Monday, September 21, 2015

MASSterList: Pay by the mile tolling? | Baker: No texts for you | DCF by the numbers





 

 Monday, September 21, 2015
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By George Donnelly (@geodonnelly) with Sara Brown
Today's action: Rail Link talk; MCAS results
The Rail Link idea continues to pick up momentum. Rep. Sean Garballey and Sen. Jamie Eldridge host the first meeting of the working group established by proponents of adding a rail link between North and South stations, Room 428, 12:00pm... The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education holds a special meeting, during which the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education plans to release statewide spring 2015 MCAS test data and preliminary results for Massachusetts students who took the PARCC assessment on a computer in spring 2015, 75 Pleasant St., Malden, 5:00pm...
U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark, state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, and former Massachusetts Republican Party Chair Jennifer Nassour are scheduled to speak at Northeastern University's Women Who Inspirespeaker series. Nassour is an attorney at Consigli and Brucato P.C. and in 2011 co-founded Conservative Women for a Brighter Future, Curry Student Center Ballroom, Northeastern University, 5:30pm.
 
Baker promises prompt DCF review of Bella Bond case
Saying the in-take policy at Department of Children and Families hasn't been updated for 12 years, Gov. Baker promised a quick review of the Bella Bond case. Said Baker in the Boston Herald: "There's so much in what I would call the basic playbook for child welfare that hasn't been updated in so long at DCF. We've got to get on with it because that's the document that, on the ground, everybody uses when they make these decisions. And it can't happen fast enough." http://bit.ly/1MlGoxR
 
Digging through the DCF files
The New England Center for Investigative Reporting's deep dive, published in Sunday's Globe, into the Department of Children and Families' track record counts the children who have died under DCF supervision, and focuses on a few relatively unpublicized cases. Jenifer McKim's story also zeroes in on a handful of DCF policy flaws that may be putting children at risk. http://bit.ly/1FaspeS
 
Department of Children and Families by the numbers:
Number of DCF managers lost to Baker administration early retirement: 40
Number of retired managers already replaced: 14
Average caseload to caseworker ratio: 18-1
Targeted caseload ratio: 15-1
Number of new caseworkers slated to be hired in FY 2016 budget: 300
Total DCF budget, FY 2016: $907.6 million
Salary range for a recently posted DCF social worker position: $49,644.66 to $67,805.92.
DCF cases involving parents struggling with substance abuse: 75 percent
Number of child abuse complaints reported to DCF in 2014: 92,000
Number of Massachusetts children in foster care (March, 2014): 8,190
Number of children reported as abused or neglected under state care (2014): 182
Abused/neglected children as a percentage of total under state care: 1.2 percent
Number of children who died between 2009 and 2013 under state supervision at the time of their deaths: 26
(Source: Various media reports)

Baker says no to texts request
In the ongoing saga about public records, Gov. Baker has denied two requests for text messages on the grounds that he doesn't like the idea of sharing them. One of these requests is from the relentless Todd Wallack of the Globe, who reported the story Saturday. The governor releases whatever he feels like handing over, whether it be text, email or what have you, as his office contends it is exempt from the state's already weak public records law. Politely put, it is ironic that the governor would issue a tough directive to state agencies on public records and yet excuse his own office when it is convenient to do so. Of course, whether texts are part of the public record is vigorously debated on both sides. Are they more like phone conversations? Or electronic records? And would making them public force political figures back into the Stone Age, as the governor suggested last month on the radio? If the point of making elected officials' records available to the public is to create transparency and to give citizens insight into decision-making, then the text would seem to qualify as an official record. Here's Wallack's story: http://bit.ly/1Wcxs2g   
 
A taxpayer's DOR exasperation
DCF isn't the only state agencies hit with a high number of early retirements. About 15 percent of the Department of Revenue's workforce departed on June 30, which got journalist Steve Maas wondering if that might explain his frustrating attempts to get a late fee waived. His tale falls into a classic genre of trying to fight city hall, only in this case it's the DOR. http://bit.ly/1KZY8Bv
 
Tourism and the cheap lobster factor
Here's a unique angle: Boston risks pricing itself out of Chinese bus tours because it can't supply ample affordable food, especially seafood. In a Globe op-ed, Mike Ross writes that with class venues like Jimmy's Harborside and the European closing down, Chinese tours have fewer options and increasing are heading to destinations like Ogunquit to get their lobster. All of which could be bad news for the local tourism industry. http://bit.ly/1KqhgVX
 
Pacheco: We've got the wind at our backs
Sen. Marc Pacheco has returned from Denmark and Iceland a true believer in the power of wind energy to become a major factor in the Massachusetts energy portfolio. Denmark is on track to generate one-third of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. "The only difference between them and us is they actually move forward and... put in place the political will to get it done," Pacheco told Shira Schoenberg of MassLive. http://bit.ly/1OKJYnw

Mass. Transit: The future of transportation -- a MASSterList/State House News Service event:
Join us for a panel discussion featuring Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack, Charlie Chieppo, principal of Chieppo Strategies, and Rick Dimino, CEO of A Better City, on the vision for transportation in Massachusetts. It will be held Oct. 13, 7:30-9:30 at the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education center, 10 Winter Place, Boston. More details and registration here: http://bit.ly/1FiAKNa

Plan to charge drivers by the mile to be considered
Pay tolls by the mile? The state is weighing a bill to use a GPS system to track how many miles a driver has used and charge accordingly. "The measure doesn't specify how much motorists will be charged or how data will be collected. Details are left to the state Department of Transportation as part of the pilot program," the Salem News reports. "We face a tremendous funding gap for transportation needs," said state Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Winchester, the bill's sponsor to the Salem News. "As we add more fuel-efficient vehicles to the roads, the gas tax is going to be declining, and that will exacerbate our revenue shortfalls. We need to come up with a more reliable funding source."

Carson doesn't think a Muslim should be president 
Republican candidate for president, Ben Carson, said Muslims shouldn't be president. "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," Carson said on NBC's "Meet the Press." His comments angered many within the community. "I absolutely would not agree with that. To me this really means he is not qualified to be president of the United States," said the Council on American-Islamic Relations' spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper. "You cannot hold these kinds of views and at the same time say you will represent all Americans, of all faiths and backgrounds." http://bit.ly/1WdaiJb

Boston School buses getting better with being on time
Boston public school buses are slightly better at being on time this year, but not by much. Some parents have said their child has arrived home 45 minutes to an hour after they are supposed to, according to the Boston Globe. The first day of school was rocky for many bus drivers with only 49 percent arriving before the bell. However, it improved days after with 87 percent arriving before the bell. "We're shooting for 100 percent," said Kim Rice, assistant superintendent of operations to the Boston Globe. "We want every kid to be on time and ready to learn in the morning, and we want them to get home on time and safely in the evening." http://bit.ly/1Kql2i3

Sanders on Trump: Tapping into 'base instincts'
Presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, says he is climbing in the polls because he is "treating the American people with intelligence." Sanders said to the Boston Herald: "We are treating the American people with intelligence. When I give speeches, we discuss ... the growing income inequality and the morality, the justice, of a nation in which the top one-tenth of one percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent." Sanders said he would not have Donald Trump as his running mate and finds what he is doing disturbing. "What concerns me about the way he is doing it is to tap that anger and say look, 'You see all these Mexicans' ... something to the effect that Mexicans are rapists," Sanders said to the Herald. "To tap into those kinds of base instincts I find very disturbing." http://bit.ly/1Wdapoj
 
CORRECTION: In Friday's MASSterList, an item confused the name of state Sen. Ben Downing with that of a famous former Yale quarterback. Apologies all around.
How to reach me and MASSterList
Nothing makes me happier than comments, tips, suggestions. Also, opinion articles also will be considered. Please don't hesitate to weigh in on what we're missing and where we should look. Reach me at gdonnelly@massterlist.com or on Twitter @geodonnelly.

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