(Co-authored with Pioneer’s partner, Muckrock, which has extensive experience with public records requests at the federal, state, and municipal level) Hot on the heels of “Sunshine Week”, when MassPIRG celebrated the Patrick Administration’s commitment to transparency, we thought we’d collect some best practices in transparency we’ve learned over the years from the Administration. Massachusetts’s Public Records Law was created to allow citizens to access important government documents and provide another avenue of government oversight. After all, the documents are paid for by our tax dollars and in some cases, such requests are the only avenue to provide public accountability. But over the years, Commonwealth bureaucracy has developed increasingly “creative” interpretations of transparency, saving the public the trouble of having to […]

Our next adventure in accountability and transparency in state government starts with the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, helmed by Greg Bialecki. That office (or at least one of its subunits) oversees the Capital Access Program. The intriguing thing about this program is that a single private entity, the Massachusetts Business Development Corporation (“MBDC”) is named in statute as the manager of the program (and recipient of funds). The state retains oversight through a contract that is renewed every two years and a statutorily-mandated “annual review and assessment of the performance of the MBDC.” So, we were curious what the program was achieving with the millions it has received from the state over the years. On January 20, […]

Yesterday’s Globe brought news of an initiative by the City of Boston to move folks out of emergency rooms and into Community Health Centers, for treatment of non-acute conditions. That’s a laudable goal, but it brings to mind the inconsistency of the city’s full-throated opposition to another group of non-acute healthcare providers just a few years back. Back in 2008, the mayor warned of dire consequences, saying that permitting these health care providers to operate “jeopardizes patient safety” and that they “will seriously compromise quality of care and hygiene.” As a result, Boston didn’t get any MinuteClinics. Lots of other Massachusetts communities (including Newton, Braintree, Quincy, Cambridge, and Medford) have them. Did you miss the stories about the utter collapse […]

I had the pleasure of doing Bradley Jay’s radio show on WBZ a few weeks back. We talked about the MBTA, but what really lit up the phone lines was our discussion of potential savings from reform of the T’s Ride paratransit program. Most of the callers were concerned that eligibility reforms would take away their transportation. But it appears that the MBTA could save a lot of money just by restructuring the service, before even dealing with eligibility issues. The state’s Inspector General has come out with a report that analyzes the Ride alongside other paratransit programs operating within in the state and determined that a key difference in business practices between the Ride and other paratransit providers results […]