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The Patrick Administration’s Guide to the Public Records Law
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve Poftak(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 […]
Stop grading Massachusetts transparency on a curve
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency, News /byAs Pioneer’s Steve Poftak has pointed out, the Office for Administration and Finance has been crowing about an “A-” transparency rating given to it by the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, which applauded the state’s Open Checkbook portal. But while Open Checkbook is a great initiative, saying it makes Massachusetts transparent is a bit like saying your toddler’s the next Tom Brady because he can throw his food on the floor. The Bay State has a lot of growing up to do. Earlier this week, WBUR invited me on to talk about the “C” grade the State Integrity Investigation gave Massachusetts in its “Corruption Risk Report Card.” I told reporter Deborah Becker that I thought that grade was still too lenient: Given the […]
State Spends Millions — No Paper Trail
/1 Comment/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakOur 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, […]
Transparency and Accountability for UMASS Law School
/9 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve Poftak(See correction/clarification below) In an effort to aid in the Governor’s quest for greater accountability in state government, Pioneer turned its transparency efforts towards the UMASS Law School. Pioneer has long been a critic of the law school project but let’s see how the school’s own data grades it. First problem: Neither UMASS nor the Board of Higher Education ever laid down any initial performance benchmarks in any of their planning documents. They told us where they would go in the future, but not where they were starting from. Second problem: UMass was not wild about releasing the information on these benchmarks. 10 separate follow-ups were required to get what we wanted. And the Public Records Law? Treated as a […]
Massachusetts Transparency: A long, long waiting game
/0 Comments/in Blog, Transparency /by Michael MorisyFor over a year now, the Pioneer Institute has been pursuing a series of public records requests on a variety of issues, from school performance to the state’s fated investment into Evergreen Solar. It’s largely been an exercise in frustration, denials misdirection, but I have learned some things about the state of public access in Massachusetts, and given the state’s been crowing about a recent A- transparency report card , it seemed like a good time to share it with a handy infographic (Click to enlarge).
The Boston Foundation Whacks Steve Grossman
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakThe Boston Foundation has put out an interesting document, City of Ideas: Reinventing Boston’s Innovation Economy. In it, they conclude that that state lottery (run by Treasurer Grossman) is a drain on poor communities, returning far less in local aid then their citizens pay in. In Saturday’s Globe, Op-ed writer Renee Loth picks up the theme, noting that Exacerbating the trend [towards disproportionate taxation of the poor] is the state lottery — basically a kind of voluntary taxation. The top 20 communities in lottery sales — mostly low-income towns like Chicopee and Lynn — contributed $1.25 billion more in 2011 than they got back in unrestricted local aid. What’s missing from this analysis is an understanding of how the Lottery […]
How to Pay For High-quality Teachers
/0 Comments/in Blog, Related Education Blogs /by Jim StergiosWe all want high-quality teachers, right? What are we doing about it? The state has started to push teacher evaluations across the state, and that is great. Especially great because for far too long school managers and supervisors did not perform regular evaluations, which at the very least are useful for professional feedback and growth. I do have my doubts that a bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all evaluation system is terribly useful besides the obvious fact that it will require more people to fill out paper. My doubts are practical ones. If you are running a school and seeking to peg its performance at a very high level, there are times when you want your teachers to focus on improving their individual performance; […]
Fund the MBTA or People Will Die!
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakGot your attention? The Metropolitan Area Planning Council got mine earlier this week with their finding that implementation of the MBTA’s two deficit reduction scenarios would cause “roughly 10 avoidable” to “about 15 avoidable deaths per year”. That’s right, 10 – 15 death per year. Digging further into the report — what’s causing most of the deaths? Almost all of them are caused by the possibility that service cutbacks will move people from transit to driving, resulting in a decline of 8.3 minutes per day in average walking per new commuter. That 8.3 minute decline in daily walking becomes….wait for it… 9 – 14 deaths per year. So I guess the desired conclusion is that the MBTA should be funded […]
Saved by the Nanny State!
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakYesterday’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 […]
Handwaving away opposition to the national standards
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Common Core, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byPeriodically, over at the Fordham blog, Checker Finn does his best imitation of the cop waving traffic through at the scene of the car crash we like to call Common Core. In a post last week (“The war against the Common Core”), he morphs into good ol’ Sergeant Finn, crabbing at any observers, “Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.” The mishaps around Common Core national standards are simple driver misjudgment, he explains. Steering mistakes. Nobody’s breaking the law. And don’t worry, because even though there have been lots of accidents, the road ahead is not dangerous. This is classic Checker handwaving, passing off politics as policy. Let’s look at the four arguments he makes. 1. Don’t worry […]
Massachusetts Dreams of Kick-starting a New Economy With Solar
/0 Comments/in Blog, Transparency /by Michael Morisy“I’ve said all along, if Massachusetts can get clean energy technology right, the world will be our customer. Evergreen Solar is one of the companies that’s going to help us get clean energy right. I am proud that my economic development and energy and environmental affairs teams were able to help Evergreen Solar grow and thrive right here in Massachusetts, and give us a head start toward building a clean energy economy.” – Governor Deval Patrick, April 17, 2007 Press Release In previous posts, I’ve looked at why Massachusetts failed to see looming problems with Evergreen Solar and how competition with other bidders drove state employees to scramble to appease Evergreen negotiators . Another narrative arc also helps explain why […]
Understanding Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits for MA: Square Peg in a Round Hole?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare /byThe Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurers to provide an essential health benefits package (EHB). ACA legislation identifies ten general categories of mandated coverage (see right hand side below). A recent HHS informational bulletin outlined the scope of EHB in any given state must be equal to: One of the three largest small group plans in the state by enrollment; One of the three largest state employee health plans by enrollment; One of the three largest federal employee health plan options by enrollment; The largest HMO plan offered in the state’s commercial market by enrollment. States will need to spend a significant amount of time deciding what “benchmark typical employer plan” they would like to use, or HHS will select […]
Psst. Hey MBTA, Could You Use $60 Million?
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakI 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 […]
“Removing the Barriers: Virtual Schools & State Regulations” (March 1, 2012)
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Video, Video - Virtual Schools, Videos, Videos - Virtual School /byOn March 1st, 2012, Pioneer welcomed education experts from across the country: Susan Patrick, CEO of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning; Hanna Skandera, New Mexico Secretary of Education; Julie Young, President of Florida Virtual School; Healther Staker, Innosight Institute; as well as Martha Walz, Massachusetts State Representative; Michael Sentance, former New England Administrator, U.S. Department of Education; and Will Fitzhugh, Founder and Editor, The Concord Review. They discussed regulatory barriers to digital learning. Susan Patrick, CEO of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning: [youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyHgLQSjZ9U&feature=youtu.be[/youtube] Hanna Skandera, New Mexico Secretary of Education: [vimeo height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://vimeo.com/43176807[/vimeo]
What Exactly is the MBTA’s “Big Dig Debt”?
/2 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakThe back-and-forth over the MBTA finances has seen a great deal of attention to the MBTA’s $5.2 billion in debt. A portion of that debt has been tagged with the nearly toxic label ‘Big Dig Debt’, and it’s important to be precise about what that actually means. The MBTA’s debt comes from three sources — $1.85 billion from spending since the 2000 start of forward funding, $1.65 billion that was transferred to the MBTA under forward funding and was related to previous transit projects, and $1.7 billion in funding for projects mandated under a Big Dig-related agreement. (N.B. All above figures are from the MBTA Advisory Board’s Budget and Fiscal Analyst Brian Kane’s invaluable Born Broke report. Kane, of course, […]