THE PIONEER BLOG

Andrew Mikula

Is local government in Massachusetts too pervasive?

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by Andrew Mikula

In a country as culturally and politically diverse as the United States, vastly different political systems have come to serve local populations in various states. Certain regions of the nation have far-reaching and invasive local government systems, while others have large swaths of the population that don’t have any sub-county government at all. A typical Greater Boston town has about 25,000 people, while urban conglomerations out west often consist mostly of unincorporated communities. Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, has well over 2 million residents but only 5 municipal governments. Meanwhile, Cumming, Georgia is a city of 6,000 people whose mailing address serves over 100,000 people. Cumming is the only incorporated community in its county. At the opposite extreme, […]

Kaila Webb

Troop F Gets an A: State Auditor Overlooks DSP Corruption, Neglects Audits

/0 Comments/in , , /by Kaila Webb

The Office of the State Auditor’s (OSA’s) website describes our current auditor, Suzanne Bump, as “the chief accountability officer for state government in Massachusetts and its residents.” The OSA’s enabling statute requires the department to audit all 700 departments and organizations of the government at least once every three years. Yet in her seven years as auditor, the OSA conducted only one audit of the Department of State Police (DSP), in 2011. When our state government watchdog failed to pick up the scent of DSP’s multiple scandals in Troops E and F, it was left to investigative journalism to enforce state accountability. The OSA Didn’t Audit, So Troop E Ran Unchecked In October 2017, Kathy Curran of WCVB-TV’s “5 Investigates” […]

Harris Foulkes

Disappointing Decision Regarding High-Achieving Cape Cod Charter School

/0 Comments/in /by Harris Foulkes

In 2004 the Barnstable County Horace Mann Charter School was founded to “Engage, educate, and challenge a diverse K-3 population to achieve the highest level of academic excellence.” The school has its own nine-member board of trustees, principal, and staff that under the Horace Mann format are given greater control over budgetary and teaching decisions than their counterparts in traditional public schools. The school stayed true to its commitment to diversity as English is the second language of 41 percent of the students, and it is the only elementary school in the district that accepts students from all of the town’s seven villages. Furthermore, a majority of the students are from low income households with at least 50 percent of […]

Amy Tournas

Parking Fine Hikes in Boston: a step in Go Boston 2030’s Larger Plan

/0 Comments/in , , /by Amy Tournas

On July 2, 2018, parking ticket fines in Boston increased substantially. In an attempt to decrease congestion and increase efficiency, the City of Boston hiked the fines for the first time in 10 years. According to the City of Boston’s website, the increased fines represent those violations that: most negatively impact residents, are most frequently violated, and are a source of traffic congestion and safety issues. Before this fine hike, many people would not pay the meter (see table below under “meter fee unpaid”).  Quite often, it was less expensive for drivers to pay a parking violation than park in private lots or garages. Source: Patch.com The city estimated the increased fines will bring $5 million in new revenue targeted […]

Amy Tournas

Proportional Parking Fees: The MBTA Listens to Pioneer’s Recommendations

/0 Comments/in , , /by Amy Tournas

The Pioneer Institute has produced extensive research on the MBTA. Not only has it provided analysis and criticism, but various remedies to policy. In particular, Pioneer’s research has gained notoriety and resulted in a policy change. One issue that recently influenced MBTA policy was Pioneer’s research on the lack of available parking spaces at highly populated T-stops. In many of the parking lots the MBTA owns, it is difficult to find a parking spot, deterring many commuters, forcing them to drive into work, and exacerbating the decline in MBTA commuter rail ridership. The MBTA has been trying to find a cure for the high demand, low supply of commuter parking. They have considered increasing fees to park in all parking […]

Andrew Mikula

Investing in commercial development may ease fiscal woes without affecting crime

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Bedford, Massachusetts is a suburban town of about 14,000 in the heart of Middlesex County. Its Wikipedia page boasts a charming picture of a historic train depot engulfed in fiery fall foliage. Driving through Bedford at night, you would hardly notice the slew of tech companies and manufacturing operations tucked into a corner of the town next to Route 3, the numerous hotels and motels that dot Route 4, or the community college that cozies up to the Billerica town line. During the day, however, Bedford’s population more than doubles because of people who are employed at all these establishments. The town’s employment/residence ratio is 3.44, almost twice that of Boston.   “Daytime population,” essentially a measure of population that […]

Jay Anderson

Need a Lift?

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Jay Anderson

For hundreds of years, the Tufts Medical Center has served as a research and teaching facility and a full service hospital for residents of Back Bay and the greater Boston area. Given the Center’s significance, a MBTA Orange Line stop was built underneath the hospital in the late 1980’s to allow patients and employees to commute with ease. Although much about the station and medical center has changed since the MBTA stop’s creation in 1987, a core component of its infrastructure has not: its elevator system, which allows for direct access from the station to the hospital. After 31 years of use, the 3 elevators in the station require replacement. On October 16, 2017 the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority began […]

Andrew Mikula

Boston’s housing boom needs a region-level response

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In 1912 – the same year the Titanic sank and William Howard Taft was elected president – a Brookline lawyer, Daniel J. Kiley, wrote a bill for the Massachusetts state legislature that would have annexed 32 cities and towns – including such disparate communities as Lynn, Wellesley, and Weymouth – to the City of Boston. Kiley was part of an entire movement of urban policymakers who thought it was imperative to the Boston region’s economy to facilitate the coordination of each town’s government institutions. At an extreme, this meant annexation.   Boston’s (short) annexation history is quite unique in the context of older American cities. As a result, the region is well-connected economically, but divided into far more individual municipalities […]

Kaila Webb

“Isn’t Everything Online and Free?” The Exclusivity of MA Law Libraries

/0 Comments/in , , /by Kaila Webb

There are 15 Trial Court Law Libraries in Massachusetts to service the Commonwealth’s 6.8 million residents. Publicly funded, they are a resource on Massachusetts laws for attorneys, judges, and the public. On the libraries’ website under the “What You Need to Know” section, they ask the question: “Isn’t everything online and free?” Their response: no. Regarding the “online” portion of that statement, resources the law library makes digitally available are locked behind a library portal. Unfortunately, a public library card won’t give you access; you need to follow seven steps in person for a card specific to these libraries. They’ll give you a photocopy of your new card so you have your barcode number, and then send the card through […]

Harris Foulkes

The Reality of Cape Cod’s Population Trend

/0 Comments/in /by Harris Foulkes

Cape Cod, Massachusetts is known as a bustling tourist location that overflows with visitors eager to get close to the ocean during the stifling summer months. In fact, Cape Cod experiences a 50 percent increase in occupancy level between January and August. While the Cape continues to experience economic growth due to its booming tourism industry, the population trend of its all-season residents is cause for concern. Cape Cod’s Population: Summer vs. Winter When the summer tourists depart, they increasingly leave behind a dwindling and aging population, which could hamper economic development. Between 2000 and 2016 Cape Cod’s year-round population decreased by 3 percent, though it has stabilized in recent years. The trend is remarkable considering the Cape experienced a […]

Andrew Mikula

Boston is a global city. Here’s why that status is threatened

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Boston is often touted as a “global city.” A quick Google search will tell you that Boston is one of the best cities in the world for everything from quality of life to tech startups to commercial real estate investment. While traditionally an economic indicator, there’s now a general understanding that global cities have certain social and cultural institutions by definition. A smattering of global city rankings place Boston at 15th, 24th, 25th, and 46th. Others define a global city as having at least a million residents, under which parameter Boston doesn’t even qualify. Any index that tries to encapsulate dozens of indicators will miss some important nuances. Even if everyone suddenly agreed on the definition of a global city, […]

Amy Tournas

After the toll booths, where did the toll collectors go?

/0 Comments/in , /by Amy Tournas

It has been almost two years since Massachusetts implemented fully cashless toll collection. The hope was to improve traffic flow, decrease harmful environmental emissions, increase safety and save money on personnel costs that could be redirected to maintenance or other capital projects. In 2016, 446 employees operated toll booths on the Mass Pike and Tobin Bridge. The average annual pay during 2015 for Toll Collector I and Toll Collector II was approximately $63,000 and $73,834, respectively. Factoring overtime pay, many employees were making over $100,000 . In this post-manual toll collection era, many have asked: Where did the toll collectors go? The Commonwealth gave the toll collectors a few options. Eligible toll collectors were allowed to retire under the Early […]

Jay Anderson

Newburyport, Abington and Beyond: How Should Massachusetts Towns Prepare for Legalized Recreational Marijuana?

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Recreational marijuana businesses are legal in Massachusetts as of July 1, but many of the Commonwealth’s towns are still unsure about how to proceed. Even though voters enthusiastically approved Question 4 in 2016, the enthusiasm has not carried over to town governments. For example, in Milford, 52 percent of voters supported the statewide legalization initiative. Yet less than a year later, 56 percent of Milford voters supported a referendum banning all recreational marijuana sales in the town. Despite this referendum, the first-ever recreational marijuana license in Massachusetts was recently granted to a Milford cultivation facility. While several similar towns have opted for an indefinite ban on recreational marijuana sales, over one third of Massachusetts towns have imposed moratoriums, temporarily banning […]

Amy Tournas

Income and education gaps, and the lack of mobility in Worcester County

/0 Comments/in , /by Amy Tournas

Massachusetts is known to have some of the top public schools in the country. Its traditional, vocational, and charter schools are ranked best in the nation across a variety of disciplines. Gaining access to these schools, however, comes at a steep price. For example, Worcester County communities spend much of their overall budgets on education. According to MassAnalysis, the 10 towns in the county with the highest per capita education expenditures spend an average of 56.8 percent of their total budgets on schools. But does all this spending yield results? While there are many additional factors to consider, there is a correlation to spending and results. Six out of the ten towns with the highest education spending are also in […]

Andrew Mikula

Has UMass used financial aid packages to favor out-of-state students?

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A recent Pioneer Institute report concluded that the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has more stringent admissions standards for Bay State students than it does for out-of-state students. Given that UMass is heavily funded by state residents’ tax dollars, some experts have questioned whether UMass is favoring out-of-state students and their tuition revenue rather than serving the broader interests of the Commonwealth. Despite the scrutiny over admissions, UMass has the ability to tip the scales towards out-of-state students in another way: merit-based financial aid.   UMass students have access to both state and UMass institutional programs for financial aid, both of which ultimately are funded partly by taxpayers. UMass may claim that state funding doesn’t directly contribute to financial aid […]