THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Troubling takeaways from the SJC ruling on charter schools

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by Jim Stergios

These would be the best of times for Boston public charter schools were education policy decisions driven by evidence.  Boston’s charters are nationwide models and uniquely successful at closing pernicious achievement gaps.  But in education politics, where “momentum” is too often the benchmark, charter skeptics are crowing about the loss of a ballot initiative to expand school choice for disadvantaged students, unionization of three charters, and a recent SJC decision affirming a lower court’s dismissal of a challenge to the state cap on charter schools. A close look at the SJC’s decision should keep even the most ardent charter haters from crowing. Twenty-five years ago, in a case known as McDuffy, the state’s highest court declared that the Massachusetts Constitution requires […]

Andrew Mikula

Many Massachusetts towns choosing to forego marijuana tax revenue

/0 Comments/in , /by Andrew Mikula

Local officials, health advocates, and neighborhood group leaders in Massachusetts have long been wary of July 1st, 2018, the day marijuana enterprises will begin selling their products statewide. Drug deals will take place over retail countertops, not in back alleys. Home cultivators will be subject to safety inspections, not arrests.   That is true, of course, unless your local government has anything to say about it. As reported by The Boston Globe in March, 130 out of 351 Massachusetts cities and towns have imposed moratoriums on marijuana establishments, essentially banning them until local governments can find a more effective way to regulate the industry (Figure 1). At least 59 more municipalities have banned marijuana enterprises indefinitely. Despite passing question #4 […]

Mary Connaughton

Love It When the T Listens!

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Mary Connaughton

It seems MBTA officials were listening to this March segment of Bloomberg Radio’s Bay State Business. During the program, I was discussing simple ways to increase MBTA revenue without imposing an across-the-board fare hike. Raising fares may make sense in some scenarios, but where there is excess capacity, increasing ridership is a far more effective solution to reduce operating deficits.  You don’t jack up the prices of a product that isn’t selling. The example I presented was weekend commuter rail fares.  My family of four, which includes two teenage boys, would pay a total of $78 for the round trip between Boston and Framingham on a Saturday.  That’s $9.50 each way for all four of us plus $4 for parking.  […]

Andrew Mikula

The role of old industrial districts in residential suburbs

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The City of Waltham was once an aging mill town. Its flagship industrial corporation, the Waltham Watch Company, closed in 1957. The 1970s and 80s saw a decline in the industrial sector for the region as a whole.   Then, the tech companies came. Waltham has recently become a regional hub for biopharmaceuticals and therapeutic science alongside Cambridge. The western edge of the city is home to a momentous number of industrial firms that hug several bends in Interstate 95, towering over the Cambridge Reservoir.   All the same, Waltham’s proximity to Boston gives its revitalization a different flavor than that of, say, Worcester or Lowell. As regional urban centers, Worcester and Lowell demand more diverse, service-based economies. Waltham retains […]

Andrew Mikula

Education spending influences demographic trends at even the smallest scale

/1 Comment/in , , /by Andrew Mikula

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council has a habit of solving identity crises for Massachusetts towns. Operating chiefly in Greater Boston, the MAPC uses 5 broad “community types” (and 9 subtypes) to classify municipalities statewide based on criteria such as housing density, proximity to Boston, historical character, and capacity to develop further.   All of this information is readily visible on Pioneer Institute’s MassAnalysis database, which provides an interactive map of the MAPC community subtypes under the Metrics tab (Figure 1).         Figure 1:   The type “inner core,” further divided into “metropolitan core communities” and “streetcar suburbs” is the only MAPC community type that is geographically contiguous. That is, inner core communities are always adjacent to at least one […]

Will Kauppila

Income and Education Levels in Gateway Cities Well Below State Average as Debate over Chapter 70 Aid Formula Heats Up

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Data from Pioneer’s online transparency toolset, MassAnalysis.com, shows that the Gateway Cities have some of the lowest per-capita incomes in the Commonwealth, according to the most recent data from 2017. Education and income levels are intrinsically tied, and not surprisingly, high school graduation rates in the Gateway Cities lag well behind the rest of the state. As shown in the table below, Barnstable, Quincy, Peabody, Attleboro, and Methuen are the only Gateway Cities that do not rank in the bottom third of the 351 municipalities in Massachusetts in per capita income for 2017. Lawrence had the fifth lowest in the state, while Springfield and New Bedford had the eighth and tenth lowest, respectively. The average per capita income in the […]

Will Kauppila

2,098 Mass. VA Employees Made $100,000 or More in 2017

/0 Comments/in , /by Will Kauppila

According to the online transparency tool OpentheBooks, there were 7,816 Department of Veterans Affairs employees in Massachusetts in 2017. Remarkably, 2,098 of these, made six-figure incomes. Fifty-one administrators and doctors made more than $300,000 and 364 made more than $200,000. Salaries may be sky high, but there have been many complaints about the quality of care at two VA hospitals in particular. As the Boston Globe, Lowell Sun, and ABC News have reported, VA Hospitals in Bedford and Northampton have been embattled by recent allegations of unexpected patient deaths, serious employee misconduct, whistleblower intimidation, and unsafe conditions. In 2017, 35 employees made over $200,000 and 369 made over $100,000 at the Edith Nourse Rodgers Veterans Memorial Hospital in Bedford, while […]

Andrew Mikula

Can Cape Cod’s economy rely on tourism forever?

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Cape Cod’s character has long been dependent on the season. As the leaves change colors in October and November, bustling summer colonies quickly transform into sleepy New England towns. This dichotomy has heightened in recent decades, and depopulation in the region has raised concerns about the economic sustainability of the Cape and the well-being of its all-season residents.   Barnstable County’s year-round population has generally declined since around 2003, stabilizing only very recently. Even then, there’s reason to believe that future population trends on the Cape (and throughout Massachusetts) are highly dependent on economic conditions. This insight may prove daunting for towns that are heavily reliant on a single industry: tourism, in the Cape’s case.   Furthermore, aging populations have […]

Daniel O'Leary

How does the Commonwealth Pay for Roads?

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Maintaining, safe, efficient public infrastructure challenges local, state and federal governments alike. Communities need to build new core public assets to support growing populations while maintaining those that are aging. Accomplishing those goals eats into local public works budgets. The Commonwealth provides funding to localities which help alleviate the burden cities and towns face. Routinely, the legislature provides $200 Million dollars in Chapter 90 funding. This funding is a mainstay in local budgets and helps cities and towns pay for road resurfacing as well as new road construction. Pioneer Institute has previously written about the differences in public works expenditures across the Gateway Cities. There, Pioneer found that Peabody spends significantly more than any other Gateway City on public works. […]

Daniel O'Leary

Andover’s OPEB Lawsuit could have Implications for Towns Across the State

/0 Comments/in , /by Daniel O'Leary

The Town of Andover has taken significant steps to decrease its future financial obligations. Like other towns across the Commonwealth, Andover faces a number of financial pressures, including the impact of municipal employee retirement obligations. Unlike many towns, Andover has made the tough decisions necessary to reduce the amount it will pay for retiree healthcare. Specifically, Andover has moved to increase retirees’ contributions towards their healthcare premiums.

What has Andover Done?

In Massachusetts, once an employee has worked for local government for 10 years, […]

Daniel O'Leary

What can be learned from the Commonwealth’s new 9-1-1 system?

/0 Comments/in , /by Daniel O'Leary

The State 9-1-1 Department recently finished building an enhanced 9-1-1 system that migrates state 9-1-1 call centers to the new Next Generation system, which features many improvements. For instance, the Next Generation 9-1-1 system lets people send more information to 9-1-1 operators, including GPS location data. This is a great leap forward for public safety in Massachusetts.   The Department of Telecommunications and Cable charges every phone line in Massachusetts a fee to support Massachusetts’ 911 system. The State 9-1-1 Department asked for the fee to be increased to pay for this project. For the first year the project was underway the DTC charged every phone line $1.25 per month; since July 2016 the monthly fee has been $1.00. Prior […]

Will Kauppila

Gateway Cities Face Educational Spending Challenges

/0 Comments/in , /by Will Kauppila

As the Boston Globe recently reported, Gateway Cities Brockton and Worcester are mulling a lawsuit against the Commonwealth. They cite the methodology the state uses to address funding aid inequity for public schools in poorer municipalities as insufficient to meet their students’ needs. The article also demonstrated the wide gap between public school resources available to Brockton and wealthy towns like Weston which are able to fund their school systems through higher property wealth. Data from Pioneer’s online transparency toolset, MassAnalysis.com, shows that the average single family tax bill in 2016 was $3,264 in Brockton, and $3,643 in Worcester. Weston’s was almost 5 times higher at $17,832. Using data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), Pioneer […]

Editorial Staff

New entry deadline: March 30th! Enter the 2018 Better Government Competition: “Making Higher Education & Career Training Options Affordable & Effective”

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Each year, the Better Government Competition focuses on one of the country’s greatest public policy challenges. Families today are struggling to afford college, young adults are saddled with crippling debt, and government workforce development programs and existing education models have not been reliable pipelines to stable employment. In recognition of these challenges, Pioneer Institute’s 2018 Better Government Competition seeks ideas to make postsecondary education options for high school graduates more affordable, accessible, and effective. Download the contest guidelines, visit us online to learn more, and submit your proposal today! *New entry deadline: March 30, 2018. POTENTIAL AREAS FOR APPLICANTS TO CONSIDER • Develop approaches to address escalating education costs and student loan debt. • Generate new information resources to: o […]

Daniel O'Leary

Which Cape Cod Town has the Best Summertime Revenue Take?

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The towns of the Cape and Islands have economies built around summer tourism. The allure of vast shorelines and beautiful public beaches swell the population in the warmer months; the result – beach sticker fee income abounds. Whether it’s from beach revenue, greens fees or shellfish permits, the seasonal revenue means fewer property taxes are needed to cover the cost of services.  So which Cape town has the best take when it comes to the summertime revenue boom? Broadly speaking MassAnalysis.com can answer the question.  The revenue category “Licenses, Permits, and Fees” includes this kind of income. An analysis shows that in 2015, towns in the Cape and Islands took in an average of $99.19 per capita from licenses, permits, […]

Will Kauppila

Public Works Expenditures Across All 26 Gateway Cities

/0 Comments/in , /by Will Kauppila

Using MassAnalysis.com, a free government transparency tool provided by Pioneer Institute, with a few clicks, a report was generated to compare 2016 public works expenditures across all 26 Gateway Cities in Massachusetts. The results are demonstrated in the chart below: The findings were unexpected. Peabody is the 15th largest city, but had both the highest public works expenditures with costs amounting to $23,199,119 in total and $443 on a per capita basis. These costs are almost twice the amount of Everett, the city that has next highest costs per capita, which amount to $261. Worcester and Quincy had the 2nd and 3rd highest costs, $19,739,457 and $18,160,826, respectively. However, this can be explained by the size of the cities, Worcester […]