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Economic Opportunity

Opportunity
May 1, 2006

The Elephant in the Room: Unfunded Public Employee Health Care Benefits and GASB 45

Authors: Eric S. Berman, CPA, Deputy Comptroller, Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Elizabeth K. Keating, CPA, Ph.D, Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School, Harvard University This paper will review Statement 45’s potential impact on governments and review existing disclosures in financial reports as...
Opportunity
May 1, 2006

Leaving Money on the Table: The 106 Pension Funds of Massachusetts

Author: Ken Ardon The focus of this paper is the choice that local retirement boards have of managing their own investors or investing all or a portion of their assets in PRIT. Most local boards choose to retain control of their investments....
Opportunity
April 1, 2006

Long-Term Leasing of State Skating Rinks: A Competitive Contracting Success Story

Author: Susan Frechette This paper looks at the success of competitive contracting in addressing long-term cap- ital needs, reducing operating costs, and expanding access to state-owned skating rinks since the 1990s. It argues that the lessons learned from the experience can be...
Opportunity
August 1, 2005

A Roadmap to Financing

Collaboration Between Springifled Community-Based Business Advisors, Citizens Bank, Hampden Bank and Westbank. This manual was prepared as part of the Urban Business Alliance (UBA) – a unique initiative of Pioneer’s Center for Urban Entrepreneurship that helps low- and moderate- income entrepreneurs by...
Opportunity
January 1, 2003

Getting Home: Overcoming Barriers to Housing in Greater Boston

Author: Charles C. Euchner, Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. With Elizabeth G. Frieze, Harvard University Affordable housing is important to the vitality of Massachusetts communities, but the state needs to encourage the marketplace to...
Opportunity
July 1, 2001

Build More or Manage Better? Subsidized Housing in Massachusetts

Authors: Howard Husock and David J. Bobb Increases in the price of rental housing in Massachusetts during the economic boom of the 1990s have spurred a push to construct additional subsidized housing. This reportpresents alternatives to construction that could significantly increase the...
Opportunity
December 1, 2000

The Power To Take: The Use of Eminent Domain in Massachusetts

Author: Michael Malamut, Esq., New England Legal Foundation This study is the first to analyze concrete data to determine patterns in the use of eminent domain. The analysis includes a survey of law review articles, practitioners’ manuals and reported Massachusetts opinions; structured...
Opportunity
September 1, 2000

Toward a High-Performance Workplace: Fixing Civil Service in Massachusetts

Author: Jonathan Walters, Governing Magazine This paper is a call for continued improvement in a system that in its current form is overly bureaucratic, unresponsive, rule-bound, and control oriented.  The changes suggested address three troubling trends that have been gathering momentum in...
Opportunity
October 1, 1999

Economic Opportunity in Boston: An Index of the Regulatory Climate for Small Entrepreurs

Edited by David J. Bobb Economic Opportunity in Boston: An Index of Economic Opportunity for Small Entrepreneurs provides a first look at the costs of regulatory mandates on small business in Boston. In the absence of other serviceable attempts to assess the...
Opportunity
October 1, 1999

Economic Opportunity in Boston: An Index of the Regulatory Climate for Small Entrepreneurs

Edited by David J. Bobb Economic Opportunity in Boston: An Index of Economic Opportunity for Small Entrepreneurs provides a first look at the costs of regulatory mandates on small business in Boston. In the absence of other serviceable attempts to assess the...