Public transportation is on the verge of an “existential crisis,” cities and towns that help fund the system warned, as the MBTA moves ahead with a budget plan that drains its reserves in the face of a looming deficit.
Chris Lisinski I State House News Service
Posted inHousing
House Democrats outline $6.2 billion housing plan
With sky-high sale prices and rents suffocating residents, the House will try to shift the tide by pumping more money into existing housing programs and rolling out a few new strategies.
Posted inTransportation
Coming this summer, T riders can use credit cards, phones to pay their fares
The start of contactless payment — a feature in place in other major transit systems, including New York City’s subway — will mark a milestone in a delayed, over-budget project to modernize fare collection at the T.
Posted inState Government
Millionaire surtax revenues far exceed expectations
Massachusetts has collected about $1.8 billion from a voter-approved surtax on the state’s highest earners through the first nine months of the fiscal year, the Department of Revenue said Monday in a quarterly report.
Posted inHealth Care
House passes broad health care legislation
The House voted 152-1 to approve a bill that combines reforms intended to avert a repeat of the Steward Health Care crisis with changes designed to boost state oversight of facility expansions and closures, refine cost control tools to better account for fluctuations, and increase funding for hospitals that typically serve high shares of low-income patients and people of color.
Posted inBallot Questions
DiZoglio targets Uber, Lyft with supercharged hypothetical audit
The analysis estimated the on-demand ride platforms would have owed the state about $266 million in combined workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and the paid family and medical leave payments over the past decade if their tens of thousands of drivers were treated as full employees.
Posted inState Government
Despite flat tax collections, House budget plan would boost spending 3.3%
The House plan does not call for any major tax hikes or draw from the state’s long-term “rainy day” savings account, whose balance could surpass $9 billion by July 2025 under the House’s latest projection.
Posted inImmigration
Senate bill also backs cap on stays in emergency shelter system
Like the bill that cleared the House earlier this month, the Senate bill could push some people out of the system after nine months, which would mark a shift in a state that by law guarantees access to shelter for eligible families and pregnant women.
Posted inTransportation
Power issue knocks out morning service on Blue, Green, Orange lines
T stations opened fare gates on all four major subway lines for the evening rush hour Thursday as a sort of apology to riders who earlier that day faced delays and darkened platforms when power problems rolled across the Blue, Green and Orange Lines.
Posted inTransportation
Healey’s $58b state spending plan boosts T, education funding with one-time revenues, cuts
Amid a forecast for little to no tax revenue growth, Healey’s team balanced their plan by trimming $450 million from various line items, proposing to prevent about half a billion dollars in other spending growth, and deploying $1.25 billion from other available state resources.