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Transparency Needed for Massachusetts Rest Homes
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency /by Sabrina ChishtiExtended care facilities provide either temporary or permanent healthcare services for those unable to manage independently. The facilities provide a lower level of care than hospitals yet can be staffed with nurses and healthcare aides, with doctors available to make the rounds as needed. Deciding on the best facility, whether for oneself or a loved one, can be extremely stressful at an already challenging time of life. The public needs confidence that extended care providers are consistently held to high standards of performance. If a nursing home is Medicaid/Medicare certified in Massachusetts, it is required to undergo surveys by the state—essentially performance reviews and on-site inspections to make sure the facility is up par. These unannounced surveys are conducted by […]
Welcome News from the New Team at the MBTA: Getting Serious About Savings
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: MBTA, Blog: Transportation, Featured /by Greg SullivanThe Boston Globe reports today that MBTA officials briefed MBTA union officials last week about their forthcoming plan to request information from outside companies on running about 30 of the T’s 170 current bus routes, representing approximately 17 percent of its total routes. This should be welcomed news to state taxpayers and local property taxpayers in the cities and towns of the MBTA district. MBTA employees unions have held a virtual monopoly on T bus operations and bus maintenance services since passage of legislation adopted in 1993 that effectively handcuffed T management from outsourcing these and other services. The protectionist Pacheco Law was adopted five months after then-Governor William Weld proposed privatizing some of the MBTA’s bus operations and maintenance […]
Getting Tough on Keolis?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: MBTA, Blog: Transparency, Blog: Transportation /by Scott HallerYou rush to feed your kids breakfast; leave your house so fast you forget your lunch; arrive breathless at the train station, right on time and sweating through your clothes. Each minute matters when you’re a commuter rail rider. Bet when you get there there’s no train in sight and no alert from the T. Sound familiar? Even with the never-ending blizzard of 2015 finally in the rear-view mirror, commuter rail riders are still experiencing what have become standard yet inexcusable delays. Two weeks ago, evening commute performance scored just 82 percent. It was 85 percent the week before and only 83 the week before that. Pioneer Institute has been a consistent watchdog of Keolis’ performance since they took the […]
Baker Public Records Announcement a Great Start – So Long as it’s a Start
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency /by MuckRockThese last few weeks have been hectic for transparency advocates in Massachusetts. Shortly after the disappointing announcement that the vote for public records reform would be bumped to September, Governor Charlie Baker finally addressed the subject, proposing a series of sweeping, state-level reforms that would be implemented in the next couple of weeks. After the previous Governor’s abysmal track record on the subject, the news was as surprising as it was welcome. Good for you, Governor. But re-examined a couple weeks later in the sobering light of day, the proposed reforms come off less as a great leap forward and more as a small step and a reminder of how far we have to go. This is not to say […]
How Massachusetts Promoted Achievement Before Common Core & PARCC
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Common Core, Blog: Education, Common Core, Related Education Blogs, Sandra Stotsky /by Sandra StotskyBefore the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) officially decides to adopt PARCC’s testing system in place of the testing system that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) developed in the 1990s and early 2000s, local school committees, state legislators, and parents should be able to peruse the test items used in the tests given to all public school students in the Bay State as part of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). The major purpose of this blog is to give them access to the test items used in MCAS tests at all grade levels and for all subjects tested, from 1998 on. These test items are public information because the Massachusetts Education Reform Act […]
Problem: Overpriced Textbooks, Solution: Opensource Material
/2 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Economic Opportunity, News /by Erin ThomassenLast week, NBC news announced that textbooks prices have risen 1,041% since 1977, three times the rate of inflation according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As if tuition costs weren’t already exorbitant. For the 2014-2015 academic year, the average private four-year college tuition in Massachusetts was $34,643, which does not include the average room and board of $11,181. Even the UMass price-tag is a stretch for working-class families; UMass Amherst, for example, estimates 2015-2016 tuition fees at $14,171. Surprisingly, textbook price increases have outpaced even the 559% increase in college tuition and fees over the past three decades. Even more problematic is that textbook prices, unlike tuition, are not factored into the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) calculated by the U.S. Department […]
Cash-free, Conductor-free Trains
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog: Better Government, Blog: MBTA, Blog: Transportation, News, News: Transportation, Transportation Dashboard /by Erin ThomassenIn 2012, the MBTA introduced the mTicket app that allows users to purchase train tickets through their mobile devices and display their ticket on their screen as conductors make their rounds. Pioneer recognized the app in its 2014 Better Government Awards for “putting to good use technological infrastructure that is already in place” to save “both the individual riders and the Commonwealth money.” The next step for the MBTA may be converting to purely electronic ticketing. Does this mean that conductors could be rendered obsolete? If the MBTA wanted to downsize on conductors, it could follow the honor-code system tested in California, or it could try something new: requiring riders to purchase a mobile ticket or Charlie Card. Charlie Cards and mobile tickets […]
Problems with Potholes in Boston
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency /by Sabrina ChishtiBoston has a pothole problem. Or, more accurately, Boston has a transparency problem regarding pothole repairs. Since the historic snowfalls last winter, potholes proliferated around town, endangering those walking, driving, or cycling the roads. The city is tasked with fixing each pothole quickly. Every pothole has an associated file on record, which, when filled and fixed, should be marked as “closed” by Boston public works officials. Citizens are encouraged to be part of the process and report potholes as they find them. The website and app CitizensConnect allows the public to snap a picture of a pothole they see (or other concerns) and report the location to city officials. The technology is designed to connect the city to its people […]
The Control Board Needs to Insist on Transparency with Keolis
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency /by Sabrina ChishtiOn July 21, the special panel created to address failures at the MBTA met to discuss and revamp several of its management policies. The fiscal and management control panel listened to multiple hours of findings by the Department of Transportation regarding the routine problems of the MBTA. During the meeting, in referencing the $7.5 million in penalties collected from Keolis because of delayed trains, Frank DePaola, acting general manager of the MBTA, noted that the penalties would revert to Keolis, in part, to pay for an increase in the number of fare collectors on board the commuter trains. This is an emergency, and we all understand that the focus has to be on upgrading service now. That means getting Keolis actually […]
A Promising New Direction for Justice Reform in Massachusetts
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government /by Matt BlackbournMassachusetts is not notorious for overflowing prisons; nor is it a state where residents tune into the evening news to see police at war with frustrated locals amidst clouds of tear gas and burning vehicles. The Commonwealth might not fit the paradigm of most states that are the focus of national criminal justice reform today. However, we still have an enormous way to go to better manage our corrections system and improve the channels through which offenders re-enter our communities. Yesterday, Massachusetts’ elected leadership confirmed they are working together towards this change with their public announcement of support for bringing the Justice Reinvestment Initiative to the Bay State. Both the Governor’s office and leadership in both chambers of the legislature […]
MBTA gets an F for Public Records Law Compliance
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: MBTA, Blog: Transparency, Blog: Transportation, News, Transparency /by Lauren CorveseTen days. That is how long it is supposed to take for a Massachusetts state agency to respond to a public records request. But here we are, twenty-one days later, and Pioneer has still not received so much as acknowledgement of a request we sent to the MBTA. You may recall a blog post from July about the MBTA’s poor practices when it comes to public records requests. In March, Pioneer requested MBTA revenue information from 2014-present, to which the agency replied there were no responsive documents. This seems impossible since the MBTA has clearly been collecting revenue since 2014. Pioneer also requested fare collection procedures submitted by Keolis and fare collection fines against Keolis from July 2014-present in June […]
After Losing the Olympics Bid, Boston Can Still Win
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: Economy /by Editorial StaffAs the Olympic drama subsides following Mayor Walsh’s press conference decrying the USOC’s insistence on an immediate public funding guarantee, it is fair to conclude that the Olympics initiative has created valuable residual benefits for Boston and Massachusetts. For months No Boston Olympics said that the construction and city-wide improvements involved in Boston 2024’s bid were possible without the impetus of a pending Olympic games. No Boston Olympics co-chair Chris Dempsey argued that “Boston should not have to depend on the Olympics as a catalyst to fix basic services.” Dempsey is right that the undertaking of necessary infrastructure projects should not be contingent upon the fate of an Olympic bid, especially T maintenance. Improvements at the MBTA are long overdue, and […]
Why Are Tuition and Fees Rising at UMass?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency, News /by Kevin LawsonOver the last half-century, college tuition costs have exploded at a rate that far outpaces the consumer price index (CPI). The reasons for this spike in cost vary by type of institution. For public higher education, the Delta Cost Project, a research institution focused on American higher education, notes the rise is rooted in increases in spending on administration and student support services alongside changes in government funding. These factors are accountable in part for what the Office of Institutional Research at UMass’s flagship Amherst campus has reported to be an inflation-adjusted increase of 84% in tuition costs since 2000. Pioneer’s MassOpenBooks, a transparency application that pulls together and publicizes outgoing payments made by government organizations, sheds light on what […]
Kids and Families Deserve More: Catholic Education and School Choice
/0 Comments/in Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Featured, Related Education Blogs, School Choice /by Editorial StaffPioneer held an education forum on Friday, July 31, 2015, “Know-Nothings’ Nativism, Catholic Education and School Choice,” with a keynote address by Salem State University Professor Nancy Lusignan Schultz, author of Fire & Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834. Dr. Cara Candal presented a policy briefing on a newly released research paper that she co-authored with Dr. Ken Ardon, “Modeling Urban Scholarship Vouchers in Massachusetts.” The event also included a panel featuring former Ambassador to the Vatican and Boston Mayor, Raymond Flynn; Thomas Gosnell, President of the American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts; and Kathleen Mears, Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of Boston. Ambassador Flynn devoted his Boston Herald column to the topic of this event (published Sunday, August 2, 2015), “Kids, Families […]
Our Letter to the Open Meeting Advisory Commission
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, Blog: Transparency, Blogroll, Featured, News /by Mary ConnaughtonPublic trust and citizen engagement is fundamental in a healthy government. Transparency engenders both. The Massachusetts legislature is one of the minority of state legislatures in the country where open meeting law doesn’t apply. In fact, according to a 2011 study by the Reporters’ Committee of Freedom of the Press, it’s one of only 19 legislatures in the nation that isn’t bound to give the public access to its meetings. Perhaps even more noteworthy, according to the same study, is that Massachusetts is one of only six states where state legislatures are not subject to both open meeting and public records law. In this day and age of transparency, we think more openness in the legislature will promote public trust […]