THE STATE budget proposal released by the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday largely hews to the same ideology as the plan adopted by House budget writers: Avoid tax cuts, while putting excess money toward investments in areas such as early education, mental health care, and housing. “Despite two-plus years of uncertainty because of […]
Michael Rodrigues
Posted inArts and Culture
Michael Rodrigues takes up cause of restoring Azorean Jewish heritage
PICTURES OF THE old synagogue show a decrepit building with peeling paint, broken furniture, and rotting wood. Prayer books were ripped. There were water leaks, vermin, and structural damage. It looked like what it was – a house of worship abandoned for more than 40 years, built to serve a community that no longer existed. […]
Posted inEducation
Legislature will increase school funding next yearÂ
THE LEGISLATURE HAS agreed to take a more generous approach to funding public schools next year than Gov. Charlie Baker did, responding to concerns from education advocates that Baker’s proposal was inadequate.  The legislative approach reflects a different time frame for phasing in an updated school funding formula, and the creation of a new fund to help districts that saw pandemic-related enrollment drops. But some advocates are still unhappy […]
Posted inPolitics
Senate chair knocks House handling of tax break
AT A STANDSTILL over a corporate tax break, the Legislature on Thursday recessed for the remainder of the week without completing work on a bill wrapping up budgetary matters for the fiscal year that ended in June. An arcane tax policy has become a divisive policy issue, in part because of the potential cost of […]