen and experience, Cahill in 2004 created the Massachusetts School Building Authority, an entity that would bring the rigors of the private sector to eliminate wasteful spending while raising the quality of education offered by the state.

Middle School Aspirations and Pathways to College (MAPS)

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The Roxbury Preparatory Charter School in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood prepares its students to enter, succeed in, and graduate from college. A public, grades 6-8 school, Roxbury Prep is founded on the philosophy that all students are entitled to and can benefit from college preparatory programs when: 1) the curriculum is rigorous and well-planned; 2) character, community responsibility, and exposure to life’s possibilities are emphasized; and 3) a professional network supports a student’s academic, social, and physical well-being.

MITS Summer Institute

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The mission of the Museum Institute for Teaching Science (MITS) is to raise science literacy by improving the quality of elementary and middle school (K-8) teaching in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Science literacy is a critical skill that, if learned at an early age, helps develop critical thinking, reading abilities and computation skills needed to make informed decisions in daily life. America’s science literacy, however, has suffered in recent years, posing a serious risk to the nation as the world leader in innovation and its economic future.

Driving Questions

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This discussion forum was organized around the release of Northeastern University Professor Joseph M. Giglio’s latest book, Driving Questions: Developing A National Transportation Vision, which raises important strategic questions about the planning and funding of the transportation system in Massachusetts.

The Cash Incentive Safety Initiative

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The City of Gallup, NM, like many governmental bodies that employ field crews, suffered from an ever-increasing number of worker’s compensation claims and associated annual increases in worker’s compensation insurance premiums. The implementation of the Cash Incentive Safety Initiative has both improved the health of employees and reduced costs associated with absent and injured workers. As explained below, there is real potential for similar programs to benefit municipal and state governments nationwide.

The Clinical Performance Improvement Initiative

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The Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission (GIC) has embarked on a groundbreaking plan to control costs, improve healthcare quality, and promote cost-efficiency. Labeled the Clinical Performance Improvement (CPI) Initiative, this multi-year effort has the potential to save the Commonwealth and its enrollees tens of millions of dollars, while improving the quality of care.

MyFloridaMarketPlace

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In 2000, the Florida state legislature approved funding for an online e-procurement portal called MyFloridaMarketPlace. The project was overseen by Florida’s Division of Management Services (DMS), which contracted with Accenture in the fall of 2002 to create and manage the portal.

Reducing Unnecessary Institutionalization of Senior Citizens

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This proposal involves collecting and integrating existing data on the health of elderly patients. This information would be used to construct patient profiles to help predict and prevent unexpected incidents. A data-driven coordination of programs and services would aid in early interventions, and also help evaluate how different strategies, programs, and agencies could reduce unnecessary nursing home institutionalization.

Extending the Stat Model Across the Commonwealth

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After nearly a decade of evolution, municipal Stat programs, such as NYPD’sCompStat and Baltimore’s CitiStat, have proved very successful in improving city service delivery and cutting unnecessary spending. Though slightly different in each implementation, all Stat programs involve frequent meetings at which key decision-makers and department heads review data on operational performance, identify problems and solutions, and track follow-up. The City of Baltimore reported $70 million in savings attributable to CitiStat in its first three years of operations. In Massachusetts, Somerville has run its successful SomerStat initiative for close to three years, and reports $10 million in realized or anticipated savings. Expansion of the Stat program holds tremendous potential for the Commonwealth’s cities and towns, as well as state government.