Latest news with #Chapter90
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massachusetts millionaires tax is funding these public schools
EAST LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WWLP) – Over $1.3 billion in revenues from the Fair Share Amendment was secured to provide funding for public education and transportation across Massachusetts. The Fair Share Amendment, better known as the millionaires tax, was signed into law in 2022 and imposes a surtax on individual incomes that exceed $1 million. This year's budget included a $1.33 billion statewide package funded through revenues from the Fair Share Amendment. Senate working 'around the clock' on spending plans $248 million for special education reimbursements $100 million to expand technical education programs $50 million for capital improvements at regional transit authorities $25 million for micro-transit and 'Last Mile' transportation solutions for rural communities $82.5 million in Chapter 90 road funding allocated by road mileage, benefiting rural municipalities $175 million for deferred maintenance at public higher education institutions $25 million for K–3 literacy education $10 million for English Language Learner service expansions $50 million to help school districts manage construction cost overruns due to inflation and tariffs Massachusetts Senator Jacob Oliveira, who represents Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester, announced that more than $750,000 of the Fair Share Amendment funding is allocated to public schools across his district. 'As a former School Committee member and a proud product of public education, I know firsthand the immense benefits to individuals and the region when we have the same access to opportunity as other areas of the Commonwealth. 'That means delivering both the funding and the infrastructure that our local schools and communities need. I'm proud to have helped to bring meaningful, regionally equitable investments home,' Senator Oliveira said. In a news release from Senator Oliveira, the following school districts are earmarked in the bill however, the final budget will be determined through negotiations between the House and Senate. $28,500 to Ludlow Public Schools for classroom technology upgrades $150,000 to East Longmeadow High School for gymnasium bleacher replacement $75,000 to Granby Public Schools to expand their Information Technology Pathway program $100,000 to Belcher School in Chicopee for critical HVAC system upgrades $30,000 to Old Mill Pond Elementary School in Palmer for accessible playground improvements $26,000 to Palmer High School for gymnasium upgrades $80,000 to South Hadley Public Schools for district-wide gym improvements $92,500 to the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District for technology upgrades $93,000 to Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School to upgrade its horticultural vocational program $75,000 to Longmeadow Public Schools to modernize school security systems 'We are delivering on the promise of the Fair Share Amendment,' Oliveira said. 'This isn't just about a number on a spreadsheet—it's about real outcomes for our kids, for our educators, and for our regional economy. It's about making sure students from Palmer to South Hadley have the same high-quality facilities, programs, and support as anywhere else in the Commonwealth.' WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mayor asks for help from City Council to address budget gap
WESTFIELD — Mayor Michael McCabe asked the City Council on April 17 for help in addressing a $16 million gap in the fiscal year 2026 budget over last year. McCabe, who referred to a spreadsheet he had sent the councilors, said some of the cost drivers are outside of the control of the City Council or of the city itself. 'Health care costs are 36% higher, which includes costs to the city side of $5.8 million, and inflation rate costs are roughly at $5 million.' He said in the School Department, contractual obligations have increased by $1.8 million to Units A, B, D and E. There is a transportation increase of $1.3 million and a special education increase of $1.1 million, both of which he said are mandated and 'not funded as they are supposed to be.' On the city side, trash collection and recycling are up by $300,000, and he also expects a utility cost increase of 15 percent or $100,000 across the board, McCabe said. 'The school budget came in at $80 million, with a real budget of $74 million — we cut back $5.2 million. There are 43 positions in those cuts from the School Department,' he said. McCabe asked for the councilors help for anticipated city budget cuts of $3 million, including $1.5 million in free cash from the engineering department. 'In FY26 there is $1 million work to do on sidewalks — we have a bunch that aren't in good shape. We lose the sidewalk contract in October, which means their rates are set from now to October,' he said, adding that as soon as October hits, the costs are expected to move from $175 per square yard to $460 per square yard. He said the other half a million in engineering was to complete the work on the Little River Levee. McCabe then called Proposition 2 ½ 'a sticky wicket.' 'It's always good to lower taxes from the point of view of a politician, but you can actually lower taxes so much it hurts you. Over the last three years of my administration, we have never raised taxes. Last year, we had a net decrease — $3.5 million not used in the budget,' he said. 'Year after year for a decade, we were told the closer the gap to the levy ceiling, the more dangerous. Over the past three years, we've seen that gap increase from $4 million to $12.5 million.' McCabe said the problem with increasing the gap between the levy limit and the levy ceiling to $12.5 million is when he goes to the Statehouse or asks the Legislature for help him understand why Westfield doesn't get more money in Chapter 90, Chapter 70 and Chapter 74, 'They say to me, 'What's your gap?' They're telling me, you have a $12.5 million gap — that means spend your money — because you have more of your own money that you should have been spending all along.' 'I am suggesting in this budget that we tax 2.5% — that's $2.2M. I am also suggesting that we spend another 2.5% and reach into that gap, which brings it down to $9.5 million. Then we can ask [the state] for more money,' McCabe said, adding that it drives School Committee member Bo Sullivan 'crazy' that Pittsfield, a similar-sized community, gets so much more money than Westfield does. McCabe also talked about the shortage in revenue for trash services, which he said has been undercharging customers for years. '12,000 residences, all paying $85 a year — nowhere close to the expenses,' he said, which are closer to $265 a year. He recommended several fixes, including having the department establish an enterprise fund for trash services, making it a revenue account. He said $65 a quarter matches the actual costs. 'I don't think we should keep paying them through taxes.' The City Council recently voted to continue to set the rate for trash services two meetings ago, voting against sending that responsibility to the DPW. McCabe said local receipts are forecasted to bring in $900,000 in the next fiscal year, and new growth, only $500,000. McCabe said he will present his budget to the City Council on May 5, after which they will have 45 days to review it. In the meantime, he said he is open to ideas. After the meeting, Ralph Figy, who chairs the Finance Committee that will be in charge of the budget review for the City Council, said the mayor came to the council to explain how he is going to finance the budget. 'The mayor is open to solutions right now. Once he finalizes the budget, the council cannot add anything to the budget, we can only take away,' Figy said. 'We're really in a tough spot, and it's been coming. Every year, we've been using free cash to balance the budget, and it catches up on you. Last year, we used $4 million [in free cash] to balance the budget, and another $1 million to set the shift.' 'Taxes have to go up,' Figy said, adding that new growth, anticipated to be $500,000 next year, keeps going down. 'He is in a very difficult position. This fiscal crisis has been building over the years. Every time a new business that wants to come into town is not permitted — If you don't have the commercial basis, it's going to fall on the taxpayers.' Figy said the mayor is proposing a 5% increase in taxes, the 2.5% allowed by Proposition 2 ½, and an additional 2.5% from the levy limit, for a total of $4.4 million 'We are allowed to tax up to our levy limit,' he said, adding that is how he is proposing to close the gap between income and expenses. 'The state's not going to help us because of potential revenue we're not accessing,' Figy said. 'If we don't want to do the [2.5%], we're going to have to come up with $2.2 million worth of cuts on top of the cuts that have already been made. That would mean positions. That means people. We're already cutting 43 out of the School Department, and I have no idea how much we're cutting on the city side.' Figy said the mayor is trying to get away from using free cash in the budget, which is what creates the problem. 'We're all in this together. We've got to put our heads together and come up with solutions. This isn't going to go away easily,' he said.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Surtax spending turning into real balancing act
BOSTON (SHNS) – Lawmakers will need to reconcile questions about the right balance for income surtax spending, in more way than one, when they take up Gov. Maura Healey's proposal to deploy about $1.3 billion in unspent revenue from the new levy on wealthy households. When legislators gathered Thursday to review Healey's plan (H 55), a pair of western Massachusetts lawmakers voiced frustration that the transportation spending in the bill skews heavily toward the MBTA, contending the split is not 'fair' to residents outside the Boston-based transit agency's service area. Democrat Sen. Jo Comerford of Northampton and Republican Rep. Todd Smola of Warren each pressed administration officials about the roughly $780 million allocated for the T in the bill, contrasted with significantly smaller balances available for regional transit authorities and microtransit in less populous areas. 'When this proposal came out, we all in western Massachusetts heard from people that this didn't look like equity or anything close to equity,' Smola said at a Joint Ways and Means Committee public hearing in Boston. 'We've tossed that term around loosely, but these numbers are tough.' 'This decision was made at the ballot,' he added about the surtax, which voters approved for education and transportation investments. 'I accept that, and I think we all have to accept that, but the breakdown of these funds is a really, really difficult pill for a lot of people to swallow in other parts of the state.' MBTA funding accounts for more than half of the balance in Healey's bill. The money would help replenish the T's savings, which the agency drained last year to sustain a hiring blitz, and workforce and safety spending. Healey's fiscal 2026 annual budget also seeks to use new surtax dollars to significantly boost state aid for the agency, aiming to mostly close the massive budget gap the MBTA faces starting July 1. Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz told lawmakers the supplemental budget 'does look disproportionately unfair to western Mass.' on its own, but he urged them to weigh it alongside the annual budget and a five-year, $1.5 billion Chapter 90 bill (H 53). Those three legislative vehicles combine to form a broader transportation funding plan that Healey deputies have estimated would inject $8 billion over the next decade. 'You should be able to go back to western Mass. with a lot of confidence in what we're proposing here. Out of an $8 billion transportation plan, nearly $5.6 billion of it is outside of the MBTA. Only 25% of that plan is really going towards the MBTA,' Gorzkowicz said, soon adding, 'The vast majority of the proposal, when taken holistically across all the items that we filed, is a very thoughtful plan.' Comerford contended, however, that even when combining surtax spending on transportation in the supplemental and annual budgets, the vast majority of dollars would go to the T instead of the state's 15 regional transit authorities that serve other communities. 'With this as it is, I think I can't go home and say this, that we have a commitment through Fair Share dollars, which our voters in western Massachusetts campaigned hard for — I just don't think it's super fair currently,' she said. Comerford also referenced another earmark the T has long enjoyed. 'In western Massachusetts, we're aware that we pay a penny of our sales tax for the MBTA, and most of my people will never ride it,' she said. Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt told Comerford that administration officials 'want to be having this conversation over the next fiscal year' about grant programs, funding and technical assistance for RTAs. 'But Secretary, if we wait a year, we will be yet one more year behind with no service in these towns that are declining population at a pretty significant rate,' Comerford replied. Healey proposed using a much larger chunk of the one-time pot — about $857.5 million — on transportation, leaving $462.5 million for education investments that range from early education and care, the special education circuit breaker reserve and career technical education grants. Officials have said they believe the skew in that measure will balance out prior surtax spending, which has leaned more toward education. That idea already has the support of top House Democrats. 'Given that many of the worthy programs that have been funded in the annual budget process have been in the education sector, it is entirely appropriate that the majority of these one-time funds in this round be spent in the transportation sector of our economy,' House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz of Boston said at the start of Thursday's hearing. 'When the Fair Share amendment was pitched to the voters of the commonwealth in 2022, it was presented to be distributed evenly between education and transportation funding. This supplemental budget will allow us to fulfill that commitment.' It's not clear if Senate Democrats agree with the approach. Michlewitz's counterpart, Sen. Michael Rodrigues of Westport made no mention in his opening remarks of supporting — or opposing — a more transportation-heavy approach. He called for the money to be spent 'in a regional, equitable manner.' A spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka of Ashland did not directly answer when asked if she supports the idea of directing more of the one-time surtax money toward transportation. 'Investing in education and transportation is critical if we want to continue to make Massachusetts a great place to live and work,' spokesperson Gray Milkowski said. 'The Senate President will continue to hear from members and residents from around the state about the needs in both areas, and ensure the Senate's version of the surtax supplemental budget appropriately balances investments in each.' American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts President Jessica Tang told the committee her union is pleased with what Healey proposed, but provided a litany of other surtax investments the state could make to blunt the impact of cuts from the federal government and deal with education financing headaches at the state level. She suggested about $1 billion in education-focused investments the union would support and urged lawmakers to pursue other 'new sources of revenue.' 'Due to the revenue from the Fair Share amendment, we are better positioned than most states to weather the current storm and for our commonwealth to continue to lead by taking critical steps to fill the gaps and do whatever we can to prevent further harm, while continuing to enact proactive measures,' Tang said. 'Considering the level of uncertainty we have across sectors, with the cuts and threats to critical programming we're hearing from the White House, we also urge you to take action early this session to identify new sources of revenue and ways the state can invest and ensure economic security for all, including passing the corporate fair share bill, also known as the GILTI bill.' The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, which backed the surtax push and increases to the minimum wage, is prioritizing a bill (H 3110 / S 2033) from Rep. Carlos González and Sen. Jason Lewis that would increase the share of excess foreign profits (based on a federal government formula called Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income or GILTI) that could be taxed by the state from 5% to 50% to match New England neighbors. Sen. Paul Feeney raised the GILTI tax proposal, mentioning challenges communities in his district face to pay for education services. He said he has 'always been a supporter' of the idea and asked Mass. Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate whether the state ought to start thinking about new revenue sources. Howgate responded by pointing at rates of growth in revenues and spending. 'Pick whatever revenue structure you want, pick whatever tax rates you want — they're going to grow, if you're lucky, at 3 to 4% a year. And one of the challenges we're facing now in MassHealth, challenges we're facing in a number of areas of spending, is that the spending is growing by more than 3 or 4% a year. And to me, that's a structural issue that is going to require a lot of hard conversations for all of us about how to get our arms around those cost growth factors,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Yahoo
Healey-Driscoll Administration to visit western Massachusetts during transportation roadshow
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll will be in western Massachusetts on Tuesday. Springfield School Committee extends agreement for in-school cameras The stops are all part of the administrations 'Transforming Transportation Roadshow'. The governor is highlighting transportation funding. They will begin on Tuesday in Lenox at noon, meeting with local leaders about what their needs are. They will also be discussing the Governor's proposed $8 billion transportation plan and Chapter 90 bill that will upgrade rural roads, bridges, and culverts. Then, she'll be stopping in Becket to see a replaced culvert at 1:15 p.m., which is an example of the difference her proposed $200 million for culvert and small bridge repairs will make in communities across Massachusetts. Finally, Governor Healey will be in Springfield for the governor`s conference on travel and tourism at the MassMutual Center at 3:00 p.m., presented by the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism (MOTT). The conference will highlight innovative strategies to position Massachusetts as a premier destination, leveraging international markets, emphasizing authentic storytelling, and marquee events such as the Massachusetts 250 commemoration. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Yahoo
Holyoke Police recover firearm after car crashes into home
HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) – A traffic stop turned into a dangerous chase early Saturday morning, ending with a car crashing into a home and the recovery of an illegal firearm, according to Holyoke Police. Illegal fireworks set off in Holyoke Mall parking lot According to police, at approximately 2:45 a.m. on February 15, officers patrolling Cabot Street observed a vehicle running a red light. When they attempted a traffic stop near Commercial Street, the driver initially complied but then sped away, prompting a chase. The chase was later called off for safety reasons, but officers soon spotted the suspect vehicle again, this time after it had crashed into the porch of a home near the intersection of Northampton Street and Westfield Road. Police say no one inside the home was hurt, and neither the driver nor the passenger were injured. However, during their investigation, Officers Joshua Rivera and Jose Millan discovered an illegal firearm inside the vehicle. As a result, both the driver, a 17-year-old girl, and the passenger, 19-year-old Shaniquha Thomas of Holyoke, were placed under arrest. Thomas faces multiple firearm-related charges, including: Carrying a firearm without a license Improper storage of a firearm Possession of ammunition without an FID card The 17-year-old driver will also face firearms-related charges in addition to motor vehicle violations under Massachusetts Chapter 90 laws. Due to her age, her name has not been released. Holyoke Police have not disclosed further details about the firearm but continue to investigate the incident. Authorities urge anyone with information to contact the Holyoke Police Department. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
