On Wednesday, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll made a rare visit to Berkshire County. In Stockbridge, the Democrat announced $31.5 million in municipal climate resiliency grant disbursements. In Pittsfield, the former mayor of Salem toured Berkshire Community College as part of the MassReconnect rollout – a new program that will allow Massachusetts residents over 25 without a college degree and anyone seeking a nursing degree to attend community college for free. On the way from Boston, Driscoll spoke with WAMC about a slate of other issues, ranging from negotiations over a tax relief package to the resignation of Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandaca after just eight months on the job.
DRISCOLL: Well, the secretary made the decision to step down, and we're definitely grateful for her service. Gina’s done a lot of good work in some key priority areas from bringing onboard new leadership at the T, working on the Sumner Tunnel restoration project, implementing the Work and Family Mobility Act. We've applied for just a slew of federal infrastructure grants while she's been there, but she's ready to move on. We support her in that effort, and we've got a strong team at MassDOT. So, our current Assistant Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt will be stepping in as acting secretary, and we know we're going to have a smooth transition.
Do you have an update on the status of talks over the tax package in Massachusetts? It was a notable omission from the state budget that was passed earlier this month. What's the story there?
Well, the budget that was adopted incorporates, I think, almost $600 million for tax relief. The understanding is we're going to try and get there. We filed a bill. Obviously, the House and Senate will have their say as well. And we anticipate this fall, things will really get back in session in terms of negotiations between the two bodies on how we achieve a Massachusetts that's more competitive, more affordable, more equitable through some of these tax incentives, which include rebates to families to the tune of $600 million, folks who have children or seniors that they're caring for, direct payments out, estate tax relief, ways that we can support making Massachusetts a more affordable state for housing. There's a number of initiatives in that tax package that we know are important to families, important to small business owners, so we're going to be, obviously, in conversations with House and Senate leadership on how we achieve a tax package that's going to work for the commonwealth.
Legislators in Berkshire County were among critics of the initial tax package plan as presented by the Healey-Driscoll administration, saying that it was too favorable to the wealthy and possibly undercut the intended impact of the Fair Share Amendment passed just recently here in the commonwealth. Any thoughts on those criticisms?
You know, we think the tax package we submitted is fair and equitable. We are an outlier in several areas. Many states don't even have an estate tax, we have one, it's a fairly low threshold. Many states don't have a short-term capital gains tax or a single sales factor tax. We treat things differently. And Massachusetts is in competition for business, for families to stay here. We're seeing out migration among folks who find the high cost of housing very troubling. So, you have to take both the tax package and the investments in the budget together. I think it paints a picture that we want to have a commonwealth that works for and welcomes all. That's what Governor Healey and I are focused on, and frankly, we have really good relationships with legislators, so we're really hopeful we can build consensus towards not only a strong budget, but a strong tax package as well.
Our neighbors in New York are currently engaged in a very public dispute over how to handle the ongoing migrant situation in that state. I'm interested- From your perspective in Massachusetts, are you seeing issues with migrants right now? Do you feel like the federal government is supporting Massachusetts as it addresses the migrant situation? Talk to me about that.
Yeah, you know, Massachusetts is a Right to Shelter state for families, which means families who are here, we want to make sure they have a safe place to sleep at night, and we are seeing an influx and a surge of those new arrivals. And due to the high cost of housing, even our own Massachusetts families who are struggling to provide safe shelter. Our emergency shelter system, therefore, has had to rapidly expand, and so we're having to utilize kind of every resource at our disposal. We're in over 88 communities, we've got close to 6,000 units of temporary shelter that's housing families, children, often a very young age. And we're doing everything in our power to work with the federal government and really push on them to provide more resources to support this effort. A lot of this is due to sort of failed immigration policies. At the same time, we're also working with them to establish work authorization. These new immigrant families who are arriving are telling us they want to work, they want a job, and Lord knows we have plenty of employers where there are workforce shortages. So, we're pushing on fronts to make sure families are safe, children in particular, and that we're getting access to job and work opportunities that both our new arrivals want and our economy needs.
Do you have any update from the Healey-Driscoll administration about possible flood relief funds for Berkshire communities like North Adams? I'm sure you're sympathetic to Mayor Jennifer Macksey as a former mayor yourself- She has been calling on the state and federal government for assistance in the over $5 million worth of damages that the city suffered in July's heavy downpour. Any comments on that?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's just heartbreaking to see some of the damage we had, both to farms- We were out in Conway, we've been on the ground a lot, not only assessing damage and trying to help farmers and stand up a program. Our farm relief fund has over $3 million dollars that we were able to work in close contact with United Way to move forward. And I know payments are going out to farmers. Many of them lost all of their crops they were just about to harvest. And we're also working on the community front. While the storm damages unfortunately did not meet the thresholds that FEMA requires for federal reimbursement, we are working to identify state programs we have around infrastructure, dams, culverts, many of the drainage systems that need repairs and or just are not capable of handling the increase we're seeing in rain and high watermarks to try and make sure we're being supportive of communities. It's amazing how more often we're seeing the impacts of climate while we're going out to talk about this [Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program] grant highlighting the work that we need to do to future proof our infrastructure systems, our communities, our small businesses from the impacts of the climate crisis. These sorts of grants that were giving out are a part of that, but we know we need to do more, and are working closely with communities to try and identify particular funding programs for storm damaged communities that we may be able to have a preference for a special round.
This month, we saw the Massachusetts POST Commission released thousands of police disciplinary records. It's been something of a rocky rollout. There's been a lot of amendments, and there's a lot of things excepted from what's been released so far. What were your thoughts on those records, seeing them out in public? What do you think it sort of says about transparency in Massachusetts? Just, any reactions to that massive dump of information?
And I think the work that POST is undertaking is to try and grow accountability and transparency that was missing in the past. And so, that's the first iteration of this system. I'm sure it will get better as it moves forward. But the ability for both community members, legislators, advocate groups to see what type of discipline is happening on the ground was an important part of the legislation. And so, this is the first iteration. This is a separate, independent authority. So, you know, I know they've gotten a lot of feedback, and I would expect that they'd be working to try and address issues and also meet the responsibility of the legislation as it was drafted and approved.
