 Good evening and welcome back to Byline. We took a short break. It's very hot here this summer, isn't it? But we're back with a couple of original tapings today and our first guest is going to be Mindy Dom and as you probably remember this is Amherst Media and this show is called Byline and it's co-sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters and it's focused around helping us all keep track of what's going on on Beacon Hill and a town hall locally as we're forming our new government, our town charters being implemented and at the state level we have a brand new state representative Mindy Dom who lives right here in town and Joe Comberford is our new senator from Northampton. So we have a lot to talk about today. You were on a few months ago and you were projecting forward about things around the budget and some of the legislation you were working on. So let's just dive right in with the budget because of course that's the single biggest product that the legislature has to produce every year and our fiscal year begins on July 1 and it's night before June 30th and the governor recently signed it and you get to tell us now the good news and maybe a little bit of not so good news but hopefully mostly good news. I think it's mostly good news. I think that the budget is a phenomenal document this year. It's one that the Third Hampshire District where we are can embrace and it's one that Mary Mac Valley loves, the Berkshires love, Southeast. It's great when you have more money than you expect. And when the governor agrees with your projection. How do you like that? I think that's remarkable. Well you know we should explain to the viewers so there's a process that goes on much earlier in the year and it's about December of January the governor the House and Senate agree on a revenue number and that's how much revenue we think we're going to take in in the new fiscal year and then you build your budget around that but that didn't happen this year because you tell me because there was more money than expected. That's right and I think it evolves. I think that number evolves so that the House when we start working with our budget the revenue number we're dealing with a lower number and even just a month later when the Senate gets it already there are projections that there's going to be more revenue. My understanding is that's why the Senate can actually be more generous because it's using project revenue. Theoretically the governor and the House and the Senate are all supposed to use the same revenue number. I'm not sure that works. But then if you're clever you can find other ways of bumping up the revenue so you can actually spend a little more and this year in the conference committee they added some money. They did and I think and that was you know I think we were all waiting to see was the governor going to accept those revenue projections or was he going to veto some of the spending. He didn't veto any of it. A single dollar. Nothing. Which is really shocking. So you know people were concerned and I heard from constituents who said why is it taking so long for the budget. Come on come on come on and I kept saying well as long as my priorities are in that budget at the end I'm okay with them taking a long time to negotiate it but it turned out that the time they took resulted I think in a terrific budget and one that was veto proof. I mean you know he didn't come back with anything so that's a good. Yeah and as a Republican and a fiscal conservative you would expect him to veto as he has every one of his previous budgets he's vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars and the legislature has done hundreds of overrides and most of those overrides the Democrats and Republicans both overrides. The governor why because they put a balanced budget on his desk and he wanted to cut why do you do that. So today I mean this year he he went the other direction. He went the other direction and I think what's also interesting is my finger was ready to override because I was told when the overrides happen they happen really fast. Yeah but he did not veto any spending but he did apparently veto some language but I have not seen all the examples and I think we're going to deal with that as a legislature in September. And he might have sent back a few amendments as well of some of that language so some of those you might be able to work out with him instead of doing an override so. And some of them we accepted on Wednesday so. So tell us what were the highlights from your point of view given your district and from your point of view with regard to the statewide interest. So I had two priorities for the district that I think also impact the commonwealth but they were for the district. One was UMass Amherst and the other was regional transit authorities. So UMass Amherst you may remember the house came out with a budget that provided some funding to UMass as a system that would have not only paid for a collective bargaining agreements which I think has not been done for the past couple years as well some additional money. The Senate came out with a budget that's called for an unfunded tuition freeze and I put that in quotes because an unfunded tuition freeze in my mind it was a program cut because somebody has to pay for it and so if you give UMass a requirement saying you can't raise tuition and we're not giving you any more money they have to find the money. And were they barring raise increase in fees or just tuition? The Senate's version was tuition. Only tuition. Yes and it would have cost about 10.1 million dollars to actually pay for that freeze. I put in an amendment for that which was rejected by the house. But that was a big concern because that was very two very different budget lines for UMass. And I like to think that as I said as long as it took them to negotiate the conference the result was very good because UMass did not get the so-called codified tuition freeze. This would have been requiring them. Not suggestion. Instead there's some kind of reporting language. Yes but the reporting is around accountability which as a state funded agency they would be subject to anyway. I don't think it was anything different. I'm glad they did that. Yeah. Because if that satisfies the folks that wanted to do the unfunded tuition freeze that's terrific. But I'm really thrilled that UMass Amherst will not suffer any student service cuts, program cuts, unemployment layoffs. I mean that's how it would have looked you know that we would have seen student programs that are on a trajectory like this having to be truncated. We would have seen people need to be laid off. That was not something I wanted to see. So I fought hard for that. I'm you know I joined a lot of voices in the house around that and the house leadership wanted to make sure that UMass and UMass Amherst was protected so I'm thrilled with that. And regional transit authorities they had requested about ninety point one million dollars to sustain services but it looked like it might dip to about eighty six eighty seven and that would have affected PVTA. So right now the conference committee came out with it at the fully funded which is the ninety plus million dollars which doesn't mean expanded service. It means level service but nothing gets cut. Nothing gets cut unless they decide this particular route isn't productive and it's better to eliminate this route and take those dollars and put it to this other route which is more productive. But they don't have to make that decision based on money. They can make it based on how we use the system. And so and that's actually better because at least if we sustained it then we can build on that to expand it. We obviously need more public transit throughout the state and including in western Massachusetts. So now this was before your time in the legislature but there was a multi-year agreement to increase funding to regional transit authorities by many millions of dollars over about a five year period. I'm pretty sure this is the last installment and so now the challenge is to figure out how to get another multi-year increase and given all the discussion in the debate and the conversation in Boston now about increasing transportation and how we're going to pay for it. This gives the regional transit authorities and the caucus. I assume the caucus is still active in the building and so it gives them the opportunity to think about what another multi-year plan would look like and how to make sure that not all the money goes to the T. Well or use the concern about the T. in my mind to highlight the statewide crisis in public transit right. And right now every day in Boston we hear about either train is literally falling off the track catching on fire stuck somewhere and not moving. I mean there are just every day there's like a crisis in that system coupled with the reps and the centers themselves facing like two-hour commutes in something that should take a 30 minute commute when they're driving in that takes some of them as long to get to Boston as it does for me. Yeah I mean that's ridiculous. And they're 20 miles away. Right and they're like you know if I leave at six at night I'm home in like a half hour in the morning it takes me close to two and I actually think those experiences are very valuable to people who rely on regional transit because it's been our experience now they're having it too. And I think it opens up the conversation to the crisis in public transit coupled with our concern around climate and trying to get you know people to go into trains into buses into carpools. I think we're at a great moment. We you know as a legislature we've also passed the fair share amendment twice which would put a fee a four percent fee on incomes of over a million dollars specifically to go to pay for things like education and transportation it's not going to be enough we know it's not going to be enough so I think we're building momentum for you know recognizing we're in a public transit crisis and that's how I'm framing it so when I hear my colleagues talk about the MBTA I trade their MBTA for one RT and we do you know it's sort of like the whole western Massachusetts delegation from the Berkshires all the way to let's say Worcester or so are they all united on a regional vision for transportation and therefore organized to basically speak with one voice oh I think so push to make sure that for example in southeastern mass they're looking for the next installment they got a billion dollars for their south coast rail but they need at least another billion and the people up in the Boston area are trying to get trains to Lynn right and etc etc well what about us well I also think it's not it's not only about what about us it's also going to them and saying here us too right it's like and not but or because I think that's what I mean it's like a statewide issue now they are actually experiencing what we've always experienced with public transit that's what we have to let them know now you're in our shoes right and I think that I actually think passenger rail may be the issue in the west part of the state that we can we're all sort of congregating around and consolidating support around and that allows us to speak with one voice around public transit whether it's rail buses etc so I'm optimistic great yeah well I saw the governor's transportation plan he had put a commission together and he they published a plan and it's very robust it could be a little more robust but it's a very robust plan but a very big unanswered question is how are you gonna pay for it he left that for another day and that's because he doesn't want to talk about taxes and so that means that the members of the legislature have to put on the big boy pants and slacks and big girl and big girl is trying to get the slacks and so big boy pants and big girl slacks and work on the taxation question because you there's no free lunch absolutely not exactly there shouldn't be a free lunch we're never gonna get it if we're not prepared to pay for you know that's been my thing all along I'm not afraid to raise revenue I mean we have a lot of expenses and in the Third Hampshire district I hear about those expenses people like we need education we need transportation somebody's got to pay for it should be us right it's a public it has to be us we also have to push Washington to do their job because the majority of all of the gas taxes collected in the country go to the federal government right and then they get redistributed to the states that's so but they haven't raised those in decades as we hadn't for decades until what five years ago six years ago and we get a nickel well I'm sort of I'm exploring in conversation with people because gas tax is something that's being talked about and in Western Massachusetts that sort of makes people sad because it's a regressive tax it disproportionately affects people in rural areas because we drive more miles because we don't on public transit right so it's sort of a vicious cycle but I'm trying to think of it more as what we need to talk about in Boston is a carbon fee and we need to talk about it as starting with vehicles so a carbon fee and when you think about what is the practice of both a gas tax and a carbon fee someone goes with with the car you go to the gas station you fill up your tank with gas if it's a gas tax you're a couple cents to 15 cents more a gallon you're paying for it and that money goes into the general fund or it goes to transportation goes to the highway fine in a carbon fee if you're going to be doing that you go to put gas in your car it's more money per gallon and that money goes specifically to transportation projects that reduce greenhouse gases part of it part of it comes back to the consumer and in Western Massachusetts although there isn't really a taste for gas tax there is in the 30 Hampshire strong support for carbon fee and I'm not sure what the difference really is if the funds are going into these projects and there's a benefit to the individual consumers so I'm trying to think of I'm trying to raise this with folks in the house as have we thought about that this may be a good time to think about a carbon fee if we don't want to call it a carbon fee okay let's call it a transportation vehicle greenhouse gas fee but the process of acquiring it seems to be the same as a gas tax except it's a little bit more targeted to the climate emergency and I think that probably be a good thing so that's why I'm starting and it has a secondary benefit because it depresses the demand that's right because of the price price point it's a disadvantage price point goes up right other things look more attractive right and so therefore it drives you in the direction of reducing the amount of carbon emitted etc exactly it's like what we do with cigarettes right we raise the tax so that so and another variation on that is the Reggie yes so Reggie for those who at home who don't know what that is it's basically a fee that is attached at the wholesale level to the price of the inputs for creation of electricity and for large carbon producing energy systems and then that money is redistributed right back into alternative energy and other ways in which to reduce the amount of carbon that goes into the atmosphere carbon fee tax whatever you want to call it slash Reggie is a great strategy for helping the consumers help us with our public transportation and help us with climate change and I think now they're saying the Reggie from what I understand is also a multi-state compact it's multi-state not in the last right so it allows states to do something and not wait for the federal government and right now that's really important yeah because carbon doesn't stay within your boundaries right and I think that they're doing a Reggie now they're also developing one that may be specific around transportation there is so the governor to his credit signed on to this about eight months ago and within the next couple of years hopefully there'll be a plan around transportation Reggie so you know my thinking is it's not just a name change going from gas tax to a carbon fee but it actually sort of looks at what is the impact on the consumer of both but how can you maximize the benefit of it and also how can it benefit Western mass right because if you're saying that some of that money is going to go into projects that are going to reduce greenhouse gases and transportation that could mean more public buses and that gives people more options when they don't want to get out of the car and yeah absolutely it's a cycle that can work for us yeah and it's a values based system which is different than the than the values upon which our current system exactly and so if you really believe in this kind of decentralization and public transportation and you want to move in that direction you have to shift the paradigm this helps you and I think there may be support like the governor has a bill he has this climate readiness preparation program that basically he wants funded by a luxury real estate transaction fee that's like a fair share amendment for luxury housing right and there are a lot of communities in Massachusetts that want to have a transaction fee on real estate but they wanted to go to affordable housing but people are thinking about it that's it's like a carbon is he moving toward becoming an independent or something I mean those are very progressive policies what's he doing that I don't know I think it's really interesting that he's thinking about the transaction fee and climate change because he's saying I agree with these fees on luxury blank again to his credit he's opening his mind and looking at other other options so that's fantastic so let's go back to the budget that was great conversation but we need to know more about the budget you had some local priorities that you so I was able to take care of I was able to get a couple of what they call earmarks that special sort of line items for a couple of local places so we were able to get twenty five thousand dollars for the Musanti Health Center for some access programming I was able to get twenty five thousand dollars in for the Amherst Pellam North Hampton CCE program which is a project that the three towns are joining together to not only kind of aggregate their energy use to reduce the cost but to do it with a climate emergency in mind and to reduce their greenhouse gases and center Comerford was able to get an additional twenty five thousand dollars for that so we were able to gather a tag team and bring in fifty thousand for that project which is great and like I said even though I wasn't able to get that paid for tuition freeze I'm looking at that you mass line is another victory because we we were able to beat off a severe cut at the university very good and so let's shift focus a little bit here some things passed in the last hours of of the house activity before the roll in summer break some things passed and some things didn't yeah so to tell us what happened in the last couple of days so we did and then in the last week of the session we passed the budget that's forty three point one billion dollars and then two days later we passed a program that the speaker had said he wanted to do which was called greenworks which is this big program ten-year one bill it turns out to be one point three billion dollar program that would help municipalities do the kind of climate emergency work that they want to do but they can't afford to do when he was describing it to the Democratic caucus which is all the Democratic members of the house he said that he hears too many times from municipalities that they wish they could do x y or z that but they can't they're too busy making sure their employees have health care schools police so his idea was this should be a reserve for just municipalities and that pass and it passed with some amendments that are quite strong actually so there's all sorts of funding and programs within that program ones that support an electrified fleet like vehicles another one that rep robo from some of the submitted amendment that got passed that's a great one that says the priority will go to the projects that reduce the most greenhouse gases so it's not just geographic it's also who's reducing the most that passed last week I think that the Senate hasn't acted on yet but will and then we also they also brought forward package of bills on children's health and well-being and that passed the house and that included things like health insurance for children who are in DCF custody as they age out so between 18 and 26 making sure that folks who are in DCF custody continue to get their health care health care unbelievably important right another one around directories of providers if you ever tried to reach a provider and they said well here's the directory for your insurance and every person you call they're no longer there or they no longer accept that insurance they have a closed panel so half the directory doesn't even really exist it's called a ghost directory and so there's a part in that bill to require a cleaning up of the ghost directories with the hope that that makes it all more accessible so you really will really find people as opposed to sorry nobody's home right nobody's home or we'll be able to document the shortages which is when I think will happen with your mouth will you know the process of cleaning up will show that it's not just people's experience it's real to I mean I think both are real but it's important to provide both for action it has other pieces to it around mental health access for kids to make sure that they have access to behavioral health programs and another part that I like a lot which is getting the Health Policy Commission to assess the needs of families who have kids with complex medical needs these are kids who may be on feeding tubes and wheelchairs and trying to figure out so what are all the needs these kids have and do we have those resources for those families and so great piece of legislation I mean it took a bunch of like three or four bills maybe even more than that that had gone through the house pulled them together and made one package for the end of it and we were told like with greenworks that leadership's intention was that this would not be the last time we'd be dealing with climate change this session or children's health and well-being so that's good news very good and you've been chasing some bills that you put into the into the mix remember one from our last meeting on the show diapers yes how are we doing on the diapers well it's so I don't know when this show is going to tonight is it gonna show tonight I'm not sure so there's a diaper dry but the people are watching it tonight and we're on oh that's fantastic so yes I have a bill to create that with two other members of the legislature to create a diaper benefit program in the states because you can't use snap or wick to buy diapers we had a hearing it was a fantastic hearing on the executive director of the United Way of Hampshire County came to provide evidence as well as some other folks and I think the committee is pretty receptive but we'll see they haven't pulled on it yet so we don't know what's going on but right now in Hampshire County the United Way is doing a diaper drive so I think there's like 50 locations throughout the county and if someone wants to donate diapers that will eventually find their way to like the Amherst survival Center Northampton Survival Center Eastampton Community Center you donate to this drive they'll distribute them we did a drive in the house and in the Senate before the public hearing we did a one-month drive we had about 10 collection boxes president spoke I had one and Speaker Delio had one I'm not saying there was a competition there but maybe a healthy competition and then at the end of it of course there 160 reps and 40 senators so there was more on the house side well if you didn't then shame on you and I got to bring a lot of them actually back to the Amherst Survival Center because people said we don't know what to do with them I said I know exactly what to do and it was really interesting because the experience of the members who had donated it's very similar to the experience that people in our community have their first thing that they said was they had no idea how expensive they were and that's a good thing you want people to walk away with when you're trying to do a drive for awareness right now I'm recalling also that you worked on a bill that had to do with binary choice on licenses and government applications or so remind us what that's all about so that bill is known as the gender ex-bill okay because it would provide for a non-binary option on government forms and applications so that's driver licenses hopefully voter registration forms you know the revenue forms all applications even phishing licenses would offer an X for folks who don't identify as either male or female it passed the Senate I don't know if I was here the last time if it had passed the Senate I don't think so so Senator Cumberford's the Senate sponsor and she that thing took off and I think it was like 39 to 1 past the Senate which is fantastic who is the one I think it was I think never mind I think it was the senator from Westfield I have no I have no problem hey if you're gonna go on the record is the one yeah with Senator Humason and so it's in the house and I've introduced that with rep Marjorie Decker it's in a different committee than Senator Cumberford hers went through transportation we sort of really wanted ours to be in state administration because it's more than just driver's licenses and we wanted to include more than driver's license and we're hoping for hearing in the fall great with one minute to go what are your predictions for the fall oh I think there's gonna be more hearings because they didn't get through all there's you know 5,000 plus bills for higher education I think we're gonna see some legislation around sudden college closures and what we should do about those very important in our minds here in Amherst because of Hampshire College's situation yes which by the way is heading in a much much more positive direction thrilled that they're really re-envisioning and moving 10 Rosenthal did a spectacular job some of those key alums staff at the college the faculty everybody has been engaged yes so we'll see and I think they'll have a better idea they have a new president the other better idea and within a couple months what that looks like projecting out but that experience sort of triggered and engaged senator Cumberford and myself to really focus on the issue of sudden college closures in a bigger way we're both on the higher ed committee so we had a hearing on it we brought the commissioner out to discuss it and I expect we'll probably have some legislation because the governor submitted legislation which I think the legislature is tweaking and modifying and making better well it's great to have you here today what a lot of reporting a lot of activities so thank you very much thank you thanks for joining us this evening and if you missed part of this we're on again on Monday night so tune in then thank you again and we'll see you all soon thank you very much