Beacon Hill Update provided by Mass Access January 18, 2022
January 18, 2022David Gauthier, WINCAM
Tuesday, January 18, 2022:
As of Friday night DPH reported a total of 1,318,694 cases of COVID-19.
The state reported 12,864 new confirmed cases and 64 new deaths.
The state now has 20,450 deaths from the virus.
Friday’s COVID-19 data is incomplete.
Network connectivity issues on Thursday, January 13, 2022, affecting some state agencies, resulted in a substantial percentage of laboratory results not being reported into the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemiologic Network (MAVEN).
These results will be included in the next report on Tuesday.
Both the House and Senate meet in informal session today at 11am.
Citing a “critical staffing shortage” that has contributed to the loss of around 700 hospital beds since the start of 2021, the Department of Public Health on Friday issued a series of orders aimed at helping acute care hospitals preserve their capacity.
The DPH is also advising people not to seek care at emergency rooms for “routine” needs, including COVID-19 testing and vaccines.
The orders from Acting Public Health Commissioner Margret Cooke, according to the Baker administration, allow qualified physician assistants to practice independently without a doctor’s supervision, enable expedited licensure for doctors trained in other countries, require DPH-licensed facilities to expedite credentialing and facilitate staff transfers across and between hospitals, and give resident physicians flexibility to engage in “internal moonlighting,” or providing patient care outside their specialized training program.
Another order allows out-of-hospital dialysis providers to relax staffing requirement levels.
Legislative and Baker administration budget writers are projecting that state tax revenue will grow by 2.7 percent next fiscal year, from the $35.948 billion they are now expecting the state to collect in fiscal 2022.
Administration and Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan and Ways and Means Committee chairs Sen. Michael Rodrigues and Rep. Aaron Michlewitz are required to jointly develop a revenue forecast each year, which lawmakers and Governor Baker use in crafting their spending plans.
Governor Baker, who makes the first volley in the annual budgeting process, is due to file his bill by Jan. 26.
The trio on Friday announced a consensus revenue forecast of $36.915 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1, which would make a maximum of $29.783 billion in tax revenue available for the fiscal 2023 budget after accounting for statutorily required transfers.
In conjunction with the announcement, Heffernan said he is revising this year’s revenue projection upward by $1.548 billion based on year-to-date collections and economic data.
As of December, the state had collected more than $17.8 billion in taxes so far this fiscal year.
Governor Baker is seeking the Legislature’s approval to borrow nearly $5 billion to maintain, repair and modernize state buildings and assets, to modernize the unemployment insurance online system, to replace 300 State Police vehicles per year and to invest in cybersecurity and IT infrastructure initiatives.
The $4.991 billion general government bond bill would support $2.4 billion in existing Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance resilience and maintenance projects through fiscal year 2028 including $400 million in energy efficiency projects and directs efforts to reduce gas emissions in Massachusetts facilities in keeping with an executive order that Governor Baker issued in April.
The bill would authorize another $1.8 million for DCAMM to “meet new facilities’ needs and mitigate future risks” including adapting spaces to reflect lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The governor’s latest bond bill (HD 4731) also includes $185 million in authorization for the Executive Office of Technology Services and Services to, among other things, “modernize the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Online system and build out an integrated eligibility and enrollment system to streamline the benefits application process across multiple state agencies.”
Another $100 million would be used to replace 300 State Police vehicles a year with half planned to be hybrid vehicles, and $50 million would be used to update virtual and physical security infrastructure at Trial Courts facilities.
A slew of popular state grant programs – the Workforce Skills Capital Grants Program, the Community Compact IT Grants Program, the Cultural Facilities Fund, the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, the Housing Stabilization Fund and the Housing Choice Capital Grants Program – would be given a combined $496 million boost under Governor Baker’s bill.
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, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey said Friday.
Other than saying that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “announced it will reconsider the authorization of the Weymouth Compressor Station,” Markey’s office did not provide any details.
But the docket numbers associated with the Algonquin Gas Transmission and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline-owned compressor station are listed on the agenda for unspecified action at a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission meeting planned for Thursday.
