MORE ARTICLES
Becket Fund’s Eric Rassbach on Loffman v. CA DOE, Religious Liberty, & SchoolingNovember 27, 2024 - 10:30 am
Pioneer Institute Statement on Vocational-Technical School AdmissionsNovember 26, 2024 - 8:00 am
FY2026 Consensus Revenue Hearing – Forecasting of Revenues is Tricky BusinessNovember 25, 2024 - 8:00 am
CUNY’s Carl Rollyson on William Faulkner & Southern LiteratureNovember 20, 2024 - 10:36 am
Pioneer Institute Study Finds Massachusetts Saw Four-Fold Loss of Income to Net OutmigrationNovember 19, 2024 - 11:25 am
Massachusetts Job Market Bears WatchingNovember 18, 2024 - 2:10 pm
NH Gov. Chris Sununu on School ChoiceNovember 13, 2024 - 2:02 pm
Five Reasons Why Project Labor Agreements Are Bad Public PolicyNovember 12, 2024 - 9:27 am
Statement of Pioneer Institute on MCAS Ballot Failure and State of Education in MassachusettsNovember 6, 2024 - 2:01 pm
Dr. Helen Baxendale on Great Hearts Classical Liberal Arts Charter SchoolsNovember 6, 2024 - 12:08 pm
File Photo Fun at the Globe
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byPage A10 of today’s Globe has a background piece on Charlie Baker. Someone with a sense of humor picked out a photo of Baker in action during his tenure in the Executive Branch. It shows him seated at a table with…….current Patrick Administration Secretary of A&F Leslie Kirwan (back when she worked for Baker.)
A bit of soul searching
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byMatt Murphy of the Lowell Sun writes today on an issue that Pioneer has been banging the drum on for some time: the growth in the state’s payroll notwithstanding the fact that we are in a recession. (See our Countdown to Fiscal Sanity, item #9, for more.) Murphy notes that While many private-sector companies continue to shed jobs at alarming rates, state employees have been largely spared the anxiety of getting a pink slip. The state payroll, in fact, has grown by about 2,200 employees since the recession came to Massachusetts last fall, leaving roughly 98,278 workers dependent on the state for a paycheck, according to payroll records that include the University of Massachusetts and other public colleges. Meanwhile, Fall […]
Things That Irritate Me
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /by– Lack of Legislative transparency — Our Legislature seems to work extra hard to make things hard to understand. In some cases, it is turning around 300 page bills in less than 24 hours, meaning no one can read it with any level of care. In other cases, it’s the lack of available data about pending legislation, as detailed by State House News in a article yesterday (sub. req’d). I’d note that the Connecticut Legislature has a much more sophisticated site that allows you to track bills and sign up for email updates when anything happens related to your interests. – No 311 in Boston — Boston has an iPhone app for constituent complaints but you still have to “bumble […]
Pioneer Beats BRA
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byWarning: Blatant Self-Promotion Ahead Yesterday’s paper had a sad tale of delay at the Boston Redevelopment Authority. A Deputy Director was hired five years ago to build a database of community benefits from development projects. She currently oversees three other staffers and the office has a yearly run rate of almost $300k in salary alone. She notes that ““[w]e’ve been developing an automated data system, but it’s still in draft form,” Colley said. “But you can’t do that overnight or in a year or two years or three years.” I note that Pioneer has three ‘automated data systems’ in the pipeline that will all be done in under two years. We released an online decision support tool that allowed municipal […]
Obstacles to Reform – Lowell Edition
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byThe Lowell School Superintendent tried to put out an RFP to determine if using a private vendor for school food services would save money. Other cities have done this and it is also standard practice at most colleges and universities (even the state-funded ones). So, what did this exploration of potential savings earn her? An expletive laced series of threats from school committee member Regina Faticanti. Read the whole thing here. Fun fact — Regina Faticanti is a member of the School Committee’s Discipline subcommitee.