Since early 2020, the Bay State has had the third slowest private sector job growth in the nation.
Jim Stergios
Posted inOpinion
Wu’s tax shift is no compromise
Boston’s double-digit office vacancy rates—driven in part by remote work—are among the highest in the nation and unlikely to decrease in the near future, curbing demand for office space and straining city revenues as companies opt for less space when leases expire. Rising construction materials costs and interest rates further cloud the outlook.
Posted inOpinion
The compelling case for Massachusetts legislative reform
What’s the one thing businesses, climate advocates, and lobbyists can agree on? The need to overhaul the state’s broken legislative process. Here are six ideas to get the conversation started.
Posted inEducation
Agreement on Boston schools must be call to action
THE RECENT AGREEMENT between Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is a welcome development. It’s not cause for celebration, but a good sign nonetheless. The necessary first step was always getting the adults to set aside calculations of power and instead focus on the work of halting […]
Posted inOpinion
Contracting with private providers could avert MBTA cuts
IN RESPONSE TO a collapse in MBTA service in the winter of 2015, the newly formed Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) set the authority on a course of bold reforms. The COVID-19 pandemic is once again presenting new and significant challenges to T leadership that require a rethinking of how service is delivered to […]
Posted inEducation
Time to fix the charter school cap
THE STATUTORY RED TAPE restricting the number (and percentage) of students who can attend charter public schools has the Swiftian feel of Lilliputians tying down one of the best solutions we have to rampant inequality in our urban districts. There are, of course, statewide caps on charter schools. Add to that curbs on new charters […]
Posted inOpinion
Executive branch overreach, blanket orders having harmful effects
WHEN CONFRONTED WITH disasters, human beings need time to process how reality has changed and the best ways to move forward. To protect the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, elected officials have needed time to observe and analyze — and sometimes to take temporary emergency action, usually through the executive office. At the outset of […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Transparency on health care costs is something we should all agree on
SOME BELIEVE Medicare for All is the answer to America’s health care woes. For others, a functioning free market is the only way to cut costs without sacrificing quality. As far apart as the two sides may be on the ultimate solution, achieving either goal requires knowing the real prices of health care procedures before care […]
Posted inEducation
New Bedford pols fail kids with opposition to charter expansion
IF YOU WONDER where children fall in the hierarchy of priorities for some elected officials, take a look at New Bedford, where Mayor Jon Mitchell and City Councilor Hugh Dunn are apoplectic about a highly successful charter public school’s expansion plans. Alma del Mar Charter School has applied to open two more K-8 schools in […]
Posted inHealth Care
Past time to get serious about health care costs
LAST SEPTEMBER, Pioneer observed that Massachusetts had dodged a federal bullet when the US Senate failed by one vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Had they succeeded, the Commonwealth stood to lose billions of federal health care dollars. The near-miss experience should have prodded the Legislature and the governor to bring rampant health care […]