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Boston's Morning Newsletter
Massachusetts tax cuts are becoming law. What's next on the State House's to-do list?
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
It’s Wednesday. While you mull over your vote on how the future Green Line trolleys should be painted (personally, I like Option 2), here’s what’s rolling our way today:
Life after tax cuts: This afternoon, Gov. Maura Healey is set to sign the big $1 billion tax cut bill. The package is aimed at providing relief to lower-income residents from rising costs and making the state a more attractive destination for businesses and wealthy families. The signing is a historic moment — the first tax cuts in Massachusetts in over two decades. It’s also somewhat expected news, after House and Senate leaders finally settled some of their remaining differences last week. (Check out our breakdown of how much the bill will save parents, renters, seniors and others.) So, with another 10 months left in the current legislative session, what’s next on the State House’s to-do list? Here’s some of the issues leaders are eyeing:
- Expanding free community college: For the first time this fall, Massachusetts made local community college free for adults over 25 and nursing students. But according to Senate President Karen Spilka, they’re not stopping there. Spilka told NBC Boston that the Legislature is laying the groundwork for “free community college for everybody” beginning next fall.
- Child care: This year’s budget poured a historic amount of money into the child care sector, but Spilka wants the Legislature to take a shot at more structural reforms. Last year, the Senate passed a bill to expand direct subsidies for families and grants for child care providers, though it didn’t make it through the House.
- Tackling prescription drug costs: The Senate also passed a bill last year aimed at limiting out-of-pocket prescription drug costs (which stalled in the House). Spilka told NBC Boston that “the Biden administration did do something, which is terrific, but we can do more to lower the costs of prescription drugs.”
- Pay transparency: Meanwhile, the House is teeing up a vote today on a new bill that would require businesses with more than 25 workers to include a salary range on all job postings. Supporters say such a blanket requirement would help even pay disparities among women and people of color.
- Guns: House Speaker Ron Mariano originally wanted to pass a wide-ranging gun reform bill this summer, before it got caught up in procedural squabbles. Still, both Mariano and Spilka want to get something done on the issue this fall, if not in the first half of next year. State House News Service has more on the focus of the emerging gun legislation here.
Sulmasy out: Kevin McCarthy isn’t the only man newly out of a job. Glenn Sulmasy, the president of Nichols College in Dudley, stepped down yesterday amid an investigation into sexual misconduct accusations during his time as a department chair at the Coast Guard Academy.
- Go deeper: CNN reported last month that Sulmasy exchanged “hundreds of sexually suggestive messages” with a student. He was accused of both sexual harassment and mishandling a rape complaint against a cadet while at the prestigious academy.
Ferry popular: Summer may be over, but the MBTA’s seasonal ferries will keep on chugging a bit longer. T officials announced that “due to popular demand” the weekday Lynn ferry will continue until Oct. 31, while the weekday Winthrop ferry and the seven-days-a-week East Boston ferry will keep running through the end of November. (They were originally set to wrap up service within the next week.)
- Supporters hope the ferries’ popularity will lead officials to make seasonal pilot programs more permanent, like the year-round ferries to Charlestown, Hingham and Hull. Alice Brown, the head of planning and policy for the nonprofit Boston Harbor Now, told WBUR’s Andrea Perdomo-Hernandez that robust ridership this fall could empower the T and the legislators who’ve been fighting for the ferries to start service earlier in the spring. “I think the goal is to get to year round service,” she said.
P.S.— You can now listen to the first (and second) episode of our new podcast, The Gun Machine, produced in partnership by WBUR and The Trace. The series introduces the story of how the United States has shaped, and been shaped by, the gun industry, dating back to the creation of an 18th century think tank in Massachusetts. Listen here.
