STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE WITH TAX COLLECTIONS running nearly $1.5 billion ahead of expectations, Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday filed a spending bill that seeks to spend $1.6 billion in state funds to keep COVID-19 response efforts going and to invest in stressed sectors, like child care and human services. The supplemental budget would allocate $2.4 billion […]
Colin A. Young
Posted inTransportation
Immigrant license bill clears House by veto-proof margin
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE HOUSE PASSED legislation Wednesday that opens a pathway for some undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses in Massachusetts, a move advocates say would make roads safer for all motorists and opponents argue rewards people for entering the country illegally. On a 120-36 vote, the House advanced the bill to the […]
Posted inEducation
Top Baker aides urge colleges to lead Mass. into endemic
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE TWO BAKER ADMINISTRATION Cabinet secretaries late last week urged college and university presidents to eschew strict campus-wide COVID-19 protocols and instead put their institutions at the forefront of the state’s transition of the pandemic “into an endemic, a highly contagious virus that is manageable and allows us to regain a sense […]
Posted inGambling
Casinos end year with a bang
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE GAMING REVENUES were up across the board last month as Plainridge Park Casino, MGM Springfield, and Encore Boston Harbor together generated nearly $100 million in revenue of which about $26.5 million is due to the state, the Gaming Commission reported Tuesday. Of the $95.65 million in gaming revenue produced in December, […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service
Markey says FERC rethinking Weymouth Compressor
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE FEDERAL ENERGY regulators will reconsider their approval for the controversial natural gas compressor station in Weymouth less than a year and a half after they gave it the OK to go into service, US Sen. Ed Markey said Friday. Other than saying that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “announced it will […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service
Baker approves solar, truck emission initiatives
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE With two of its key climate change policies dead or near-dead, the Baker administration approved two initiatives last week to incentivize the development of solar power and expand the use of zero emission vehicles. The Department of Public Utilities finalized on Thursday a long-delayed regulatory process for a solar incentive program […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
988 state employees left jobs due to vaccine mandate
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE JUST FEWER than 1,000 executive branch employees have left their jobs because they did not or would not comply with Gov. Charlie Baker’s vaccine mandate for public employees, including 656 people whose departures were “involuntary,” the governor’s office said Thursday. The update on state worker compliance with the requirement comes as […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Spilka discloses she suffered ‘mild stroke’
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE SENATE PRESIDENT Karen Spilka had what she said was “a mild stroke” in mid-November and was told by her doctors to get some rest, she said Monday in a television interview that explained her weekslong absence from the State House. “I’m fine. In fact, I’m feeling great now. But I wanted […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service
Utilities defend energy efficiency plan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE GETTING MORE people to adopt electric heat sources in place of fossil fuel-powered sources is a crucial part of the effort to meet the state’s new climate targets, but senators said Monday that the latest three-year plan for the Mass Save program isn’t ambitious enough to truly drive that change. Utility […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
State tax collections keep up surprising growth
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE A THIRD OF THE WAY into fiscal 2022, state tax collections are trending about 20 percent ahead of the pace that led to a roughly $5 billion surplus in fiscal year 2021, the Department of Revenue announced Wednesday. State tax collectors took in $2.445 billion last month — $356 million or […]