2025-03-28 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Ways and Means
2025-03-28 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Ways and Means
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - And judiciary on matters that are concerning and important to each community that we represent. I do wanna make note though that we have a very,12 very, important agenda for us. We have at least 15 panels that are slated to testify. Each and every 1 of you I know has very important information to relate to the committee. But just by just by a point of explanation, each panel takes 3030 minutes for their testimony and allowing32 for questions and answers from the34 members of the committee. This hearing will be36 a minimum of 7 hours. So please38 keep that in mind because we wanna make sure we get through every single 1 of you,42 and we want to make sure each and44 every 1 of our members has ample opportunity to ask questions of each of48 you so we can better understand the budgetary needs of each of your52 agencies and commissions. So as I said earlier, I'm so excited to welcome you to Clinton to the historic town hall. You're all standing in the same room that president Jimmy Carter once addressed the town, and I'm very honored to be able to join senator Cronin and the committee to bring the state state house to the town of Clinton as we embark on this very important hearing to better understand what each of your budgetary needs are in what is a very unique and, difficult time when we're trying to manage our state budget. So thank you for being here. I look forward to, hearing from each of you, and I'm gonna turn it over to Senator Cronin for, some brief remarks
SPEAKER2 - and a welcome as well.
SPEAKER1 - Excellent. So, we're all going to144 be able to hear from Tab Administrator Mike Ward for146 a brief welcome. I do wanna just echo what the senators said in making all the efforts of the staff, and so many152 members of Town Hall, Joyce, who I know is here, was so instrumental in helping our staff set this up, Brian Ferrer, Chris, that's on sound,162 Mark, that's on tech, and of course, the, Clinton Police Department who were very generous with their time helping us accommodate parking. So thank170 you everybody. And with that, I I'm honored to turn it over to Michael Ward, town administrator for the town of Clinton, to offer brief remarks and and to welcome you all here.
SPEAKER3 - Thank you very much.
SPEAKER1 - Sorry, Mike. I just wanna Yes, sir. Briefly forgot 1 more housekeeping thing. We are joined by members of the committee from all across the state. So I will, turn it over to allow my, house colleagues to introduce themselves and to, and196 what district they're from, and, we'll do the same with the senate.
SPEAKER4 - Hi, everybody.
SPEAKER5 - Rep Kip Dickson, the second bar in school. Honored to be here, and we look forward to hearing from you.
SPEAKER6 - Representative Steve Owens, the 20 ninth in Middlesex,
SPEAKER4 - which is most of Watertown
SPEAKER6 - and parts of West Bainbridge, North Carolina.
SPEAKER7 - Good morning, everyone. Judith Garcia, state representative for the 11 Suffolk District representing Chelsea and Direct.
SPEAKER8 - Good morning. State representative of
SPEAKER9 - the Tah School of First and the District. I'm a regular.
SPEAKER10 - Good morning everybody. My name is Steven Exavos. I'm the state representative for the district247 on Cape Cod. Representative Townsville, Bourne, Sandwich, and Barst proudly.
SPEAKER11 - Good morning, Kelly Pease. State representative for the Fourth Handling District, which is
SPEAKER12 - Good morning, everyone. Joe Coverford. I'm the state senator for the Hampshire Frank Wooster District. That's 25 cities and towns in Western And More Central Massachusetts. I'm the vice chair of the senate.
SPEAKER13 - Good morning, senator Pavel Pajano representing the first SS district of the great cities of April, Arlington, and Delaware. Thank you.
SPEAKER4 - Good morning. I'm Russell Holmes. I represent, parts of Boston, 6 Suffolk. So parts of Mattapan, Dorchester, Hyde Park, Rosendale, and JP.
SPEAKER2 - Good morning. I'm representative Anna Howard. I represent the 17 Middlesex District. That's Lowell in Tewkesbury.
SPEAKER14 - Good morning. I am state representative Margaret Scarsdale. I represent the First Middlesex District, which Donsdable, Groton, Precincts 2 And 3, Lunenburg, Precincts A, C, And D, Federal, and Dallas.
SPEAKER15 - Good morning. Natalie Higgins, state representative in the Fourth Worcester District, the city of Leominster.
SPEAKER7 - Good morning. Lindsay Sabinosa, state representative for the First Hampshire District, which is the City of Northampton and Mandy Communities in Western Hampshire County.
SPEAKER1 - I think that's everybody. We have a few members that will be arriving late, so they may, introduce themselves later
SPEAKER2 - in the day. But with that, I want to turn
SPEAKER1 - it over to my board.
SPEAKER3 - Great. Thank you. Good morning. It is my pleasure on behalf of the select board and all of our staff to take a moment to extend a warm welcome to you all for coming to Clinton429 Town Hall and experiencing our431 wonderful community today. I would also like to publicly express my appreciation to representative Megan Kilcoyne and senator John Cronin for for your support and confidence in bringing this event to our beautiful facility. The auditorium we are in has hosted presidents, senators, congressmen, state officials, community show, public hearings, school graduations, and most importantly, each year, it is a place where members of this community participate in their democracy, to vote in elections, and to conduct business at town meetings. I am proud that we can add an official gathering of the Massachusetts General Court to that list, where you are bringing the democratic legislative process directly to the people all across the Commonwealth. As a municipal official, we value the tradition in Massachusetts of local self481 determination. We we also greatly appreciate and need the partnership with state and federal government who provide us the tools and the resources to deliver the critical services that define the type of society we choose to have here in Massachusetts. And because of that, there are so many wonderful things happening in Clinton. More and more people are discovering us and our population is growing. We have rebounded from the pandemic and continue to look for ways to upgrade the built environment, such as our recent downtown revitalization. The select board has prioritized local businesses to strengthen economic growth, and the Clinton School Committee is embarking on the construction of a new middle school. All of this points to a bright future with the vision of job creation, educational opportunities, and enhanced standard of living for those in our community. As public servants, we always strive for ways to539 improve in order to leave things a little better than when we to continue partnership with all of you and state government to assist us in our mission and expand upon this foundation of And
Please come back often to enjoy all Clinton has to offer. You will always be very welcome. And have a great day, and I thank you565 again for for your time. Take care. Good luck.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you so569 much, Mike Ward. And, like571 the senator said, I know that you have, had a very long career here at Clinton Town Hall, and we thank you for your service both in Clinton and in the state of Massachusetts579 even before that. So thank you very much for those kind words. And, with that we will move on to the meat of this hearing and start with secretary Reedy of the Executive Office of Public Safety. The floor is yours mister secretary.
TERRENCE REIDY - EOPSS - Thank you. Good morning, Representative Kilcoyne and Senator599 Cronin, and distinguished members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. My name is Terrence Reidy, and I605 am the secretary of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. Before I get into my prepared remarks, I just wanna echo and recognize Administrator Ward. It is meaningful for me, having grown up in Worcester it be here in Clinton today. Some of my fondest memories, and I know this will strike home with, Senator Cronin and Representative Kilcoyne, is being a young kid with my parents and my brothers, going to see the Jugger Punch band at the Old Timer Pub And Restaurant. And638 I know we spent many of Saint Patty's Day at that location. And for those of646 you who don't know that that pub and restaurant, it is a landmark, here650 up in Clinton.
I have a lot of names going through my mind, with the folks in Clinton will recognize, John Gorman. John Gorman started the American Legion baseball program here in the late 80s. And he created it, ran it, and it was a tremendous, tremendous program. I had the good fortune of, when I was673 in high school, playing American Legion baseball, and the team I was on had five kids from Clinton who I'm sure people in this room will recognize. Sean Gorman, Roger Arsenal, Kevin Labbe, Cesar Vega, Andy Garifoli. Some of my greatest memories have a connection back to Clinton. And right up until the present, as my son works out right around the street on Stone Street, at Sean Trainor's baseball facility on Stone Street, it is703 a tremendous, tremendous town and tremendous area. And I know some of the folks in my team have never been out here, and they start shaking when they get out to Central Mass. And I had to, no. That's not a dog. That those are cows.
And I know Representative Kilcoyne, I'm gonna do a plug that I'm sure you're aware of, and Senator Cronin you too. If you have a chance to come back or even today, Rota Farm. If you have young kids and want ice cream and you want to see goats, go to Rota Farm. Meadowbrook Orchard, which is a tremendous, and these are in Sterling, is another tremendous, tremendous restaurant with the greatest brunch around here. And then finally, if you have young kids like I had, I spent every Saturday and Sunday up at Davis Farm. And there isn't another location that is better for young kids and families than that establishment. And I know that both of you would agree with my assessment. So this is a special place, and I'm really, really honored to be here with my team before you today.
I wanna thank you for the opportunity to talk about the Healey Driscoll administration's FY House 1 budget proposal for the secretariat and its agencies. I'm joined here by my team, including Deputy Secretary Susan Terry, chief strategy CFO Emi Joy Maffeo, undersecretary of criminal justice Andrew Peck, under787 secretary of law enforcement, Gina Kwon,789 under secretary of forensic science and technology, Kerry Collins, Department of Corrections commissioner, Shawn Jenkins, parole chair, Tina Hurley, SOB chair, Megan McLaughlin, Massachusetts state police colonel, Jeffrey Noble, MPTC executive director, Colonel Rick Rathbun, OGR executive director Kevin Stanton, fire marshal John Davin, MEMA director Don Brantley, adjunct adjutant general Gary Keith could not be here. He is in Kenya,, but colonel Jay Overton is here in his stead. Crime lab director Kristen Sullivan, the CJIS commissioner Jamie Gaggen, 911 executive director Frank Posniak, and chief medical examiner, Mindy Hall.
The reason I have all my team here is I think with the questions that I anticipate, I don't want to be in between your questions and the people who are the worker bees, who know their agencies in and out, so they are all here and and they're prepared to answer your questions. If there are any questions that they can't answer or would need a little more time, my team will follow-up with each of you and we will have either a meeting or written response. I862 know the time is limited, so I just want to encourage you, if you can't get your question fully answered, my team is available. But that's the reason why they're all here, is to speak to you directly. By prioritizing strategic investments and maximizing efficiencies, the Healey Driscoll administration's fiscal year 2026 budget reaffirms a deep commitment to delivering essential public safety services while building a foundation for long term resiliency and growth.
From strengthening emergency891 preparedness and providing resources to combat hate crimes, to address emerging threats and supporting a pipeline to the next generation of public safety professionals. The $1.7 billion budget for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security represents $106.7 million or 7% increase over the fiscal year 2025 GAA. H 1 recommends $56 million for the executive office, which is a $9.7 million reduction below the FY 25 GAA. The reduction is driven by administrative and staffing reductions and reductions to grant programs, including nonprofit security grant, Shannon grants, human trafficking prevention necessitated by resource constraints. As we look back on the milestones achieved in 2024, today's summary serves not only as a testament to the decisions of the EOPSS team, but also a foundation for the work ahead. Together, we remain steadfast in our mission to protect communities across Massachusetts with a shared commitment to service and safety.
In 2024, EOPSS advanced public safety by delivering a series of educational initiatives designed to foster collaboration, share knowledge, and develop innovative solutions to critical challenges. These efforts included hosting a third annual emerging adult summit, which brought together over 280 participants to explore improvements and enhance engagements for justice involved983 young adults. And launching Massachusetts first emerging adult leadership academy to provide law enforcement and community based organizations with the advanced training and partnership opportunities. In addition, EOPSS convened a civil rights symposium for 200 law enforcement officers to promote equitable practices in preventing and prosecuting hate crimes. Public safety during elections was prioritized with the election1009 security summit, which provided nearly 300 police chiefs and command level staff with strategies to safeguard the electoral process.
In July, EOPSS convened the first ever campus safety and security summit, bringing together nearly 150 safety officials and law enforcement personnel to address the challenges maintaining public safety and upholding first amendment rights during campus demonstrations and protests. The successful event was hosted by EOPSS in collaboration with the Massachusetts State Police Fusion Center and the Boston Regional Intelligence Center. And offered a comprehensive program of threat briefings, case studies, and panel discussions. EOPSS also advanced groundbreaking efforts to address emerging narcotics threats to the deadly white powder symposium, collectively educating over 750 first responders and service providers on the dangers of this emerging threat and strategies to combat its impact on communities.
In 2025, EOPSS will host its first ever victim service summit. This one day event will bring together survivors, law enforcement victim service providers, criminal justice professionals to deepen our collective understanding of the survivor experience, and explores ways to strengthen collaborations, advocacy, and support. Through these efforts, EOPSS reaffirms its role as a leader in public safety innovation, equipping stakeholders with knowledge and resources necessary to protect and serve the communities across the Commonwealth. In 2024, EOPSS and its agencies prioritized innovative reentry programming to strengthen Massachusetts' nation leading position in reducing recidivism. By fostering collaboration with community partners, leveraging technology, and designing programs tailored to the needs of justice involved individuals, EOPSS demonstrated its commitment to supporting successful reintegration and breaking the cycle of incarceration.
The year saw the launch of several groundbreaking initiatives. In addition to the newly established emerging adult leadership academy, the parole and the Department of Corrections launched the Massachusetts Parole Orientation Program. A tablet based educational initiative introduced to all DOC facilities to empower incarcerated individuals with the knowledge and tools to navigate the parole process and prepare for life under supervision in their communities. Similarly, the DOC's peace program at MCI Framingham, focused on rehabilitative mentoring and life skills developed for incarcerated women, while the newly created persevere coding program at North Central Correctional Institute provides incarcerated individuals with in demand job skills, mentoring, and job placement services to ensure long term employability upon reentry.
EOPSS also highlighted in challenges of reentry through the first of its1188 kind reentry simulations, giving legislators and stakeholders a1192 hands on understanding of the1194 systemic barriers faced by returning citizens. These programs underscore Massachusetts' commitment to reducing recidivism by addressing systemic barriers, empowering individuals, and fostering partnerships to ensure justice involved individuals are equipped for successful reintegration into their communities. In 2024, EOPSS leveraged advanced technology to enhance public safety, improve operational efficiency, and protect communities across Massachusetts. These efforts earned national recognition, including being ranked number 1 in the nation for innovation in the use of emerging technologies by the center of digital government. The award highlighted initiatives such as the cross tracking system, which provides transparent aggregated criminal justice data to inform public understanding in policy. Other ongoing projects include DECIUS' broken modernization, the enterprise multifactor authentication, and further demonstrate EOPSS' commitment to innovation.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner expanded its telepathology program with a robotic mortuary assistant, ensuring uninterrupted examinations through remote technology. These initiatives underscore EOPSS commitment to leveraging cutting edge tools and collaboration to advance public safety and operational excellence across the state. As EOPSS continues to improve and to innovate, it remains committed to maintaining its leadership position in the digital transformation of public safety. In 2024, we also welcomed new team members. Governor Healey appointed Jeffrey Noble as the first external superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police. Shawn Jenkins was appointed commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction, bringing extensive experience and forward thinking approach focused on safety, staff, wellness, and enhanced rehabilitative programs.
We welcome two new leaders to the MPTC. Rick Rathbun has been named the MPTC's new executive director, and Amy Fanikos is promoted to deputy executive director. And for the third consecutive summer, EOPSS welcomed a diverse group of more than 50 students who are fully immersed in 17 different teams and agencies across the secretariat. Launched in 2022, the paid summer internship initiative promotes an equitable pathway for individuals interested in pursuing a career in public safety. The program aims to recruit a new and diverse generation of public safety professionals and provide hands on experience public safety. We had close to 600 applicants for this summer for those positions. Given the time constraints, I can't get into all the great work that each of these agencies are doing, but my full written testimony will include agency by agency summary for the FY 26 H1 budget. We look forward to partnering with the legislature. We could not do it without you, and during this budget season especially, to ensure that our agencies have the resources and the needs to advance in our collective mission.
And I recognize, and I think we all recognize in this room, as the state house and the governor's office, the unsure times we have federally. It's a significant issue. Doesn't just affect our secretariat. It affects every secretariat. It affects every individual in this Commonwealth. I know you are all keenly aware of how, especially with budgets, things can change in a minute overnight. And the only way, from my perspective, and I know the governor and lieutenant governor feel this way, is with the bonds, and collaboration, and communication we have because it is going, not gonna sugarcoat it. It is going to be traumatic, and it's gonna affect us all, and it's gonna be incumbent upon all of us to really step forward and work together to find solutions in a rapid rapid time period if things happen in Washington that affect us and our citizens. So with that, I turn it back to the senator and the representative. I'm available for questions, as is my team. And my practice has been when when there are questions relative to a specific agency, I will bring that agency head up and and hopefully, we can answer your questions. And if we can't, we will get back to you. But thank you for this time. I really, really appreciate it.
REP KILCOYNE - Mr. Secretary, thank you so much. And, thank you as well as highlighting some of the many wonderful aspects of the district I am so proud to represent. Even, addressing some of my other communities, Sterling, right down the road is in my district, as well as Lancaster, Boylston, Berlin, and and part of Northborough. I used to work at Davis's Farmland, so back in the day before I, got into politics, it's a wonderful place. So I appreciate it and your commitment to baseball. Fuller Field, as we like to say in Clinton, is the oldest baseball field in America.
SPEAKER17 - I've lost
SPEAKER16 - many a game in Springfield.
SPEAKER15 - Yeah. So I'm sure
SPEAKER1 - we could wax poetic about Clinton All Day, but we will get to the meat of the subject. First, before we get into questions, I do wanna acknowledge a few members that just joined us. We have representative, Montano here. I saw, there they are down there. We have representative Jim Hawkins here, and we have representative Souza here as1526 well. And then, senator, you wanna do you senders give me 2?
SPEAKER18 - Yeah. I also wanna represent, recognize
SPEAKER2 - Messer's.
SPEAKER1 - Mister secretary, I do have a question for you, and I just wanna remind our our members here today. If the house members have a question, please text me. Senate members, please text senator Cronin.
KILCOYNE - But, one thing I just wanted to ask you, and I know you addressed it a bit in your remarks earlier. Right here in Clinton, we're right down the road from Susan Baranowski Prison and MCI Shirley. We have a lot of members of the DOC that live right here. And across the state, there are various facilities all across the department. So I just wanted to know, you know, what do you feel have been the biggest challenges that you see with that department, and how do you feel that a budget proposal will help address some of those challenges?
REIDY - The main, and there's a number of challenges, and I'm not gonna be begin and minimize or really focus on which is most important, because they're all collectively important. It is recruiting new correctional officers in leadership and keeping them. Just from the perspective of looking at it from the correctional officer standpoint, wellness. And that cuts across1610 not just the DOC, but all first responders, police, fire, EMTs. I can't think of a more difficult job. And sometimes because it's behind the walls, folks don't recognize the sacrifices that individual correctional officers and their families must maintain. Because to be blunt, they're dealing with folks and maintaining the health and safety of folks who can't maintain outside the walls. So it is a difficult, difficult job, behind the walls.
The stress level, the mental health issues, the substance abuse issues are all problematic. So bringing in folks to make sure we have staffing and making sure the folks that are working for us have opportunities to focus on wellness. I think everybody knows that our incarceration rate in Massachusetts is extremely low. It's probably the lowest it's been in 30 years. So with that and with some of the shut closing down of some of the facilities, helps with wellness as far as forced overtime. But it's still a difficult job. It is not your average 9 to 5 job. I think, the budget within the constraints that we've talked about, helps. But it's really hard on those families and on those employees what they have to deal with day in and day out, because they're sometimes caught in the middle. Because I think just like in this room, just like in the public, there's a wide range of opinions of how the DOC should work, where the focus should be.
So I'm gonna ask our new commissioner, Shawn Jenkins, to come up next to me to to elaborate with some of the changes that he is implementing under his leadership, and following through someone who I love dearly and respect, Carol Mici. Shawn worked with, Sheriff Koutoujian for a long time. He worked in the Worcester House of Correction for a long time, and he brings a unique perspective to state corrections. But let me turn it over to Commissioner Jenkins.
SHAWN JENKINS - EOPSS - Thank you very much. Representative, I think I'll maybe to go to your point about Souza Baranowski and maybe some of the stuff that we've implemented there, recently. And I know we you have come in towards Souza with us, and we've had numerous discussions about Souza Baranowski as well. But, you know, one of the things that we are really trying to focus in on in Souza is our maximum security facility. And so, as the maximum security facility, we're really working hard to decrease the population there, the number of people that are currently at that location. For an organization the size of the Department of Correction, it's our feeling that there are probably too many individuals at this location, so we're working hard to decrease that amount of people that are there. That is kind of our first step.
Our second step is really, we've instituted a new management team there. This management team is more focused on security operations and have a more of a larger and more robust background in security operations for this location. We have worked really hard at removing a lot of metal products at the facility. Those associated with foot lockers, lighting areas, and, have removed a number of products that could somehow be manufactured and used inappropriately. We have worked really hard at communication there with robust roll call implementations. And making sure that we're communicating effectively with staff and that we're effectively communicating what our mission is for that particular, day or shift. The other thing, I think it's important to note, is that we have worked hard on our pedestrian trap procedures and making sure that we are screening folks appropriately, staff as well as visitors that are coming into the facility as a maximum security facility. And then lastly, I think I've spoken with some of you about this. We haven't implemented an RRT team there, rapid response team. It's made up of 10, sometimes 11 members, that is available to help, you know, quell any disruptions or any issues that develop and and really ask as a support or provide support for the line staff that are currently there. And that team still exists since the incident in the fall.
KILCOYNE - Thank you, commissioner. Thank you for providing a little bit more insight on the incredibly important work you do. So very I really appreciate you going into more detail. And Mr. Secretary, thank you as well.
I'm gonna turn it so do you have a question? Alright. So I'm gonna turn it to some other members for a few questions, mister secretary, if that's alright.
SPEAKER16 - And I can have commissioner Jenkins there if if there are do you have some questions if if that works easier or you can take a seat, whatever.
SPEAKER1 - We'll see how it goes. You know, they all the members, I'm sure, have various questions, so but we appreciate you being available and having your team ready to answer anything should it arise. So I'm gonna turn it over to representative Owens for a question first.
REP OWENS - Alright. Thank you, Rep Kilcoyne and thank you, Mr. Secretary for being here and bringing your whole team. Really great to see you out here. I have a kind of specific and general quest, specific question that leads to a general question. And hopefully, it'll be easy to answer. Earlier this week, a student at Tufts, a graduate student from Tufts University was snatched by ICE blocks from where my district ends in Somerville. I just would like, some information from you, whether you can confirm any state dollars were used in that operation or if the funds in H1 could be used in1967 similar1967 operations, the ones that are dedicated to1969 your secretariate? Thanks.
REIDY - There was no state involvement, Massachusetts State Police,1975 there1975 are other agencies involved in that initiative. I think we all recognize what1981 the federal government is doing relative to ICE, not just in Massachusetts, and how they're being used. State law precludes local law enforcement and state law enforcement are acting in a civil capacity. They can work collaboratively with all our federal partners relative to a criminal investigation, and that has always been the case for multiple administrations in Washington. So nothing has changed. There is no funding in the governor's budget proposal to allow state law enforcement first responders to go against the law in Massachusetts. They're precluded from acting, whether it's ICE detainers or whatever that action was in Medford. They are not allowed to do that. And that is the rules for the state police and that hasn't changed.
Thank you. You're welcome.
SPEAKER1 - Alright. We have a few other questions from house members right now. And were any senate I don't think we have any senate members yet. Okay. That could change, but, right now we're gonna turn it over to representative Smola for a question.
REP SMOLA - Secretary, thank you very much for your testimony here today, and certainly for bringing your team out. I think you brought the largest team to one of our Ways and Means hearings, but we're grateful for that because I think it's helpful to the committee members, not only to see the faces, but, that you're prepared here to address the committee's concerns. One of the things that I picked up in your testimony was you had mentioned that you, as a result of, the budget recommendations was one of the contributing factors was resource constraints. And I'd like you to elaborate a little bit on that. I mean, one of the missions of the Committee on Ways and Means is, when there are resource constraints, right, that we try to identify them, and we try and figure out, well, how do we do better with the things that we have? And our priority is to make sure that those resources go to the places that they are most needed. And, nobody, we were joking prior to the start of the hearing, nobody ever comes to us and asks us for less money, right? So, can you give me a little bit of an idea what you mean by resource constraints and where we are lacking in terms of what the governor has proposed under your secretariat and where we need to do better?
REIDY - Yes. Thank you, representative. I think we know we're in tough financial times. And what we've tried to do with the Executive Office of Public Safety's budget request is to balance the needs to be able to sustain the most important initiatives under our secretariate, and we attacked it a couple different ways. Sometimes it's raising fees, which I know is unpopular. Some of it is cutting back and trying to be fiscally responsible knowing that there could be some uncertain2167 waters coming ahead. And it fits into not just our budget proposal, but also all the other secretariats with the governor overseeing it. My chief financial officer is Emi Joy Maffeo. Let me have her talk to you about the specifics that we had. Of course, we'd love to have as much money as possible and continue the great work we're doing. But we've tried to be responsible and tried to maintain, as best we can the core essential public safety functions of my agencies in my secretariate. But let me have Emi address you.
EMI MAFFEO - EOPSS - Thank you, sir. So the governor's H1 budget overall is economically sustainable. It's fiscally irresponsible given the constraints. But to achieve a plan, we had to make some hard decisions within our secretariat. I can assure you that the dollars invested in public safety are being spent as wisely as possible. We are constantly auditing ourselves, looking for opportunities to get more for less, do more for less. But, as you all know, as members of Ways and Means, there's you know, you can only spend every dollar once. So some of the things that drove our growth, which is about 7% over the last year GAA, was largely moving collective bargaining costs that were funded in one time reserves off budget. In some cases, compared to some other secretariats, our agreements are off cycle. So for some agencies, we had two years of growth built in at a single point in time.
Beyond that, we have a large healthcare increase for a new DOC health care contract. I know HHS has already had the opportunity to testify, so you all have heard that healthcare costs are increasing pretty astronomically, certainly faster than the pace of general inflation. And it is typical for us when we see new large contracts to sort of see a jump in growth in the first year and then sort of the sense of savings in the out year since we negotiate rates for about five year periods depending on the certain agreement. So I'll say, this is our best possible proposal for what's affordable to us. Again, challenging decisions had to be made. In some cases, we were looking to downsize. In other cases, we were looking to say, you know, what programs are popular? What can we measure success on? How can we increase dollars where we know that we're seeing tremendous output from them? So happy to go through any specific accounts or agencies, but, generally, it was a tough fiscal year, but we're very happy where we ended up.
SMOLA - I appreciate that, and thank you. And we'll talk about that, you know, post this hearing today, certainly. Last question or point to bring up, secretary. ICE was brought up by my colleague previous to me. I recognize this is a highly politically charged issue, right? Courts are gonna be involved, it's the federal administration. It's a change in approach and policy relative to migrants and to going after individuals, whether they're, you know, classified as, you know, serious criminals or what have you. But I've got a basic question about this. Is there something that the commonwealth should be doing that it is not doing that will alleviate the method or approach, the controversial approach, right now that seems to be dominating the landscape of everything that we're talking about here in Massachusetts?
Is there something that the commonwealth should be doing that would make this, at least on some level, better than what it is. And I recognize there's gonna be people that say, no matter what, it's not better. But whether people like it or not, there's a new federal administration. This is their approach. We can debate that approach all day long. Again, I want to put the politics of that aside. I'm talking about strictly from a legislator's question in the body that works in a bipartisan way to try and figure out problems, trying to do the best we can. You had just talked about tightening belts, right? You have a difficult budget year, you got to make tough decisions. Is there something that the Commonwealth can or should be doing that would help this process the way it is unfolding now, or is it just, nope, there's nothing that we should be doing, we have no option, sorry, it's just the way it is?
REIDY - Thank you, representative. I used to work in the gang unit in the Suffolk County DA's office when I when I began my career, and this this would have been in the late 90s. There wasn't a bigger, more productive partner in the cases I was handling and my office was handling than ICE. It was a strong relationship just like with DEA, FBI, ATF. They were valuable partners focusing on some of the most violent criminals in our communities, and they were an immense, immense help that saved lives. Now, my experience is not as an immigration attorney and not on the civil side. It's relative to violent criminals who are breaking the laws, where ICE is also focused on. I think there is common ground among some folks. I recognize there's gonna be extremes on both sides. But I think at this stage that the major issue for Massachusetts relative to individuals who have been convicted of crimes or charged with crimes is the Lunn decision. The SJC decision on Lunn is a significant issue. And we have spoken to federal authorities, and they recognize that that's an issue, relative to criminals. And again, the governor, and the Senate, and the House are gonna have to discuss this. I know there are some bills that that have been proposed.
But if you're asking for one single thing that we could do, and I'm not talking about Immigration's focus on folks that have have no2559 record on the civil side, I'm talking about people who are in the criminal justice system. It's having a discussion, and a debate, and a decision of what the legislature and the governor can do relative to Lunn. It's what the SJC asked when they decided that case, but that would be my focus, representative. It's that decision, which could, potentially alleviate some of the stressor in the press, pressure, that seems to be building between not just Massachusetts and the federal government, but a lot of states. But we're the ones that have that Lunn decision, that could, and I see some value in in the sense of what ICE has spoken about of not wanting to go into the communities. And I recognize everything I say, it could change in a heartbeat relative to Washington. But what their focus is is that if individuals who have detainers and have paperwork to be removed from the country, if they don't have to go into neighborhoods and into homes to apprehend those individuals, and they can get them whether it's at the police station, the house of correction, or the DOC, it's safer for everyone. But it's the Lunn2640 decision. And I'm not minimizing anyone anyone's perspective on it. We need to have a discussion and a debate on what to2648 do, if anything, on that particular SJC case.
SPEAKER9 - Thank you very much.
SPEAKER18 - I'd like to recognize senator Feeney
SPEAKER2 - for the first question.
SEN FEENEY - Thank you, Senator Cronin. And, thank you, secretary and to your incredible team, for the amazing work that they do every day on behalf of the Commonwealth. I have a rather rather discrete question but significant, when it comes to budget. Next year, actually in this fiscal year, FY '26, we're gonna see FIFA World Cup come to the Commonwealth, specifically, the implications for the commonwealth, political implications. Certainly, a lot of folks, international, will be coming into the commonwealth, public safety, specifically. Does this budget reflect
REIDY - The short answer, it's not contained in this budget. I share your concerns. The FIFA event will be a tremendous event for Massachusetts if we have the proper funding, and the funding primarily should be coming from the federal government. Boston is the lead city on this, but I have major, major concerns if we don't have the funding and deemed like, where are we gonna be in a couple years geopolitically? It is a massive undertaking for everybody, not just law enforcement. We all saw what happened before the national championship game in New Orleans. A lone wolf. Now you're right about the reference to, like, seven Super Bowls. I believe there's supposed to be a fan event potentially on the Boston Common or Boston City Hall going after hours for, like, 29 days, is it? 29 days or so, from, like, 2 in the afternoon to early morning hours.
There's significant, significant public safety concerns that we're preparing for. There are a lot of teams and a lot of work tracks. We are going to absolutely need federal funding. And those are the representations that the working groups has received from our federal partners. If we don't have that, it's going to be a significant, significant issue that we're gonna have to address. And and I don't wanna speak on behalf of Boston because a lot of this, I know it's gonna be Gillette Stadium and a lot of events in Boston. But there are also gonna be surrounding colleges involved and events for the teams who are gonna be practicing. It is a major financial undertaking that we are going to have significant issues if the federal government doesn't hold true of what they've been representing to not just us, but because it's across the country. But depending on what teams we get, could also add another level of safety issues. But the communication and the work with the state police, Boston police, local police, fire, EMTs, MEMA's involved, federal partners, is extensive, but it's gonna come down to finances, senator.
FEENEY - Thank you. Thank you, secretary. I just I'm deeply, deeply concerned, to make sure that that funding is appropriated, so that we can keep the events safe.
REIDY - Thank you, Senator, I see it the exact same way as you. If the federal government steps up and holds true to their promises, I'm not gonna sleep at night, but I'll have a little rest. But we need those federal funds in order to do this right and keep2950 people safe.
SPEAKER3 - Thank you. Thank you.
2956 SPEAKER182956 -2956 Senator2956 Comerford.
SEN COMERFORD - Thank you, secretary. I wanna start by saying that you have been a great friend to Western Massachusetts numbers of times since I was elected. And thank you2970 to you and your team. Although I think2972 we still hold a grudge because of the fire marshal, who we miss in Northampton. And let me please also say that the state2980 police's embrace of the blue envelopes is very much appreciated in Western Mass, as is the work
REIDY - That is such a great program.
COMERFORD - It's a great program. And they they led, right? They led without the legislation, and that was really important, and hopefully we'll catch up, frankly. And I wanna say that the work of MEMA in Western Mass is particularly important. And, while I won't ask a question about it, I am very worried about what we're hearing about3007 FEMA cuts. And then3009 I look at the budget, and I think, oh my heavens, right? We need NEMA in Western Mass, for their excellent work on the ground. So perhaps that can be another conversation.
REIDY - Says he has it all under control, and you're good in Weston, Mass.
COMERFORD - Oh, I love it, you know? That is a good thing, and they are, of course, superhuman, but I do worry about their budget, which already sustained a cut, right? And which I understand. And now if we think about the gutting of FEMA, potentially, like we've gutted USAID at the federal level, I just, I think all of us, I would imagine my colleagues, and I rely on MEMA. In Western Mass, they are particularly necessary. But I wanted to talk, and you're not gonna be surprised about this, about police training. So as you know, in the small communities, we really rose to train reserve or part time officers and we wanted to do that. And I'm grateful to colleagues and the legislature for supporting some bridge funding. And now we're facing, I believe, in this budget, secretary, an increased cost.
So I think if I'm correct, the amount to train a police officer is now $6,000 for a municipality3086 rising up from 3,200.3088 So that was a concern for our chiefs3092 in Western Mass. And then on top of that, in the governor's H1 proposal, we're seeing some pretty significant cuts to co-responders. We see a zeroing out of the equitable approaches to public safety, and a number of other related items. And our chiefs are really worried about this. And so I'm wondering if you could help us understand the thought behind this. And if we were to want to get it back to that $3,200 number, what's the price tag for that? It's not only Western Mass chiefs who will have to pay this increased number. We just have incredibly small budgets to be able to absorb this.
REIDY - No. And we recognize the pain of that proposal for not just Western Mass but across the state. It's the financial reality that the fee hadn't changed from $3,200, I think it might have been 20 years, but I can double check that figure? It's a figure that comes in line with what the operational cost for the MPTC is. And I know you folks all know the drastic change of the priorities of the MPTC and how it's expanded to folks, that weren't just your average, police officers. So, it was an area in the budget that we hadn't been changed for a significant amount of time. It is not, they're still not going to make money. It's not making money on the backs of the police departments or the local governments. It is to maintain the quality of the training and to standardize training. And let me have Emi Joy just speak relative to the particular budgetary dynamics that you spoke about.
MAFFEO - Thank you for the question. So to answer your question specifically, the cost of this shift is about $2.8 million. It was not made lightly. Again, back to the tough fiscal year picture, I think what we've really been trying to deliver as an agency at MPTC is more regionally distributed trainings and more access to more trainings. We wanna reduce municipal wait. We wanna reduce travel time to trainings. So one of the challenging decisions we had to make is that we thought it was important to create more regional distribution. And the hope is that with reduced travel costs, with reduced pull from service, with reduced overtime to fill, the folks who you would be losing to their training hours, we hope that that costs less than3253 the financial increase. I will still say we believe3257 that the cost of training each officer, the tuition, the true cost is over 10,000, so there still is a state subsidy on each individual officer. But we really needed to bring the cost of tuition in line with the service provided.
COMERFORD - I can totally understand this from a budgetary perspective. I guess I'll just say two very quick things. 1 is, you know, not only, and you know this secretary, not all communities are created equal with their ability to pay. Leiden of 700 people, you know, 3,200 versus 6,000 is a huge delta for them. So that's one. And number 2, I embrace and want the regional training opportunities. I'll just say, I hope we can continue a conversation about the Greenfield Community College training program that we were pretty far on before it had to be paused. That would be an unbelievable gift to small communities in Franklin County that do not have the ability to send police officers for the kind of training that you want and that I want. So I think both of those things, maybe a rural differential, but then also if we could stand up that training program, and have Greenfield Community College embrace it for all of Franklin County and Northern Berkshire County, Northern Worcester County, I think there would be some pain relief, and actually also Hampshire County. Real pain relief, at this pretty intense time for police budgets municipally.
REIDY - Greenfield, did a presentation to the MPTC board, a couple months back. They received some suggestions from the chiefs and the other folks on the committee, and gave them some contacts to speak with, who have run their own academies, not just out of college universities or campuses that would, I think, help their proposal. There's also a significant issue of trying to keep the training uniform throughout the state. And some of the concerns the committee had is if we're expanding, are they gonna lose some of that consistency? And that was a major issue. And also the presentation, they need to come back at the appropriate time. And I know it was all falling on the Greenfield, the poor chief in
COMERFORD - He's a great guy.
REIDY - He's a great guy. But we gave him some contacts during the course of his presentation as well as afterward where we're gonna kind of work him so he can kind of firm up the his proposal. Not his, but Greenfield's proposal. I think it was probably more all encompassing than he realized how hard it is, but he's gonna be able to speak to the folks at Northeastern, up at Merrimack, and at Quinsig in Worcester that I think will help things go. But I do recognize the need.
SPEAKER12 - That's it. Thank you so much, secretary. Yep.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, senator. We're now gonna turn it over to representative Kelly Pease for a question.
REP PEASE - Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Appreciate you being here today. And thank you, Senator Comerford, because I have that exact question for my police chiefs out there in Westfield and Southampton. But what I'm gonna ask about is the closure of Concord. I believe that was supposed to end up saving us some money on facilities, and I see that there's a 7% increase in facilities this year. So I guess, when can we look to capitalize on some of that saving from the closure of the facility so we can put it to better use, I guess?
REIDY - It's not just the savings in closing the facility. Concord was an3510 extremely old facility and the maintenance projections in the future were gonna be astronomical. But let me, I'm gonna have commissioner Jenkins and then Emi speak to you in regards to the finance. But the benefits of of the closure of Concord, Commissioner.
JENKINS - Yes. Thank you. As the secretary indicated, Concord in particular, some of our facilities are very old, and require significant costs associated with improving the infrastructure, and so Concord was certainly one of the worst that we had. But I will say that notion or that challenge in conjunction with our staffing issues was really impetus behind the closure of Concord. So, there was 300 individuals working at MCI Concord that we were able to work closely with the union on and reassign them to various locations throughout the Commonwealth primarily in our facilities in the northern part of the Commonwealth, which really alleviated some staffing challenges at MCI Shirley, MCI Souza, and certainly at Gardner as well. So those two issues, the maintenance cost associated with it as well as the reassignment of staffing were really, really critical to the department. Forced overtime.
And so, I can tell you, as an individual that worked inside, one of the most really challenging thing is having someone to be forced to stay for overtime. You know, if we're looking to improve the hiring and looking to improve the quality of people coming into our organization, but facing the notion that they're gonna be forced to stay, at least on a regular basis, is really, really challenging for us, particularly with a young force that, a workforce today that can oftentimes work from home. So, we have worked incredibly hard to make sure that our forcing is down and it has decreased significantly. It's one thing if individuals want to stay and do overtime, but the forcing part is something we worked incredibly hard on. And we have really, just significantly crushed those numbers and reduced the amount of forces within the organization, again, going back to your question about the closure of Concord.
PEASE - And again, I understand about, you know, the redispersing of the individuals and overtime. But I guess my main question was that we're looking to do some cost saving because it was gonna be so expensive to maintain the Concord. And by closing it, that we would get some. And so I'm wondering if maybe it'll be a year or two or what? Because, obviously, with the 7% increase, we don't see it in this year's budget.
MAFFEO - Yes. So, again, I think you'll see a difference in the distribution of our payroll dollars from more overtime to base salaries, which, again, is healthier for the agency. It comes at a lower cost to pay people standard rates. I think where we would have hoped to see savings, theoretically, is on the capital side for sort of this mountain of unmet deferred maintenance need. And, unfortunately, like the operating budget, the capital budget is constrained where we never were able to even budget to try to address the backlog of need. We are in the second year of having a designated commitment of annual DOC deferred maintenance funding on the capital budget. What that helps us do is sort of plan ahead and say, you know, not just where is urgent investment needed, but sort of where can we capitalize on, sort of, an improvement being done in one area. Maybe it's easier or more cost effective to upgrade a related system at the same time. So, again, we are working very hard to create a clear plan for capital funding.
I think in general on that side, we want, when investment is made, for it to feel different in the facility. We want folks to know that things did get better, things were improved. And when you're dealing with such antiquated systems, there's so3767 much need beneath the3769 ground and in the ceiling that it's so expensive without folks, you know, the incarcerated population realizing the benefit. So3777 all those factors came into play when we were3779 looking at the closure of Concord. I'll say, in the first years of transition, we also had to reinvest some small savings in the equipment cost for the facility to move the units, the Brave unit, a couple of other specialized units to Shirley, so that's something that was done. You saw that in current year spending. And we will continue to use dollars for operational efficiency in the years ahead.
SPEAKER11 - Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.
SPEAKER18 - Senator Payano.
SEN PAYANO - Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question, but before I get to the question, just have a quick comment. I wanna thank my colleagues for bringing up3830 the question that I think has been front and center to a lot of individuals in our state regarding ICE and their involvement within our commonwealth. And, you know, I appreciate, Mr. Secretary, that you are being a great colleague and presenting ICE in the best light, which I think it's, seeing the best light, it's something that everyone, most people could agree that that is what the purpose should be. I think all of us are seeing something slightly different, and I think it goes beyond politics, it goes beyond policy. There's a huge, several constitutional questions that are on there, and not just constitutional questions, but also moral questions about who we are as a country. Does our first amendment right cover just US citizens? Do they also cover residents, permanent residents, visa holders?
And it's important to keep that conversation in mind, seeing that our state is one that attracts a lot of tourism, that has a lot of students that are international, and has a lot of immigrants and people that come from immigrants that are living here. But it's also, the birthplace of the nation where we, you know, where I think where we hold our freedom of speech, ideally, in our hearts. So I wanted to make that comment because I think that we are seeing something different coming off of ICE. And I think the question of what are we doing as a state, what can we be doing as a state is front and center in everyone's mind right now. But that being said, my question in particular, comes around community policing.
I know, I represent three cities, where I've seen a lot of improvement, a lot of change, happening in the way they police in those communities. And in part, it has to do with what Senator Comerford who was speaking on, training. You know, I went to, I had this ride along, a couple of years ago, where an incident occurred that I thought was not gonna turn out great for the suspect. And when I asked the question of the captain that was there, what he said was, we are very well trained to handle these types of issues, from de escalation4000 to realizing when to use force. And I think, you know, grants coming from your department helped a lot. And I'm wondering what is it that you guys are doing when it comes to that, and also, but in particular, community policing. How are you helping cities and towns sort of develop their plans on that and support initiatives like that?
REIDY - Thank you for the question, senator. The MPTC committee is made up of a number of different individuals from all walks of life in law enforcement. Since police reform, sheriffs' department, there's police chiefs, the Attorney General's Office is on it, my office has a seat. There's different specialized organizations representing the rank and file. So really, the credit, first of all, starts with police reform in the legislature and Governor Baker. It transcends down to the MPTC and those individuals who represent different geographic areas as well as different specialized organizations. They hear from their folks in their region and know what they need for training officers. And the standard is set. It's uniform, it's about de escalation, it's about having well trained officers. And I'm gonna give credit to my friend, Representative Holmes, during police reform, we talked about if I get pulled over in Boston, I wanna know the officer that's pulling me over in another part of the state has the same exact training.
I think everybody wants professional, educated, well trained officers. Now there4111 are some folks that fall short of that but the vast majority of law enforcements are in4117 the business and trained and do what's right. And the way I look at it through the MPTC is being able to provide the proper training, whether it's experts from inside of Massachusetts, experts from outside of Massachusetts to bring that training to bring that training to the Commonwealth. I think we do it better than a lot of states. That's not to say that we can't improve and do better. But when you look at the curriculum that we put out and the ability to get that information out virtually or in person and regionally, I think it's making a difference, and it's a lot of hard work by the folks at MPTC. If you don't mind, I'd like to bring, director, Rick Rathbun up.
Rick comes to us from the Warwick Police Department. He also was an executive director at a local organization, in Massachusetts. So, what's great about Rick is he has that executive director experience, he has that police chief experience. We look over the fact he's from Rhode Island, but he's doing a great job. But I'd like to give him an opportunity to explain what our purpose is and the type of training that we are focused on in Massachusetts. And not all states in this country are, but we are. Rick.
RICK RATHBUN - MPTC - Thank you. Senator, specifically relating to and following up on the secretary's comments, community policing is essential in every day. The application of community policing, and what I'm seeing in the academies in the short tenure I've been here is the communication skills are set in the academy level. The expectation that you'll know people, how to talk to people, and understand what, your agency may have a very specific mission, size, and function, but the constituents or the public have an expectation that you'll be professional, that you'll give them the respect, and that begins at the academy level. We are looking at specialized training moving into training year '26. And we're doing a top to bottom review of our course catalog to say, okay, we've been doing this. Should we continue doing it? And there will be some focus on community policing, specifically in response to your question, senator.
KILCOYNE - Thank you, senator. I don't have a question, but I do wanna make a comment. I've had the opportunity to visit the facility right down the road in Boylston and see some of the work you do training cadets, and it is exemplary. So, appreciate your work there.
But I do want to acknowledge, we were joined by representative David Beal of Boston. Thank you, representative. And I do wanna turn it over to my assistant vice the assistant the assistant vice chair of the committee, representative Kipp Diggs for a question.
REP DIGGS - Thank you, Madam Chair. It's really not a question, it's more of4283 a statement, you know. I heard Senator Feeney bring up FIFA, and to be honest with you, this is an opportunity for Massachusetts to bring in a lot of revenue. We just had a, we didn't just, we had an event at the Boston Garden with the second highest production in Boston Garden history over the that weekend with the UFC, we made over $12 million. So we need to be prepared, we need to be ready. And with the training that we're gonna have, and people that we're gonna be able to serve, and the money that Massachusetts will be able to make. We don't wanna have to make an excuse. We're gonna be ready and prepared for it. I think that's a great opportunity to keep bringing in more revenue to our state, and4330 that's something that we need to look forward to.4332 That's all I can say.
Senator Kennedy.
SEN KENNEDY - Thank you so much. And thank you, Secretary Reidy. It's always good to see a fellow Worcester, right, in leadership positions.
REIDY - People may not be able to understand us talking with directions, so we'll do the best we can.
KENNEDY - Absolutely. And I appreciate, you share the concern, as I do, a fellow son of Worcester who we lost in training, in the training academy. Can you speak to if there's anything, I know there's an investigation underway. An outside investigator as well internal investigation, I won't ask you to speak to that. But I will ask you to speak to any funding in the House 1 budget that speaks to any reforms in the way in which training is conducted.
REIDY - Thank you, senator. And I just wanna take a moment and just recognize the tragic loss of Enrique and his family. As you may know, my wife is a prosecutor in the Worcester DA's office, and I know I saw Joe here earlier. It's a tragic loss for everyone involved and especially the DA's office. My wife worked with Enrique. It's a tragedy. There's an active and ongoing investigation that I am not privy to, nor are the state police. But there are some innovations and some evaluations of the police academy that I'm gonna bring Colonel Noble up, because I'd like him to speak. Some of it is gonna be new to everybody. But the state4436 police, I think, in my experience, and I've personally known, Rick McKeown, I've known Chris Mason. I have known all4450 this, Jack Maune and and now Colonel Noble and Kerry Gilpin. And there's a common thread amongst all those leaders, is their dedication to the state police and their dedication to safety.
I can't think of other colonels that I wouldn't want to work with with all of those individual. I worked with Rick when he was in the Worcester4473 DA's office. Tremendous, tremendous people. Jeff Noble is, right, cut along those same claws. He is a tremendous, tremendous leader with tremendous experience and vision. And I think we all know, growing up in Massachusetts, it's tough to come to a new state. It's really tough to be put in charge of the largest police force in Massachusetts, who has had a significant amount of issues. And I think the governor made a tremendous choice, a brave choice, in selecting Colonel Noble. And it has been, it seems longer, I'm sure he's gonna say it seems longer, but it's been six months. And he hit the ground running, but it's an enormous, enormous endeavor. But he has made some concrete decisions and changes and evaluations. And I think, the general public and all of you here, today are gonna be enthused of what he's about to talk about. And if I could ask Colonel Noble to come up.
GEOFFREY NOBLE - MSP - Good afternoon, senator. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. It is truly an an an honor to be here to be part of this team. As I approach my first six months, it does seem like those first six months have been a lot. But speaking specifically towards the academy, obviously, the Mass State Police, EOPSS, the community of troopers, those troopers who are front and center on the front lines handling the training, we collectively are all in to ensure that we are adopting best practices. While there's an ongoing criminal investigation and death investigation ongoing, just like the4590 secretary said, I'm not privy to, I can speak to some of the actions that we have taken during my first six months. 1, we have a new commandant. We have a new commandant there that I am now meeting with personally. He's an experienced, instructor down there, but he's also been around different parts of this throughout his career. We are working closely with him to ensure that we are adopting the best practices.
We're also ensuring that we have a culture of adaptation to those best practices. So we are ensuring, number 1, on our end, we have some personnel changes to include drill instructor staff. We've added a higher number of supervisors who will be at the academy for the upcoming class. So our drill instructor cadre will be a more experienced, more mature cadre of drill instructors. But specifically, some of the events that we are taking place, as of this morning, we have selected an outside vendor to conduct a rigorous assessment of our entire academy operation. So, we've selected the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which is an international renowned police organization. That was managed through an open bid process, through the RFP process. And that4672 process, I can proudly say4674 that that process concluded within the last several days. And as of this morning, we have notified the IACP that we're moving forward with that.
So now we will go into the next phase and very eagerly, work with them to onboard their team. I am aware that their team is gonna consist of of folks from around the country and national experts on police training look forward to working with them. Also, one of the changes that we can expect for the upcoming class, which is scheduled to start May 5, is we're gonna break this class into two groups. Traditionally, the Mass State Police, as you saw before, and the last class, the 90th class that graduated in October, was a large class. We started with somewhere with approximately 250 trainees. We graduated 186. This class is4721 gonna be broken down into two4723 groups. And the purpose of that is twofold. 1, we believe in working4727 with our own academy staff as well as my experience and working with other national experts, we believe that a smaller class size will result in a better trooper, perhaps. So this is something new. This is a significant change, and also it will allow us to have direct oversight, direct mentorship on each trainee's experience through the academy.
Also, by breaking the class into two, we can have our assessors there. This IACP team will be allowed to have unfettered access to the academy process. This is gonna be an extraordinarily transparent process. We will allow them to come in and watch us. And by doing this phase 2 of the class, we will be capable to make timely changes and make recommendations so we don't have to wait years for a report to come through. If there's recommendations that they see in the first phase, we will be prepared to adopt those recommendations in phase 2 of this class. That's the level of commitment, and I believe that that expresses the commitment and the openness of the academy staff, of this command staff, and under the secretary's leadership to be able to be responsive to those recommendations. So those, so we are eager to work with this outside assessment and that work is slated to get started very, very soon.
KENNEDY - Thank you. And just to clarify on the budget, does the House 1 budget cover the
REIDY - We do not need additional funding. It's within the state police budget that we've been able to work it through. And it's not added funding because we're bifurcating the stats. There's gonna be some overlap. It is not a significant4836 increase in if it was just one class going in at one time. So we looked at it4842 financially because the person to my right would have jumped up4846 and down, and Michelle Small too, who is the CFO at state police. But financially, it is in our constraints. It's a really good plan that I credit the colonel and his command staff with putting together. And it's a pilot. And we'll see what benefits there are or if there are some deficits. But it is something to look at how things have always been done and see what needs to be changed. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. We have a question from representative Exaros.
REP XIARHOS - Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Secretary, thank you for what you do, and your team. You know, I'm a former police officer, 40 years. You have the backs of the police officers, men and women, and the canines of the commonwealth, and we know it. And it's a very difficult mission, especially in today's world. I appreciate your answer about working with federal agencies and everything that goes along with that. I have a son that's a police officer, his wife is a police officer, I lost a son in war, I can't lose another one. And I thank the panel for providing the funds for training because they should get the best training and the best equipment. It's not always about money, it's about saving lives. I have a question on the Department of Corrections. The commissioner mentioned it, and, I wanna follow-up.
Chair Kilcoyne and I and others have visited the most violent prison in Massachusetts. That's where the violent offenders are, the murderers. One of them killed my officer, another one tried to kill Matt Tidman, a corrections officer, by taking a exercise equipment, a steel bar, and beating him nearly to death. That inmate was a convicted murderer from another state. So, we would wanna know, or I would wanna know what's the status with the exercise equipment, and with Matt Tidman who came to testify in front of us in public safety. He can't see out of one eye, he can't hear out of one of his ears. He'll never go back to work. His family and friends and colleagues have to deal with that for the rest of their lives. Corrections is a tough environment, as you mentioned earlier. We wanna make sure it's safe as possible in there. So if you could, the status of the free weights, and, hopefully, we can pass Matt's law, in his name, which would make sure the weights, the free weights never go back in.
REIDY - Thank you, representative. I'll bring Commissioner Jenkins up. But before I answer your question and Commissioner Jenkins, I just wanna recognize you for a moment. You are always at every wake and funeral for a first responder in this state. No matter where it is, you're usually the first person I see. And I know that has an effect on all of law enforcement, whether it's a local officer, state trooper, firefighter, correctional officer, you're there and people recognize it. I know you do, and you know how much I appreciate that. With regards to the DOC, and sometimes I look at as, it's not real to some folks, sometimes it's a movie, but I know the records of some of the folks that are housed there, especially at Souza. And and when I talk about Souza, those are individuals that can't maintain proper behavior inside of a controlled environment. And it's up to the DOC to make sure that there's oversight, supervision, alternative activities or jobs because that's also a way to lower the temperature in a facility.
But at the end5125 of the day, there are some individuals who, bluntly, are maybe the worst citizens in this state, have done awful, awful things. And behind each one of those individuals is either a deceased victim, a victim, a family, a community who had been destroyed for what they, and I think my team and I have a track record of working with those individuals, making sure they're treated with dignity, with all the respect and all the support that they can get. But at the end of the day, it's not you, me, or anyone in this room that has to deal with them on a day to day basis. And that goes with training of the correctional officers because sometimes it's a two way street. It's a dangerous, dangerous job. And I am sensitive to it. I worked, when I first got out of college, and it's not working at Souza, but I worked at the Worcester House of Corrections. So I know, even at the house level, how things can change in a heartbeat.
Whether it's something the inmate does, something the correctional officer does, it's a potentially volatile situation. And what the commissioner is gonna talk to you about is some of the ways and some of the initiatives he's working to lower the temperature. Whether with tablets and keeping folks occupied. I know you're gonna like the answer to the free weights, but there isn't a day that doesn't go by that I know Commissioner Jenkins or myself don't worry that either someone who's in custody, a staff, a correction officer can have the worst thing happen to him like correction officer, Tidman, in the most recent attack up at Sousa. It's a violent violent, group that if we're doing our job right, the chance of attack should hopefully lessen, but there's no guarantees. But let me have Commissioner Jenkins talk to you about the free weights.
XIARHOS - Thank you, secretary.
JENKINS - Thank you very much, representative. Post the brutal assault on Matt Tidman, the department did remove all free weights and, you know, bars, anything associated with the free weights from all the facilities. So, the only thing that remains in the facilities are, we installed a ton of chin up bars and other correctional grade products, excuse me, that would allow them to be able to exercise, but no free weights, and the correctional grade products are stuff that you cannot remove or manipulate. But to your point, it's a policy decision. It's,5290 you know, it was a decision the department made to do so.
SPEAKER10 - Thank you, commissioner. Thank you, secretary. Thank you, madam chair.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, representative. I'm gonna turn it over now to representative Scarsdale for question.
REP SCARSDALE - Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. secretary, commissioner5313 and the panel, for coming5315 here today. I appreciate their earlier comment5319 about having to juggle priorities in the budget. There's so many different competing demands, but we are in an environment, an extremely tough environment with an unprecedented level of uncertainty coming from the federal government. So, you know, thank you for all your work to put forward what you feel will be the best and most successful budget for our Commonwealth and the people who work in the corrections world. So I'm a big believer in restorative justice. I think it is a successful and proven approach to reintegrating people into the community and making them, you know, successful and adding to the value of our communities and our society as a whole.
I also think it's a matter of equity and social justice. So I wonder if you could talk briefly about the line item for diverting juveniles from the criminal justice system because, particularly with young people who have their whole lives in front of them, investing in a restorative justice program could pay dividends through the rest of their lives. And it looks like that budget is cut in half, and it would be wonderful to have you say, well, that's because we have half as many juveniles in our system now, so we don't need that much money our system now, so we don't need that much money. But I was wondering if you could speak to that, please.
REIDY - Yeah. The administration and my team know the value of focusing on, you know, young adults who have made mistakes. We have to make cuts in certain areas, and this was one of them where we, and it's also on an eye of of of not just restorative justice, but I know there are multiple DAs here. And again, I don't think there's a group of prosecutors in the country that have adopted that and recognized with certain juveniles, with certain crimes, that the diversion programs that they all each and every one of them run is a valuable resource. We try to supplement that where we can, so it's not that those endeavors are going away. It's really, really important. But we think for this budgetary cycle, we can maintain those services, also knowing that there are other resources outside of our budget that can help.
I did my first restorative justice peace circle, I think it was5485 it might have been in 2000 OR 2001 with Molly Baldwin and Roker and Chelsea, because I used to be a prosecutor in Chelsea. And those peace circles have evolved, and it has really helped. And it was kind of the underpinning of restorative justice, where sometimes it was somewhat defense oriented, and sometimes the victims and witness of crimes were kind OF left to the side. That's not the case now. It has evolved. So it is a priority to us but we had to make some difficult decisions. And then we can talk about how it fits into our larger plan.
MAFFEO - So thank you, ma'am. Just some options to reduce the impact in the short term. We can explore pack requests for programs that are receiving funds that are able to continue their work. Generally, we get a lot of requests for those. There's a lot of interest, particularly because some of this innovative work lives sort of outside of the fiscal year. That happens regularly where, you know, folks apply for a full year grant, but they might apply a couple months into the year. So there are some measures we can take internally to try to maintain continuity of operations for partners. I think we can also look at sort of what's been effective to date,5565 giving more folks as much money as possible or sort of targeting5569 investments and getting new programs up and running. So we look forward to seeing final funding levels and sort of saying, what do we know works for these specific programs? And let's make sure we structure our grant program recognizing what's been successful to date and sort of our vision for where we're going from here. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - We have a question for representative Sabadougia.
SPEAKER7 - Thank oops. Here we go.
REP SABADOSA - Thank you so much for being here today. I have a question about, I think, maybe the DOC budget overall. It is my understanding that one of the key drivers of your budget is along with staffing healthcare costs. Is that, you're shaking your head, so I think I have my information correct. But what I don't see in H 1 other than a behavioral health and residential treatment line item is really a breakdown of those healthcare costs. And I will say, you know, I am very interested because when we visit prisons, it is the number 1 concern we hear from those incarcerated, access to healthcare, quality of health care staffing, which I know has been a perpetual concern in all respects.
So I'm a little curious as to what's, part of your budget is healthcare cost, what's being done to improve health care provision within this understanding you have a a contract, and how does that break down between perhaps you don't view it this way, but I sort of view a distinction between what happens at Bridgewater and what happens at the rest of the DOC just given how intensive healthcare services are at Bridgewater. And so I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to that. And in particular, one of my questions is, I know that you do a lot of work of paper documents, and I wonder if there is any focus in this budget to transition healthcare records to electronic records that might be able to follow individuals after they leave incarceration so that they can have continuity of care. I apologize for throwing so much at you.
REIDY - Thanks, representative. I'm gonna have Amy Amy talk to you about the specific budgetary issues with the healthcare.
MAFFEO - Yes. So, again, we mentioned healthcare contracts are increasing. We'd be happy to get your office sort of a more specific breakdown of costs by contract. I mentioned that our general contract was re-procured recently, so it is in effect current year. Next fiscal year will be the first year that growth is built into the budget. We are similarly in the process of re-procuring a contract for Bridgewater State Hospital. We continue to try to always prioritize spending here. Contract growth is pretty substantial. If you look at programs and services, including healthcare as a percentage of DOC's budget, it has increased by more than 20% in the last eight years. We expect that trend to continue. I think, to be totally honest, since we're with a funding committee, one issue we run into regularly with funding uncertainty or drops is we're required to obligate a full anticipated cost of a current year health care contract, and we also have to maintain safe staffing.
So we when I say we have these pressures, we are always going to fulfill both of them, but it requires a lot of budgetary work to say we need to sort of lock up the funds that we expect to use for healthcare. And when the overall budget is not properly funded, we need to look at, okay, what can be reduced? We don't want to reduce education. I think we've already mentioned for years, there's been under investment in deferred maintenance. We don't have that many flexible components of our budget, nor do we not want to fully fund something like a healthcare expense. We have been working on one of the, we will be one of the first states in the country, working for an exception to the Medicaid inmate exclusion policy with CMS. And as part of that, we are looking for pathways at several pilot sites to create healthcare continuity where folks prior to release have an opportunity to build a health file and receive prescriptions, etcetera, that we'll transfer over with them.
I'll say we certainly prioritize moving to a digital file. That certainly is what everyone in the modern. Some of the more boring limitations of that are physical plant infrastructure. You're dealing with thick concrete facilities. We need Wi Fi that works throughout facilities. So we've been doing some wiring infrastructure projects, but we really need to fund that core modernization so that a healthcare provider within a5852 facility can walk and chart just like they would at a healthcare provider that you see in the community. So I think we're doing some really innovative things nationwide at the Department of Correction, but I think that's gonna be a continued area of focus, particularly as we get through this mountain of deferred maintenance that will allow us to have a plant that reflects sort of more of what we see on the outside for healthcare services.
SPEAKER2 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, representative. And, representative Russell Holmes.
REP HOLMES - Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I have a number of questions, but, I'm gonna start with, really, the overarching theme as I see all of public safety, all of judiciary, all the folks who are gonna be here today. The overarching theme of of my questions still come back to the fact that public safety is primarily 90% white, 95% male, and almost in all cases is overseeing a population that is disproportionately black, Hispanic, and Asian. So that is the overarching theme on all the questions that I'm trying to just make sure that we drive off. Because when I hear about we're hiring more people, great, we've gone from 92% white down to 87% white in police or whatever. Long way to go. Just a long way to go. And then when I hear the senator mentioned about the small police departments, I respect that very much. But again, as I said when, with Governor Baker, when we started this whole conversation about post and MPTC, I should be the drive black man, drive to any neighborhood in this commonwealth, and have a well trained, typically white officer.
If you wanna put my arms behind my back, you better be well trained. And that is position that has not changed since you and I started this conversation long ago. So if we're going to move from a point where everyone is trained now, because everyone is now trained Over the last several years, whatever solution you come up with, they still need to be equally trained. If it's MPTC overseeing them or whatever. Because anybody who pulls me over need to have the cultural competencies of just small things. Like, I'm a descendant of a enslaved person in this country who sees things very different than people who are immigrants in this country. And having that cultural competence of even, when you look at me as a black man and you look at a Haitian, those are two very different experiences. And having someone who speaks Creole versus me, who my descendants has been here for hundreds of years.
I'm gonna say, Shawn, I very much appreciate everything you've been doing. But when you said the biggest challenges, the two that stood out to me that still don't, wasn't talked about, one was K2. To me, when I hear what's going on in prisons, when I hear people being attacked, when I hear families not being able to get into prisons because of how they're, you know, they can't go sit with people, all of that stuff. And this balance between can I go home as a corrections officer safely? I have said to you every single time, very important to balance that with the rights of the people who are in prison. Can you tell me where we are, how are we going to solve this K2 issue? And I've heard many people say it can't be solved, and I just don't believe that is the right answer, that it can't be solved. So can you talk to me, please, about K2?
REIDY - That has been a a significant focus of the team at EOPSS as well as the DOC. And we have partnered with some other outside agencies to assist us with K2. And K2 is an issue not just in Massachusetts, it's across the country in the prison systems. But we have taken some strategic initiatives to try and combat it, and the commissioner will outline. But it's a major safety risk for the incarcerated folks, the employees, civilian staff, and the DOC, but I think we're taking some steps to try and combat that. Shawn.
JENKINS - Thank you, representative. And I know that we have had these conversations, individually as well. And I can tell you that, in all of my years of doing this type of work, this has probably been the most significant challenge that I have had as an administrator. K2 is a very unique product, the way it's manufactured and the way it's distributed. Some people often call it the perfect prison product. And so we are working incredibly hard to do everything that we can to combat this challenge. We have really worked hard to make sure that our mail processes are being, enhanced. A lot of the stuff that comes in is paper based, and we really, I think, done a great job with the mail, the mailing side of the house. The second, really, challenge that we've had is, individuals bringing the products into the facility. Because it's paper based, it's very difficult to detect and very difficult to detect if it's in your pocket or if you're carrying it with you.
And so, as the secretary indicated, the secretary has been very helpful to the department on gaining additional resources as well as Colonel Noble at state police. We have arrested some people for trying to bring this product into certain facilities, visitors to the facilities. We've really started a robust education campaign, letting family and friends know the dangers associated with it in our visiting rooms, on our phone calls, everything that's outward facing the department. And we've also put this information on all the incarcerated6224 individuals' tablets, outlining really the severity of these particular6228 products and how it affects you. You are absolutely right, it is not just a product that, people use to get under the influence. It's a product that has been extremely disruptive to the facility.
It affects programming. It affects visits. It affects the normal courses or the normal processes that we follow every day when you have, a number of individuals that are under the influence and need hospital trips and and having to rearrange schedules to accommodate all that. And you're right also as well, it's a really challenging balancing act between allowing for healthy visiting environments and contact visits, and allowing individuals to enjoy their families during the visits or their loved ones, while at the same time trying to make sure that we're doing everything we can to combat this particular issue from people bringing it inside the facility.
So I will say the biggest thing that we're really focusing on now is this particular product is not something that you traditionally find by the old way of doing corrections by searching for it. Because of the way it's manufactured, and stored, and distributed, it's very difficult to detect. And so we've really had to switch gears and rely on technology, and we've had to switch gears and rely on intelligence gathering. And really focus on being able to kind of know the pulse of the institutions from an investigatory standpoint to ensuring that we are able to detect who's bringing this in, when they're bringing it in, working in conjunction with the task force on holding these people accountable. So we've really switched gears from our normal courses, which is searching cells to really the investigatory side of the house as well as the technology side.
SPEAKER16 - We we have spoken to some other, folks.
SPEAKER6 - I I I just
SPEAKER16 - But just won't want that. We have spoken to some other states.
SPEAKER18 - So much
SPEAKER8 - that they're gonna yell at me.
SPEAKER26 - I didn't think you were gonna you told
SPEAKER16 - me you weren't asking questions today. I don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER4 - I told me, you know, come over here. You're
SPEAKER2 - gonna be tripped at me. I would
SPEAKER8 - leave you alone here on
SPEAKER4 - the tripwire.
HOLMES - I got a question for you. The next one is, when I arrived here 15 years ago, there were 11,738 people in our prisons. That number's been cut in half. I just got the weekly count. Last week, it's 6,200. Right? So, Emi Joy, when you say to me I'm having money problems, I'm like, half the population's gone. Like, why do we still have this many money problems of trying to cut this budget when I look on from here and I see not just concrete clothes, there are five or six things. You know, you got OCC clothes, you got obviously, you only have ONE max, like, when will you start, I got told you to close concrete, you said you're gonna save $20 million, like, where is the money going? And you're saying we have to wait another year? I'm just not understanding why this thing won't stop going down when it literally looks like state prison, on the rise, you've cut our DOC population into half and this number is still going through the roof and I hear you saying it's gonna keep moving. Like, when will we see the results?
MAFFEO - Of course. No. I appreciate the question. And I think a couple of things. First, I think we're really proud of the service level that DOC is providing. I think our goals of providing safety at all levels for all folks in the system, but also providing a rehabilitative space. We often talk about, in the Department of Correction we are receiving caseload that has been failed by every other part of the state government. We are sort of unfortunately the last catch of that, and we take that responsibility very seriously. So we are constantly gonna be looking for the best possible job training programs, not just on inmate satisfaction, but on what are the needs of the workforce in the state? Where are people keeping stable employment years out? We are constantly gonna be looking for how we can stack treatment for the most successful outcomes and recovery on the back end.
So I'll say within the 15 years that you're looking at, while costs have gone up, I would first say inflation is significant, but more than that, the story we have to tell for what the commonwealth is doing, that's how we're reducing incarceration rates. That's how we're the leader in the lowest incarceration rate in the country. And I think fortunately, we're able to account for everything we're doing, constantly auditing what are the needs of the population. The needs of the population have also shifted. With our total population decreasing, we're left with folks with longer sentences who are on average older. I'll say frankly, in some cases, we have sort of elder care population within the facility of DOC. The cost per individual is significantly higher than a younger person. And, again, we will treat that person with dignity while maintaining safety, and that comes at a cost.
HOLMES - Okay. So Shawn said he's gonna help to reduce that population, right? You're gonna get that population from high, down to medium, before in all the way to low. I heard that. So I can't talk anymore about this. I just wanna make sure you understand that's what you said. But when when you're
REIDY - You could still be a lifer and go down. So it doesn't mean necessarily you're gonna be getting out.
HOLMES - I got you. I got you. But when you're also looking at the metric for this improvement of the healthcare, it has to be a metric that, as you just said, the inmate population knows that their healthcare has gotten much better with this new provider. So I hope that one of your metrics or some of your metrics has the experience with the provider improved substantially from the inmate perspective, not just from our perspective. Sorry, Madam Chair. I just now thanks, Shawn. I have to get the parole. I have a number of questions around parole. So we can change seats and then I'll be done. I'll send everything else to someone else.
SPEAKER16 - I'm I'll bring, Chair Hurley,
SPEAKER2 - up for,
SPEAKER16 - for Sean.
HOLMES - Alright. Tina, great to see you again today. Thanks for speaking with the criminal justice caucus. A couple of things. I had a group of people who came to the statehouse who wanted to do some, around the, and I had some concerns, is when they were saying, come and let us perform6700 everything in the parole, one of the options is, why can't we have virtual hearings? Like, due COVID, we had virtual hearings. Particularly, if someone is in the minimum prisons why do our commissioners drive all the way across the state everywhere they go they have to go and meet in person? What percentage of people are being paroled in the minimum prison, 85% is what I'm thinking. When we go to a public hearing of someone who's in a minimum prison, do you have the number of the sentenced people who are actually paroling from minimum? And if so can those hearings be done virtually instead of driving around?
TINA HURLEY - MPB - Well, I mean, I have the paroling rate for the overall I have the paroling rate for the overall DUC facilities, but I don't have the breakdown specifically for the lower secured facilities, but I can certainly get that to you. It's high. It's gonna be high, probably 85 to 90% would be my guess.
HOLMES - Because they've already done almost everything they almost need to do.
HURLEY - Right. Right. Right. So it's gonna be high.
HOLMES - So is there a reason why we have to be in person? Because they were saying, hey, we need to go hire all these new commissioners because they're so busy. But how much time are they using just driving across the state? Could they be in, what is the resistance with virtual hearings is what I was asking.
HURLEY - I don't think there's any resistance as far as I know. I think we're, you know, at this point we're working through the various logistics. We're looking at all possibilities, so there hasn't been a final decision made. You know, that that, I'm sure at some point is a possibility that6812 I think the board members have different feelings about what they think is most fruitful and effective in terms of conducting hearings. So we are looking at everything right now, but there hasn't been a final decision made. There's also, we have some IT related issues as well, which makes it difficult to do hearings virtually. Systems come down from either the institutional side or from our side, so there's long delays. It interrupts the flow of the hearing. So there's a number of things that we're considering right now before making a final decision.
What do
SPEAKER2 - you think
SPEAKER16 - I know?
SPEAKER1 - Representative Rep,
SPEAKER28 - let me
SPEAKER16 - if I could just tell you 1 1 give
SPEAKER4 - me at some point.
SPEAKER1 - Alright. Sorry, representative. If you could just keep it to 1 more question, we we have a lot to cover today.
REIDY - And if I could just respond. I agree with your perspective on virtual hearings, Representative Holmes. And, like, you know, our team is working on that, and I know you know the value in virtual hearings. Being able to have folks have their day in front of a parole officer, working through whatever the decision is, knowing that, especially in the house of corrections, just about all of those. And some of them get get incarcerated and they're almost parole eligible the first day. So we are working through some, different dynamics, but I agree with your perspective on this, and I know you're aware of that.
HOLMES - That's why, I thought you and I were in agreement, that's why I thought we were gonna see some action by the next year. But I think I asked the same question last year, you said you were in agreement. That's why I'm saying, because a year later, we still don't have virtual hearings on low on HOC and minimums. I'm done. Said one more question. I had a list of them. But on anything else with parole, my big concern is I have heard that one of the digs that we have with our parole is that you guys don't get a certain salary relative to what judges make. And I'm gonna actually put an amendment in to say, hey, in the budget, you guys could get the salary that gets you so that you guys get a ding, I guess, nationally, about what you're paid. No problem. But my question on this becomes, once we change the model, you see that that's how it is that it's related to, what you what judges happen what judges, what are your thoughts around changing the model totally, at parole where it looks very similar to judges? Where you, the commissioners handle just the hearings. The executive director, court administrator is what we have in the courts, handle the day to day management. Because the parole officers think they're cops. Like this whole point of can we say, okay, the six of you guys, all you do is like the judges. You just do the hearings. And what are your thoughts of an executive director running day to day, getting the training, and things of that nature instead of putting that on the back of a chair? Thank you, madam7006 chair.
HURLEY - You know, we're a very small agency. There's a lot of individuals who have been there long term. We all know each other. We work very closely together. It is a very cohesive team. So there's, obviously, because of the work that's done between the board and the institutional staff in the field there's a lot of interaction. You know, I think we're open to different models, but there's a, because the core group of managerial staff is so small, and if somebody is out, somebody else needs to be able to step up, and take over, and address whatever the immediate time sensitive concerns are. So it might be a little challenging to have one person as the designated, overseer of the day to day operations. You know, I think we have a really good system in place right now with the managerial team, between the executive director, Leanne Hogan, general counsel Judith Lyons, myself, Angelo Gomez, the field's services chief, and Megan Winston, the chief of transitional services. We work really, really well together to back each other up as needed to make sure that the work gets done, that we fulfill our our statutory mandate of conducting timely hearings, and that we're responsive to our internal as well as our external stakeholders. So I think this okay.
Okay. I know we're gonna see you in May.
Okay.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Representative, and thank you so much, mister secretary, for your generosity with your time as well as all your agency heads. This was very illuminating. And next up, we're on to our next panel, the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association.
SPEAKER17 - Marion, Kevin Hayden, Dave Sullivan.
SPEAKER9 - Here, mister president.
JOSEPH EARLY - MDAA - That was created. It has caused quite a bit of urgency within our office. It's the new SJC Advisory Rule 14. It was enacted due to failings within the discovery system, and it was enacted as of on 03/01/2025. The rule provides, is that me? The rule provides for putting all discovery in our cases into the defendant's hands by the first pretrial conference date. As you know, we have many young lawyers within our offices, often overburdened. In Worcester alone, they usually carry 250 to 300 cases, that includes many cases with victims. They're panicking, and upset, and worrying because the fact that they, within these new regulations, they've been tasked7237 with responsibilities that require them under Rule 14 to get the discovery into defendant's hands by the first pretrial conference date. What we're seeing now is that they're working till 7, 8PM, 9 PM at night, and on the weekends to try and get this discovery done.
As a group, we're working together. DA Ryan has put together a computer program they're calling nothing short of brilliant, and I applaud her for that. All the DAs are working together to try and get this discovery completed7265 and into the defense attorney's7267 hands. Normally in a case, we might have 75, 85, 95 percent of that material for the defendant on the date of arraignment or the pretrial conference date. And then it would gradually be put to the defendant's hands, ideally from all of us. Nothing ever being omitted before the case in the time that they need it within the case. But it's become an arduous task. There are penalties if we don't comply with this. And one penalty is having a case dismissed with prejudice where it can never be brought back. Another instance is where it can be dismissed without prejudice.
But it also brings into play something that's very concerning to all of us and our ADAs, and that's the possibility of ethical sanctions if they don't comply with this when they need to comply with it, within that pretrial conference date. You know, I've benefited from working here, often in the great town of Clinton as well. It's a historic town. I meant to say that at the beginning. It's, but I won't say anymore with regards to it, but it's a great town. Being a defense attorney for 17 years, I realized that people made mistakes. I made mistakes. I'm not perfect. You asked my wife and my kids, they'd tell you I'm far from it. As7346 a DA, I've also been on the other side of it to see what our ADAs7350 face and the pressures that they're under. As a defense attorney, when I7354 made a mistake, it was a mistake. Oftentimes,7356 when a judge makes mistakes, it's judicial error.
But unfortunately, there's a movement, if you will, that when a prosecutor makes mistakes, it's viewed as prosecutorial misconduct and it's usually anything but. We've seen, by comparison, a similar rule put into effect in the state of New York, requiring that discovery be produced by the first court hearing, and this has resulted down there in a crush7381 of paperwork. The DAs down there tell us that it's had a horrible effect. For example, with domestic violence7387 cases, they've seen a jump in dismissals from 42% to 64%. One DA's office lost 40% of their assistant district attorneys. One office lost 25% of their ADAs. Another office lost 20% of the ADAs. As the Buffalo, New York DA told us, they're bleeding prosecutors. What they're complaining is about, and what we're afraid of seeing here, is that they're losing seasoned prosecutors. The The prosecutors who are good with victims. They're good with judges. They're good with witnesses. And those jobs aren't being filled. And when they are filled, they're being filled with people fresh out of law school. The people that we need to train, the people that we don't want to be putting into these jobs. And because of the fact that they're losing so many, they aren't being filled quickly.
In New7436 York, the domestic violence cases are one of the reasons that that they tried to get the law changed, but they7442 didn't have any luck. Some of the things that we're facing here with regards to the new Rule 14 is that city and towns are increasingly, as we want them to, resorting to using body cameras. Not everyone has them now, but they will. And for example, under this rule, this7459 means that you just have the arresting officer providing the body camera at the scene, but all the arresting officers, and failure to do so may bring these sanctions down upon you. So in addition to what we're seeing with a new computer program that's gonna help us through this, it's not gonna solve all our problems. We're gonna need bodies. We're gonna need funding. We're gonna need paralegals, administrators. And we're asking for an 8% budget increase, and a lot of this is due to this rule. We haven't always been the best lobbyist for ourselves, but we're here today, and we're here to ask you for this because there is a need.
We've recently received the 3% budget increase in the governor's budget, but the 3% increase is really only a 1.7 increase because we get a mandatory chargeback. I know there has been talk about doing away with the chargeback on our IT and email. EOTS, MAS, VPN are all involved in the chargeback. One of the things we're currently looking to do is keep the employment desirable for our people. We're looking to raise, we've constantly been behind level 1 attorneys in government. We're looking to raise the starting salary from $72,500 to 80,000 for assistant DAs, 65,000 for victim witness advocates, and $55,000 for administrators. We, in our office, recently put out an ad for administrators at 40,000 and we didn't get a single response. A week later, we put out an ad7551 for 45 to $55,000, we had 37 responses within two days. So the money does make a difference.
Another unnecessary part of the rule is causing unnecessary stress within the prosecutorial team. The prosecutorial team is deemed to be the police, it's deemed to be the DAs. And what we're finding is that many of the unions are blaming us for the increase in asking questions, and we're required to ask these questions. Now, we don't have a choice with regards to this matter. Some of the unions are telling their officers, don't answer the questions. But then it puts the assistant DA in even a further difficult position because they then have to report to the appropriate judge that the officer would not answer the questions. So we can't lose these people. You know, our justice system's gonna fall apart if we do lose DAs in these type of numbers that New York has had them lose them. And the possibility of losing their law license, things of this nature, the additional requirements are burdened are going to stop young lawyers fresh out of law school from wanting to cut their teeth in these jobs. There's more stress, there's more headaches involved. It's created morale problems within our office, basically, because of the unknown. Hopefully, 1 day, we might be able to say it was much ado about nothing, but it's gonna be much ado about nothing if we can fulfill our needs, make sure that the defendant has their due process rights comply with the rule.
One additional thing, with regards to this is that the MDAA needs a new system. We've got a system that's antiquated. Oftentimes, the legislature has asked us for information. We just can't put it together because we've got a system called Damien. They need $300,000 for a consultant that's going to allow us to obtain a new system, a system that reads Damien, and that will allow us to go forward and also provide the information that you so often request. What I neglected to do, I'm finished with this, we'll turn over your questions. But please, before I do, we've got, DA David Sullivan from Hampshire County. We got DA Michael Marcy from Norfolk, DA Kevin Hayden from Suffolk, DA Marian Ryan, from Middlesex, and from7681 the Berkshires, we have
SPEAKER2 - I'm standing in for DA Chaguar, first assistant here, Angel.
EARLY - DA Shugrue has7687 surgery, DA Gulluni just had a fatal,7689 DA Quinn has had a murder plea. They all wanted to be here. And DA Cruz is working a double murder of 15 and 18 year old at the mall. They're all busy. It's not for lack of respect for this committee. Everyone intended to be here. And we have Tara Maguire from the Mass District Attorneys Association. That would be it.
KILCOYNE - DA Early, thank you so much for that testimony. Apologies. I had to step out quickly. But I appreciate you being here, having our own list, district attorney here in Clinton is always a pleasure. And I appreciate your testimony.
We're gonna open it up for questions, but I do want to make a note to for just for the edification of the members and those in the audience. We are we still have a lot to get through today, so we're gonna implement just a 1 question per member with 1 follow-up. We wanna make sure that we give ample time for every member of the committee to ask question for the people that are testifying to give us their important information, and we are on 2 of 15 panels.
KILCOYNE - So with much further ado, I guess I'll open it up, and, DA Early, you spoke about the challenges you're seeing hiring a new workforce for prosecutors. These are incredibly important jobs, they're huge responsibilities, and they're integral to our justice system. You have, I'm very impressed given the responsibilities each of you have that so many of you came all the way out to Clinton. DA Early, you probably had the easiest commute of your colleagues, but we appreciate you being here. And I guess that leads to my question in terms of are you seeing any sort of unique challenges in this aspect per county, right? All of them are very different. All of them have different needs. You know, Worcester is the second biggest city in the Commonwealth. Obviously, city of Boston is a major city, and Middlesex County also stretches all the way from almost Cambridge to, right, you know, just a few 20 minutes north of us, more or less. And, obviously, the Berkshires I don't, I could list all the counties, but I guess if you could, each of you maybe elaborate on some of the unique challenges you're seeing county to county, I think would be helpful.
EARLY - Why don't I turn it over to my colleagues? I would just mention in our office, we used to have a file of people who wanted ADA jobs. We don't have that anymore. We've had to advertise for some positions. We're just not seeing the demand for these vital important jobs that we used to see. Why don't I start with DA Ryan?
MARIAN RYAN - MDAA - Thank you. And thank you for having us. I think several of the challenges we see uniquely in Middlesex are, first of all, obviously, the cost of living. If we want people to live close enough to be able to respond quickly as we ask them to do, they're trying to find apartments in very, very high cost areas. I'll give you one example. During COVID, we had, I have a number of young DAs who were living together with many other friends in apartments, And we had one of our young DAs who was so crowded in the apartment he was living in that he was forced to conduct his Zoom calls from a closet because that is what he was able to afford, one tiny bedroom with a tiny closet. And I used to wonder what was swaying in the back, and it was his clothing in the closet. And, you know, I am adamant that we are doing public service, but we are professionals, and our young lawyers should feel that way. And sometimes the cost of living makes that impossible. Also, because Middlesex is so big, they obviously have to have a car. Many of them, by the time they've gotten through college and law school, don't have a car. We require them to have one to be able to get wherever they're assigned.
Thirdly, we're looking at a situation where my average new DA is coming to this job with student debt of about $160,000. So even though the legislature's been very good to us in the last few years, we've been able to raise salaries, it doesn't go very far once they make their loan payment. And a new challenge coming at them at the same subject is that many folks, one of the rewards they do get is loan forgiveness after 10 years. I am fortunate to have a pretty stable workforce, so we've got a lot of people at that eight year mark or so, who it's very unclear now whether they're gonna get that loan forgiveness. So that is another reason not to stay and to go and leave for a more lucrative spot. No one is well served when we have constant turnover, particularly on serious cases. And we all read the newspaper, and watch television, and see serious cases that are three, four, and five years old. And that is often because of that turnover and us ensuring the quality of representation that the Commonwealth has. So those are some of the unique challenges for us in Middlesex.
EARLY - DA Kevin Hayden, who's also the vice president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association this year, will be the president next year.
KEVIN HAYDEN - So, the cost of living issues in Suffolk County are frankly even more significant than that. The cost for someone to live in the Boston area is higher than anywhere else and that puts some real stress on our prosecutors. If a prosecutor is driving a car in around Boston, they are then paying for parking. We try to offset some of that but there's only so much we can do. And we are constantly pressed with the issue of the fact that our prosecutors and all of our, admins and victim witness advocates, frankly, often aren't earning enough to keep afloat. And so they come and they don't stay for very long. That's a constant problem and a big issue. We just actually opted into the transit match program for the state. We're paying for that portion of it. Other state agencies in the executive branch that are in the transit match program, their8032 cost of the transit match program is being paid by, I don't even know who it was, the government, right?
We're paying for our portion of the transit match program because we're not eligible for that. That shouldn't be the case, that's a simple legislative fix right there. So even the cost of our prosecutors just getting to work, if they're using public transportation, can be significant if they're using the commuter rail and the like. Their commutes are long. No matter where they're coming from, coming into the city of Boston, they're looking at very long commutes. They're looking at paying for parking, and the cost of their rent of living, is higher than it is anywhere else. So that's certainly unique to us as well. Obviously, the volume in Suffolk County is always the highest, and we continually deal with that as well.
So
SPEAKER17 - yeah. Michael,
SPEAKER30 - do you have any unique
MICHAEL MORRISEY - MDAA - Just remember that, all of our budget, 80 to 90% of what we have are people, the next biggest expense of rent. That's what the DA's office is. I'm sure there's some other expenses of equipment and research, but we're a people agencies. So everything you give us, generally, the largest block of what happens goes to the people who work every8108 day.
HAYDEN - And I would just jump in8110 real quickly. It's worth noting. I mean, we've made some significant improvements over the last couple years thanks to you8116 all. The increases that our office has seen that we've been able to pass on to our employees, has been significant and it's been substantial, and we thank each and every one of you for that. But if we don't continue to get the sort of increases in funding that we've gotten over the last couple years, we're gonna have a problem, we're gonna start losing people. And with Rule 14 and some of these other issues coming into play, we're literally standing on the edge of a cliff at this point. We can't march backwards. And public safety is the front line of everything we do. It's at the front line of our state and how we live, how we stay safe, how people want and need to live in our great communities, comes down to public safety. We're on the front lines. Spending money on DAs' offices and on young prosecutors is the best money you'll ever spend.
DAVID SULLIVAN - MDAA - District attorney Sullivan and my jurisdiction is Hampshire and Franklin Counties in the western part of the state. And in the western part of the state we have four counties, Hampshire, Franklin, Hampden County, which is Springfield area, and then the Berkshires. We have two dilemmas. One is the cost of living, and the second is we only have one law school, and it's down to 100 students per class. And how many are gonna do criminal law? We're really in a real tight bind because we have to hire attorneys and there's very few to select from, so that's one crisis. The other is really, when we presented to the legislature a number of years ago, we took a map of the courtroom, and we looked at the court officers. We looked at the custodians. We looked at the assistant courts. The ADAs are still at the bottom.
They don't get paid as much as the probation officers. They don't get paid as much as the court officers to start. So you're in a real dilemma. I mean, if you have to choose between a government agency, you know, a council 1 or a DA's office, the council 1 probably pays $8,000 more. So we just wanna be competitive with council 1. So that's where the $80,000 ask is, to get them up, at least to start. And, of course, the compression, you know, you have to give, you know, collision rather, to all the other ADAs. But seriously,8264 if in the budget, we could have at least that jump from that $72,500, which is the minimum up to $80,000. It would make a significant difference, and at least have people that can at least survive without living, you know, with a group of four people or five people without having to live with their parents or, you know, hopefully, you know I wish all of them had trust funds. It'd be great, but they don't.
So they're all working class folks that really wanna do the right thing for the Commonwealth and represent victims of crime. It's so important that the victims of crime have the best representation, not a rookie. You know, we've all seen my cousin Vinny, and I say sometimes, it's kind of like my cousin Vinny. These young people don't know where to stand in the courtroom. We have to teach them, and it takes a while to get trained. I'd say it takes about three years before you can really feel confident that these ADAs know what they're doing. Not that they're incompetent, but they have to learn. And so we really appreciate8325 your appreciation. And everything you've done for us to raise the bar over the last 10 years has been important. It has made a difference, but I think, with8333 inflation and all the other demands, I think, to raise it to $80,000 would be a godsend.
8343 SPEAKER18343 -8343 Alright.8343 We'll move on to more questions from the members. I do want to acknowledge 2 members that have joined us that I was remiss on not mentioning earlier. We have representative Rita Mendez here from Brockton and representative Orlando Ramos from hailing from Springfield. Right? And, with that, I will turn it over to representative Ramos who has a question.
REP RAMOS - Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you members of the panel for that testimony. Thank you for the hard work that you do to keep our communities safe on a daily basis. My question is relative to gun violence. As the weather warms up, we're gonna see our typical yearly spike in gun violence. I represent the city of Springfield, where in 2023, we had a record number of homicides, 33, in fact. And most of them were related to guns, illegal guns. At the time, the Hampden County District Attorney's Office had a backlog of gun related cases. And I proposed the idea of presenting a gun court in the city of Springfield to designate a judge and an assistant district attorney to address these gun related cases and streamline them to be able to deal with the backlog. It's modeled after other communities like New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, Rhode Island, who had been successful in in doing this. We weren't8431 able to reach an agreement. We weren't able to come up with8433 a plan, but I'm just thinking in terms of the association, do you think a gun court would help address the number of gun violence cases? And is this something that we could implement in other communities that are struggling with the same problem?
HAYDEN - So, if you've ever spent any time listening to me at all, you know this is one of my biggest issues. Illegal guns in our streets is a pervasive problem. Thankfully, in Boston, for whatever reasons, we've been blessed with the ability to lay hold of some of that, and our violent crime and our homicide rate is way down, but illegal guns in our street is important. So we have the, before I answer your question, we've got the toughest gun laws in the street. We have a gun bill that's gonna be challenged in the next election, hopefully, unsuccessfully. That bill is a good bill and should remain in place. There's a reason why right now Massachusetts and Boston in particular is safe as it is because of our gun laws. It's because of the things that we do to try to stem the tide of what is a nationwide problem. And I hope and remain to pray that nationwide we'll see comprehensive gun reform at some point in time.
In the meantime, yes, I think gun courts can and are helpful when used appropriately and as needed. We've had gun courts in Suffolk County at various points in time. We have one under operation right now out of our Boston Municipal Central Court to deal with some of the backlog of gun cases that we've had as a result of COVID. So I do think there's a place for them. I think they can be helpful. I think that that's something that would have to be employed, on a case by case and county wide basis. It might not be necessary everywhere, but we do use them. We're using one now and I do believe they are effective. They're not, there's not a constant, I think, continual need for them.
RYAN - Representative, I would say that I agree with DA Hayden, that gun courts can be effective. What I think is particularly effective with respect to the gun violence that we are seeing right now, and we've had a recent rash in Cambridge and surrounding towns, is that there is very prompt response. We have put together teams of our DAs who are responding with the police. The message we need to be sending to the people who are engaging in this behavior is that we are going to identify you, you are going to be held accountable, and we are going to seek to have you held until we've gone to trial on that. The gun court piece is probably a year and a half, two years down the road. What we need to do, particularly as we head into the summer, in these crimes, not just homicides, but what I think is even more frightening is us finding at an intersection 40 or 60 spent casings.
So people in very congested neighborhoods8632 are just firing off 40 to 60 rounds. That8636 not only is concerning in8638 terms of public safety, we had one last night outside a very crowded restaurant, took out the windows of parked cars, one individual was hit. But for all of you and for your constituents, it destroys the neighborhood. If I'm not comfortable putting my child to sleep, worried about whether a bullet might come through the window, or I can't let my children out to play because they8661 might be caught in the crossfire, people are not going to stay there. So, we really need some of these funds to be able to front load, to be able to have enough DAs to have that response, to be able to pursue what we need. For instance, in the incident last night, I've already spent a substantial amount of money to expedite the phone records because every case now depends on people's devices. You have to pay to expedite those records to get them in a way that is useful.
And think about it is not just phones now, it's the infosystems in a car. When we get a car and we want to be able to show that that car was at the scene of the shooting, we need to get that record. And I will be coming back to the legislature shortly with respect to the companies doing business here, and they're telling us that maybe in a month they can get us the records. That's unacceptable, because when we find out a month from now that the car was at the shooting, it doesn't help us to arrest that alleged perpetrator. As well, we are having our state police that are assigned to our office respond to, with local police, to non fatal shootings to increase town's ability to respond, so that we are doing that quick response, getting people off the street and making a very clear message that that is not gonna go unaddressed. So I think you're right. And these are the weeks when we need to be doing that before we face the summer.
EARLY - And I'll just add on that. We also have a gun, court with the judge in Worcester as well. And again, you can't you have to have a prosecutor that has the experience, the wherewithal to know the local place, know the police department, know the officers who are investigating these. We ask for dangerousness hearing on every shooting. And to what DA Ryan spoke of,8773 they now have an adapter. Well, we used to8775 see 5, 6, 7, 8 bullet casings in the scene. Now you're seeing hundreds because the adapter that they8781 can put on a gun to make it less of a single shot and more of a machine gun type weapon. And we are also seeing guns being in the hands of kids who are younger and younger. And also I know this legislation and action too, with regards to the ghost gun bill, about 30 to 40% of our guns in the juvenile court are ghost8801 guns. And I know I recommend, I can't speak for everyone, I'm pretty sure everyone8805 does, but that would be putting serial numbers on all of the parts of ghost guns so we can trace them and find out where they're coming from.
SULLIVAN - I'd like to address one thing with Springfield. In the past, Hampden County did have a gun court, and then it kinda8821 faded away. I think the real crisis now in West Mass is we're so short on superior court judges that the judiciary can't give that resource for that gun. So if we get four of the empty slots filled by the governor, there might be somebody that could free up because you wanna expedite this thing. Let's face it, one person can do more violence in a matter of a month than other people that aren't with weapons. So I think the superior court in Hampden County deserves a gun court. And I don't have, DA Goulding back away sentence because you had an outrageous number of homicides in the past few years. And the reason is, guns. Ghost guns that have been regulated now. Great legislation. You guys did a great job. You created that gun legislation, but it's gonna be a challenge for the supreme court, stay in place. But we need a gun court in Hampden County.
SPEAKER18 - Like to recognize senator Michael8885 Brady.
SEN BRADY - Thank you, mister chairman, and welcome to all of you, and I appreciate all the work you all do. And you brought up a good point a little while ago about the ADAs not getting paid enough. You hit the nail on the head. A lot of these young kids that are getting out of college, they're finding, once they gain the experience and you need experience helping your officers doing the work, once they gain the experience, they're getting job office elsewhere8913 and they're leaving. I know in Brockton, we just had three murders in the past week. One was yesterday and two a week before at the mall. It's tough keeping help and that becomes a revolving door when you lose these ADAs that finally gain the experience and they're gaining the knowledge, and then they get a job offer elsewhere.
And you brought up, with the illegal gun because we know most of the crime is with illegal guns, and the opioid crisis. I know the governor back when she was the attorney general got some funding to go after the OxyContin epidemic and everything else. But, again, with the drugs, they get addicted to the OxyContin and then they switch to heroin,8952 and it's more prevalent than we've ever seen. And you mentioned about the young people. It8956 is scary that kids younger8958 and younger are the ones that are getting these illegal guns and people are dying on the streets every day, even though we've made great strides with legislation, the ghost guns and everything else. And there is a lot of pushback. We certainly don't wanna hurt the legal gun owners that use it for hunting or recreation or whatever, but it's the illegal guns that they may be getting, making ghost guns out of them and everything else.
So, I just ask if any legislation that you see forthcoming that would be helpful, please don't hesitate to contact my office. I know my DA in Plymouth County is dealing with some serious stuff today, but I appreciate all the work you guys are doing and the DAs out there. And, you know, it's a tough, we're in a tough situation now, especially with the warm weather coming. So, but you are on the front line, so you may find some legislation that might be pressing that's important. So please don't hesitate to contact us because you don't want things falling to the cracks. So thank you. Thank you, mister chairman.
SPEAKER17 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Alrighty. Representative Holmes? Yes. It's your turn.
HOLMES - Alright. And I see you're almost done. So, I think you may have been here when I made my overarching statement, so I'll make it again. This whole thing around public safety is again a space that I get very animated about because of the9042 fact that it is almost all white almost and all male overseeing people who are disproportionately black, Asian and Hispanic. And so in everything you're doing, I'm hoping you're driving diversity to everything that you're doing. My one question is about, in this budget, is about unsolved murders We all go around right where Boston is, where this one is. Boston still sitting on 1,700 to 1,8009070 unsolved murders. This state is still sitting on almost 10,000 unsolved murders. When I hear you say that the most dangerous thing, Mr. DA is about the person walking the street, that one person walking the street because of a lot of harm, every person who has pulled the trigger in my neighborhood and killed somebody is even more empowered because they know they got away with it. And so what are you guys doing? Cross, brick, large. What are we doing? I'm trying to, with the black Latino caucus, advocate around unsolved murders and having a com having an effort done. What are you guys doing now in your offices around getting to unsolved murders to get these people off the street? There is nothing you say that one person. No. Get the person who killed somebody and got away. That's where we should be spending a lot of our time.
HAYDEN - I'll take a first stab at that. So we have a very keen focus in Boston on our on our unsolved right now. We have one prosecutor, that's devoted entirely to working on just unsolved cases. That's9143 where he's spending all of his time. And, yes, it's probably one of the most pervasive issues. And that comes back to resources, it comes back to why we need more hands on deck, why we need more people to do the job. The face of prosecution and police investigations has changed, entirely. When I was a young prosecutor, I would try a gun case. I'd put about 12 to 15 exhibits into evidence. I watched a young prosecutor in superior court try a case several months ago. I walked in the courtroom, He was on exhibit number 15. I walked out. He was on exhibit number 69,9182 right?
The game has changed. The cost of prosecuting, the cost9186 of doing a case, the cost of investigating a case, it's completely different than it was back in the day. And you need resources in order to be able to solve cases. Right now, in the city of Boston, we're fortunate enough to be able to spend more time on unsolved cases. Why? Because our shootings are down and our murders are down, right? Our clearance rate is way up. So as you'll see, always see a correlation between solve rates and and where crime is. If you're running around trying to keep your thumb in the dike, like some other counties are dealing with right now, and my heart goes out to them, and we do everything we can to assist and help. But if you're running around9228 trying to just prevent the next one from happening, how are you gonna solve the one that9232 just happened the other day, right? So there's a direct correlation between those those two factors. So we're finding that we're solving more because we have more time to be able to devote our resources to those cases. But the game has changed, it's different, and it requires resources to get the job done.
RYAN - Representative, I couldn't agree with you more with respect to cases that are9261 unsolved. It not only leaves families and loved ones without answers, it sends the wrong message to the community. It is my belief that the message we have to be sending is that we do not give up, and we do not forget. In 2019, we created a cold case unit. We have since resolved 13 cases that were decades old. We have several more that you'll be hearing about in the next few weeks. I think there is nothing more important that we do. As someone who was a witness and a survivor of a robbery homicide myself, I know how important it is to have accountability in those situations. But DA Hayden is right. The amount of money expended on those cases, and that comes first in our office, but the amount of money that we are expending to solve those cases grows exponentially.
9317 You9317 see, we all read about when you solve a case, as we just did this week, we had a defendant arraigned on the murder of a young single mother, that case was over 20 years old. No one, really the situation was that no one was coming to us saying, is this9335 case going to get solved? But we didn't forget. But those cases get solved using modern technology. Many of these cases are now being solved using forensic genealogy. I'm9347 proud to say, we have a forensic genealogist on our staff to help us with those cases, but that comes at a cost. I don't think there's anything better we can spend our money on. And this is a place where we use science, where we are, you heard earlier today from the lab, the lab has come an enormous way in part because of the resources they've9368 been given to be able to do so many of these different things that help us to get to resolution of a case.
Once a case is9376 several years old, absent a9378 witness on your death bed making a confession or something, the only way you're gonna solve it is forensically. I talked a little bit before about what it costs to get records. That cost increases dramatically when those records are old. We all have to make that commitment and have those resources available so we can bring families the answers that they seek often for many generations. And you are right, it is often in communities where people have suffered, who are people of color, people of some other new to this country, some other thing, that they do not even have the resources. We have cases where I get calls from United States senators about the cases. We have lots of cases where no one's calling me. It really is my commitment that we are treating both of those the9426 same, and we are equally seeking to bring them to conclusion.
HAYDEN - There one other thing that's worth noting, and I think it's important because it's often misunderstood. Our unsolved rates are often compared to other jurisdictions. We consider a case open and unsolved for as long as it exists. We don't clear unsolved. Other jurisdictions are clearing cases. Other jurisdictions are determining we have reached a virtual dead end and there is no hope of ever solving this case. And so, therefore, we're going to clear it. So they drive their numbers, unsolved numbers, down because they clear numbers off their books. They consider them unsolved. We don't do that. A case is unsolved until it's solved. Because of every human life, particularly in our black and brown communities mattering, we don't clear cases. We always consider them unsolved until they're solved. Other jurisdictions aren't doing that.
EARLY - We started a cold case squad when I first got elected and, o the behest of colonel at the time, Marion Ryan. Excuse me. Yeah. Marion. Marion McGovern. She's in9500 my head. Marion McGovern and, my colonel was Rick McKeown. And and it was interesting because she9506 had asked us to do, and we did it, rep,9508 and learned so much about9510 it. So just I'm not, I know the judges are waiting, but just the getting to the, solving it right away, time is our enemy, but then after several years, it becomes our friend, and I got the education. And then about three months into this, John Bish, father of Molly Bish told us, don't you dare call them cold cases because they are unsolved cases. Unresolved cases. And that's what you call them, because these families need that. They need to know you're working every day because you are working on them every day. And time becomes our friend after relationships end and whatnot.
If you have that seasoned prosecutor that we've all talked about, the person with9549 the passion, you know, who sees little things on other different9552 crimes, goes back to those files, that's when they solve them. And we had, within the first three years, the late Joe9558 Quinlan was working on a 42 year old case. Joey died of cancer a few years ago. Went back to the evidence box, found one woman, an officer, was smart enough9568 in the, 80s, 70s, 80s, at the time, to clip the fingernails of the victim. The DNA of9574 that defendant was under the fingernails. We solved a 42 year old murder, and to the two sisters, it was if it happened last week. But, again, it's those passionate people, and I applaud the state police as well. They put together an unresolved unit working with someone from all of our offices, so there is a focus there. And particularly in our bad communities, if we don't get to that perpetrator right away, there's gonna be a retribution shooting and a killing.
HOLMES - You solved the case?
EARLY - That's right. Yes. Yeah. Reading a book called now called ghetto side, just on the issue, and it's a fascinating book. But we know without reading the book that we have to do it. We have to do it quickly. And our intelligence, it comes from seasoned police, seasoned prosecutors, and we're trying to do that. Believe me, we're all trying to do it as best we can.
HAYDEN - Just happened in Chelsea the other day. So it just happened in Chelsea the other day. Young man is dead, and he was facing a murder charge when he was dead.
SPEAKER1 - Alright. Thank you, representative. With that, I don't have any more questions from the committee, senator.
SPEAKER2 - No. Thank you all for your time.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you so much.
SPEAKER17 - Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER1 - Enjoy the rest of your day. And now we're gonna hear from, the judiciary with the supreme judicial court, appeals court, and trial court.
SPEAKER8 - Great letter. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Just for the edification of everybody, we've been joined by state representative John Moran
and representative Sally Carrington Peter Buddy.
SPEAKER4 - Yep.
SPEAKER18 - Before we begin the following testimony, I just wanna recognize we're joined by, Dennis McManus, who's the Worcester Clerk Of Courts in the back. And he's, sitting next to Mike Sullivan, who is the Clerk of Courts for Middlesex County. I believe Dan Hogan from, DMC is also here today. So So I just wanna welcome them, to the hearing.
SPEAKER1 - Alright. Without further ado, we will begin with the testimony. Chief justice Budd, welcome.
KIMBERLY BUDD - SJC - Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Kimberly Budd. I'm the chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. And with me9792 this afternoon are chief justice Amy Blake, chief justice Heidi Brieger. I'm sorry. Amy Blake of this, appeals court, chief justice Heidi Brieger of the trial court, and court administrator Tom Ambrosino. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the judicial branch. On behalf of my colleagues on the SJC and the entire state court system, I want to express our appreciation for the support that this committee and your colleagues on the legislature have provided the judiciary. Because of our beneficial partnership, the commonwealth can boast of a strong and independent judicial branch. My complete testimony and summary of the fiscal year 2026 judiciary budget request is before you. But in the interest of time, I'm going to just offer some brief comments on the upcoming budget and then turn it over to my colleagues. The court leaders before you today are well aware of the fiscal realities that are looming on the horizon. As a result, you'll see that we've limited our collective fiscal year 2026 Requests to bear maintenance.
Most of the increase over fiscal year 2025 is related to non discretionary increases such as CBA, COLA adjustments, and rising building lease costs. The governor's fiscal year 2026 budget falls dangerously short of meeting the judiciary's needs. The biggest concern is the recommendation for the trial court. Chief Justice Brieger and Mr. Ambrosino will provide details on that in a few minutes. But the governor's recommendation for the trial court would result in a loss9906 of positions and limit9908 IT supports, stalling the progress made by our9912 partnership over the past years. It's for this reason that we ask that you consider funding the judiciary at the requested maintenance levels. Thanks again for the opportunity to address you today, and I'm gonna turn it over now to Chief Justice Blake.
AMY BLAKE - MASSACHUSETTS APPEALS COURT - Good afternoon. My name is Amy Blake, and I was sworn in as the chief justice of the appeals court in November of 2024. I had been an associate justice of that court for 10 years, and prior to that, six years as a justice of the probate and family court. I tell you all of that to say this is my first time before you, so be kind. Senator Cronin, Representative Kilcoyne, and members of the joint committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to provide testimony today on behalf of the appeals court. I'd also like to thank your legislative colleagues, and in particular, Senator Rodrigues and Representative Michlewitz for all of your assistance over the years. Your support has enabled the appeals court to provide just, fair, and timely legal decisions.
As you may know, we are often the court of last resort for many lawyers and self represented litigants. We review decisions from the seven trial court departments, the Appellate Tax Board, the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board, and the Industrial Accident Board. In my view, the Massachusetts Appeals Court is the premier intermediate appellate court in the nation. In addition to producing the highest quality opinions, we have taken the lead in enhancing administrative operations, implementing education and training initiatives, improving case processing, and making technology improvements, which has resulted in our court operating almost exclusively as a paperless court. We could not have done this without the passage of the judiciary IT bond bill, and10016 we thank you for that.
Two things I'd like to highlight about the appeals court. We are committed10022 to access to justice initiatives. We spend considerable time and10026 energy to provide online access to lawyers, litigants, and the public to educate them about the appellate process. This includes how to file and what our rules of court entail. We have our website that includes a guide to civil and criminal appeals. And in collaboration with Suffolk University, we've created online guided interviews for self represented litigants to file motions and petitions before our court, and we're working on a similar program to help with brief filing. We've also extended an informal brief pilot project, which relaxes requirements for self represented litigants, and the civil appeals clinic, which is run by the Volunteer Lawyers Project, will resume in person operations at the appeals court next month.10068
We also livestream and archive our hearings on our appeals court YouTube channel to assist lawyers and litigants to help prepare them for their cases, but also to ensure that our court continues to be transparent in all of the work that we do. But our work has changed a bit since the pandemic. In fiscal year 2024, we had new cases entered at 2,308, up from 2,149 the prior year. Interestingly, the majority of those are civil. While we expect our panel cases to continue to increase as the trial court continues to process their cases, we have seen an explosion in our single justice session. We hear single justice matters from every trial court in the Commonwealth, but our statistics show that our eviction filings in the appeals court come from the housing court, and those have increased by 43%.
Why is that? Well, some of it is related, of course, to the end of the eviction moratorium. But10129 with the high cost of rent and the housing crisis in Massachusetts, I think the numbers will only trend upward. So what does that actually mean day to day? Just to give you a sense of what our single justice deals with. It's not unusual to come to work and find there have been four brand new eviction cases filed in a matter of 30 minutes. And they're e filed, so10149 they're e filed all times of the day and night. Usually, they're self10153 represented litigants and they're looking for a stay. But there's also usually a sheriff on the other end of the telephone asking, do I pack the tenant's belongings and lock the house or not? That single justice has so little time to consider the legal arguments, try to understand what the tenant is asking for, apply the law, and then make a decision. And sometimes there's four of those an hour.
Our single justice works really hard, and they couldn't do their work without the support of our clerk's office. But they've really become expert evictions for no other reason than our numbers are demanding it. The numbers are not sustainable and I'm looking at creative ways to manage and staff our single justice session. But I'm sure you can imagine, and many of your constituents have probably people that have found themselves in these situations, and it's really tricky. Just to give you a sense of our overall numbers, in January of this year, our single justice session had 81 new petitions. We had an all time high in November of 91. Normally, our average monthly petition session is 67, so the numbers are just continuing to grow. Not sure what the answer is, but I'm working creatively with our team to try and figure that out.
I also wanna take a brief moment to highlight some of the DEI work that the appeals court is doing. This time we are leaning in and not away from DEI initiatives. We have an internal DEI committee at the court, which puts together great programming, mentoring, and opportunities to learn from one another. But to expand the diversity of our applicant pools, we have engaged a DEIB HR consultant. She is looking at our job posting with a focus on our entry level jobs to figure out why our pool is not diverse. Whenever possible, I would like to be able to promote from within. And if we expand our pipeline at the first opportunity, this will create a vibrant, talented, and diverse appeals court. But we also have an obligation to the communities that we serve.
To that end, I have partnered with the Boston Bar Association. We will be hoping, excuse me, hosting an open house with the Boston Public Schools this May. Students in the tenth and eleventh grade will10280 come to the court to learn what we do. We will have tables, kind of like speed dating, where students will meet with and learn about10286 all the jobs available in the court system. And that's just not the attorneys or the judges,10290 court officers, interpreters, docketing staff, facilities management, skilled laborers, like our plumbers and electricians that keep a light on in our beautiful building. The day will include a tour of the courthouse, career roadmaps, lunch, and, of course, some appeals court swag. We're excited about this initiative and hope to replicate it each year in the spring for high school students and with some modifications in the fall for college community area, excuse me, area community college students.
Lastly, I'd just like to tell you a little bit about our numbers. As you know, we have 24 associate justices and a chief. Right now, we have one open associate position. We have filled critical staff positions necessary to fulfill our mission. But for the fiscal year 26, I expect personnel costs will increase due to the collective bargaining agreement increases from 2025 and related cost of living step and managerial increases. Our budget is more than 90% related to payroll, and we take every opportunity we can to try and save. Our operations have undergone significant changes. And to that end, we are requesting an appropriation of $16,126,966, which is, in essence, a maintenance budget. The rest of my testimony, I believe you have before me, so I will10367 rest on that and turn it over to Chief Justice Heidi Brieger. And I thank you for your time and attention this afternoon.
HEIDI BRIEGER - MASSACHUSETTS TRIAL COURT - Good afternoon, Chair Cronin, Chair Kilcoyne, all the esteemed members of this committee, many of whom look familiar to me because this is my second year. You still should be kind. But many of you have been kind enough to host us, as we describe our budget request to you. And those of you who we have not yet visited are likely to get a visit at some point in the future, so thank you in advance. On behalf of the 393 judges in the trial court and the 6,500 plus employees, we are here to ask for your support in our FY 26 budget request of $985.5 million. It's a big number. I'm gonna let him explain it, but I wanna tell you the why we are asking for that money. If I could respond to all of the questions that have been asked so far, I would really like to. I'd like to throw away my script, but I'm sitting next to two of my bosses, and10439 they will kill me if I do that. So I'm gonna stick to the script and10443 explain to you, exactly why it is that we need this money.
Since last July, we have received 543,00010451 case filings across the court. That is 30,000 more than last year at this time. Despite the increase in filings, which is remarkable in every court, our clearance rate has returned to pre pandemic levels at about 95 to 100%. In the housing court, the juvenile court, and the land court, they have clearance rates of about 100, which means they are resolving cases as quickly as they are being filed. That's a true accomplishment given the fact that we are working with some other obstacles, which I will come to later. We are actively working on another important metric, which is what we call the time to disposition. The time to disposition is what your constituents are most likely to call you about. This is making sure that the cases that get filed are disposed of or resolved within established time standards. Since becoming chief justice, this has been a primary focus because for me, we serve the public, we serve our litigants, and we serve all of the folks that are looking for answers. If they have to wait too long for answers, that's not fair to them. And I'm certain that you will hear about it, and I want to avoid that.
I think that in fiscal year 25, 74% of all of our cases in all of our courts were disposed of or resolved within our established time standards. This is up 5% over last year. This is an example of what it takes to be the nudger in chief, and that is partly my job, is I nudge things along as best as I can to maintain fairness and avoid unfairness. It means that we are effectively delivering justice, ensuring that parties are having the access that they need, not just to the courtroom, but to a decision from the courtroom. These metrics, these clearance rates, these time to disposition metrics are the pulse and the blood pressure of a10596 healthy court system. Our pulse is going down, our blood10600 pressure is going down, and I think that that is worth bragging about. And it's a great result of how generous the legislature has been post pandemic with the trial court, and we're very grateful for that.
Coming to this position in the trial court from the superior court, I had to make many transitions, but one of the transitions that I want to note today is that, in the superior court and the land court, most parties are represented by lawyers. That is not the case in all of the other departments of the trial court. We are seeing a tremendous increase in self represented civil litigants across all parts of the trial court. Our courtrooms are no longer filled with lawyers. They are mostly filled with somewhat confused self represented litigants. In the housing court summary process cases, 91%, 91% of parties appear without a lawyer. That's up 4% from a few years ago. The numbers are similar in the district court, which has a jurisdiction over the same summary process cases. 66% of the civil cases that the district court resolves involve parties without attorneys. In the probate and family court, 66 and a half percent of domestic relations cases and 94% of joint petitions for divorce had at least one self represented litigant. I think you can imagine what that means in any courtroom.
Cases involving SRLs require more court resources to assist these litigants because they don't understand court procedures. They don't understand the rules, the forms, what to do with them. We have a number of court service centers, many, many of them in your districts, that try to answer litigants' basic questions. Trying to give not legal advice, but procedural advice so that these folks can file their cases and get a hearing scheduled. In the courtrooms, the judges take more time with self represented litigants. It slows the docket down significantly, but it's absolutely necessary to help people understand why it is they're there. Clerks and registers office staffs also spend a significantly enhanced amount of time with these folks.
From an IT perspective, we are also improving what we think of as customer service. And that improvement flows basically from the IT bond bill that you were generous enough to sign off on, a couple of years ago. We now have WiFi available in 87 out of 94 of our courthouses. This might not sound like news, this is a headline. In about a month, we will have WiFi in every10794 single courthouse except for the John Adams, I'm sorry, and the Suffolk County High10800 rise in Boston. This is a real major step forward for the ability to serve litigants, judges, lawyers, everybody. We have also successfully piloted a digital courthouse signage project, which again doesn't sound very sexy, but digital signage speeds up this passage of folks through court houses. It gives them an idea of where to go. It's just that simple. What courtroom, what time, where certain judges are sitting. The signs are, I would like to say, better10841 than Logan Airport, but we're only in one courthouse. And the court administrator will explain what it's gonna take for us to grow that project. We are very happy with that.
We are leveraging Zoom to use in a way that assists with, victims, with witnesses, with lawyers, and with their clients. It is10867 an incredibly important tool. We pivoted to Zoom when we had to during the pandemic and quickly realized that this can be the new face of the trial court. I have said repeatedly that the bar will lead the way in the area of Zoom. I doubt it will be the judiciary, Judges can be very slow to change. But I consider myself the queen of Zoom and I try to encourage people to use Zoom whenever it is appropriate. Since I took on this job, one of my primary focuses, for reasons that I do not need to explain, has been the juvenile court. I have continued to work on projects begun by my predecessor, Chief Justice Jeffrey Locke, who established the trial court permanency working group to examine the care and protection proceedings, identify causes for delay, and to make some recommended changes and enhancements to the process.
I'm so happy to see nods from those of you on the committee. This is a really important project. The core working group members, which include chief justice of the juvenile court, Dana Gershengorn, the secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, Kate Walsh, the commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, Staverne Miller, the chief counsel for the committee for public counsel services, Anthony Benedetti, and the child advocate, Maria Mossaides. We have now, I will not say we're best friends, but we are really close. We meet regularly, in that small group in10972 the trial court conference room. And the result of this have been many, many significant steps forward. One of which is a complete renovation redraft of the juvenile court rules. Those rules have been out for public10990 comment, they have been revised. They have now been submitted to the Supreme Judicial Court where we wait approval, likely next month or the month after.
These new rules are11001 going to have several significant effects. They will11005 add, in care and protection proceedings, they will add scheduling orders. Sounds kind of unimportant but a scheduling order in a judge's courtroom is about the best tool for efficiency that you can ask for. We will require all care and protection cases to try very hard to try the 72 hour hearings on consecutive days, and the same for care and protection permanency trials on consecutive days instead of having a trial day one day and then waiting six weeks to four months for the next day. We think that those will really speed up the juvenile court proceedings. We have also added a brand new rule under the interstate compact on the placement of children, fondly known as the ICPC, which addresses the question of whether and when home studies will be conducted on all out of court placements of children, out of state placements of children.
The juvenile court has taken a number of other steps to revamp their hiring of investigators and training of their judges. And I'm really, really proud of how far we have come in one short year. I look forward next year to reporting on even more forward progress in this way. The probate and family court has been another real focus of mine, for some of the same reasons, and it's called speed. We need to speed up some of these proceedings. And the probate and family court chief justice has, over the past year and a half, implemented a brand new case management program called pathways. And this pathways management program has taken cases as they are filed in the probate and family court and divided them into essentially two tracks. A track that can perhaps reach a mediated result and a track that11135 has to see a judge. The number of cases that are being mediated and resolved more quickly by work without getting to a judicial hearing, is enormous. And they are finding that this is speeding up their cases, in a very productive way.
Finally, I would like to address an unexpected obstacle that the11159 trial court has faced, and that is our 17 judicial vacancies as of today. I would like personally to thank Representative Smola and Senator Jo Comerford and many of your colleagues in the West who recently sent a letter to the governor calling attention to this very difficult problem and asking for speedier nominations. I very much, all of my colleagues very much appreciate that. We have 17 vacancies, as I said, five in the district court, one in the juvenile court, four in the probate and family court, and astonishing, astonishing seven vacancies in the superior court. This is not good, as you can imagine. It's not good for the court system. Fewer judges lead to greater delays. And in many ways, this is throwing sand in my gears. And it causes judicial burnout. It erodes public trust and public faith in the outcome of ours cases. So, we are all working on that and we appreciate your assistance as well.
This is a hard time to be a public servant, and I'm aware that all of you are public servants as well. It's doubly hard at this time to manage the public fisc, and we are sensitive to that. We are very much engaged in assuring that the oldest judicial system in the country remains ready for whatever faces us, that it operates on all cylinders, and that it can face and address the problems that come our way. We are truly the front door to justice, and we look forward to your help in keeping that door wide open. Thank you very much. And now I'm gonna ask my partner in justice to tell you about what it is we need.
THOMAS AMBROSINO - MASSACHUSETTS TRIAL COURT - Well, thank you, chief. And, good afternoon, Chair Kilcoyne, Chair Cronin, members of the joint committee, including my former boss, Representative11284 Garcia. It's a pleasure to be here in Clinton. We actually have a pretty large trial11290 court presence here in Clinton. Not only11292 do we have the district court, but we have our major Mass Probation Services Training Center here. So the chief and I are out in Clinton quite often. We enjoy it out here. I can assure you every time we do an event there at that training facility, we always use local vendors and engage local community groups. So, we're really pleased with11313 our good partnership with the town of Clinton. I first wanna start by saying thank you11319 to the legislature. As the chief mentioned, you have been very generous towards the court system and the trial court in particular post pandemic. We've really gotten very good budgets from you. And that's enabled us to really make the great progress that Chief Justice Brieger, mentioned.
But we are gonna need your11341 help this year in particular, because our need11345 for next year is significant. Just our maintenance budget for next year, just to continue to do in fiscal year 26 exactly what we're doing in fiscal year 25 in terms of delivering service and investing in our IT modernization, that number is $985.5 million. Now that's a11371 $47 million11373 increase11373 or a 5% increase from what we're operating on in '25. So you might say, why do you need so much money? Why do you need 47 million if you're just gonna do next year exactly what you're doing this year? And the answer comes down to three simple things. The first is cost of living increases for our workforce. That alone is $30 million. The overwhelming majority of that, 26.5 million, is just11403 to pay the collective bargaining raises for our union workforce. These were the statewide raises given to every statewide union.
Our workforce, which is about 6,600 employees, 80% of that is unionized. So that alone is $26.5 million for us. I did include in that maintenance budget a small number, 3.5 million, to give the same cost of living increases to our non statutory managers. This is the small group of managers that we have whose salary is not set11444 by the legislature. These typically tend to be our first line managers and they directly supervise our union employees. And if I don't give them the same cost of living increase, they will be making less than the union employees that they manage, and that really is not good for morale. We worry about losing those important managers if that situation exists. I can see that as discretionary, but it's a very small piece of this 30 million. The majority, 26.5, are mandated union contract raises over which I have no discretion whatsoever.
And again, those weren't raises that we determined, those were statewide raises that every union was granted. It was 11% over three years, 3% this year, a 2 and 2 in '26, and a 2 and 2 in '27. And just annualizing this year's 3% and giving them the 2 and 211511 next year, that's $26.5 million for our workforce, so 30 million for cost of living increases. Another 7 million that brings us to 37, is for increased lease cost for us. We lease a lot of buildings around the Commonwealth, 53 buildings around the Commonwealth, including that training center that I just mentioned, which11537 exists down the street here in Clinton. So those leases, the 53 of them that we utilize11543 for our court buildings, courtrooms, those leases are all going up to the tune statewide of $7 million. Again, that's not a discretionary amount. I have to pay our landlords. So that's 37 million of the 47. The final 10 million are for IT modernization costs.
Now you might say, why do you need operational money for IT when we granted you $165 million IT modernization bond bill three years ago. And you did, and we're so grateful for that. But that modernization bill, our plan for implementing that, that we gave to the legislature was a six year implementation plan. And that requires a annual investment of about 27, 28 million dollars. We are not getting an allocation of anywhere near that amount from the state's capital budget. We are getting, in the three years we've been into this, between 10 and 13 million a year. And I just learned yesterday from EOTS that their recommendation for us for next year is $5 million, so that does not allow us to meet this need at all. If we're at that level of investment, we'll be here 20 years from now and still not be a digital court.
So we have buttressed and supplemented the capital money with our own operating cost. We've done that for the last three years to maintain this investment of about 28 to 30 million dollars a year, and it's allowed us to do the modernization things that the chief talked about. It's allowed us to put Wi Fi in all but two of our court building. It's allowed us to invest in digital signage. We completed the pilot last year. Our plan is to have digital signage in every one of our courthouses by 2027. We are about to launch a pilot in online dispute resolution. A pilot and guide and file services for our self represented litigants so they can go online, answer a11693 guided interview, just like you do11695 on TurboTax, press a button, and have a pleading e file to the court. We are doing everything we can11703 in our IT modernization effort to make our system more accessible, more welcoming, more easily understandable to the people that we now serve, which as the chief said, are no longer lawyers. They're mostly self represented litigants and they need a lot of customer service, which we're proud to deliver.
But I can tell you, if we have to take a substantial cut from that $985 million maintenance budget, it's not gonna impact just our IT modernization, that will come to a halt, but it will also impact our workforce and our delivery of service. Because just like every other entity that comes before you, the overwhelming majority of our budget is salary. So the only way you can save money is by reducing personnel, and that's what I'd have to do. If I get a number anywhere near House 1, which is 952, it's 14 million more than we have right now, but not even sufficient to cover our collective bargaining increases to our unions. I would have to put an immediate hiring freeze on. That will reduce my personnel. I'll lose 400 people with a hiring freeze in one year because that's the number of people we go through in a yearly basis.
We lose about 30 plus people a month, mostly through retirements, people leaving, the rare occasion when someone's terminated. We go to 30 plus people a month. So if I put a hiring freeze on, I will drop our workforce by 400 people in a year and I'll save the $20 million. But what will suffer is public safety because where I'm gonna lose these people, and you heard this from the public safety secretary. Where you have the hardest time finding people are in these public safety jobs. Court officers and probation officers, that's where we lose people every month. That's where we struggle to keep hiring. So public safety would suffer if I don't fill those vacancies. And the11840 third place where we lose most people are our entry level clerical workers. And those are actually the people that deliver the customer service.
They are the people who assist at the counter. They11857 are the people who answer our phones in11859 the courthouses. They are the people who staff our virtual registries. They are the people who staff the court service centers that offer such robust service right now to our self represented litigants. But all that will diminish substantially if I have to put on a hiring freeze. So we are here asking for your help to get us to as close to our maintenance budget of 985.5 million as you possibly can. Again, that is not expansion, that is simply doing next year what we're doing this year. I thank the committee for listening and happy to answer any questions that you have.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you so much, and thank you so much to every member of11909 the panel for your thorough, testimony. Just a couple of matters of housekeeping before we get into questions. I wanna acknowledge that we are joined by former representative, former chair of the public safety committee, former judge, and former member of the National Guard and, reserves representative Harold Naughton at the back.
SPEAKER18 - That's why we don't put microphones in the back.
SPEAKER1 - And then quickly to everybody in the audience, I know it's been a long day, I believe all the members of the committee have had an opportunity to get, some lunch and refreshments. We have plenty left over, and if you go up the stairs on my right, we do have sandwiches. So please, if if you are hungry, feel free to help yourself. It's from Emma's Cafe in Sterling, a local, lunch spot which is quite good, and I'll turn it back over to senator Cronin for questions.
SEN CRONIN - Thank you. Chief Justice Budd, Chief Justice Blake, Chief Justice Brieger, and Administrator Ambrosino. I just want to extend how grateful I am for your testimony and your patience today, but more importantly for all the work you do for the judiciary and to serve our commonwealth. We are all very grateful. At this time, I'd like to invite Senator Jake Oliveira to ask the first question.
SEN OLIVEIRA - Thank you. Thank you, Chair Cronin and to Chair Kilcoyne. It's nice to be in your district, and it's nice also to be in the house that Naughton built. It's around the time you served, correct, sir? Well, it's an honor to be here today. My question, thank you to the chief justices, thank you administrator for being here. Many of us around this table represent Hampden County. Hampden County has a courthouse, the Roger Guerlin courthouse, that, for anybody that's been paying attention, has been in the news over the last several years. It is a sick courthouse. It is a courthouse where several members of the bench have had rare diseases and have died prematurely of those diseases. I myself served on a grand jury in the Hampden County Courthouse for three months and experienced asthmatic symptoms and severe allergies.
Many of my constituents, nearly 500 of them, work in that courthouse. Many people utilize it on a daily basis. It is not meeting the needs of the residents of Hampden County, and in fact, it's actually detrimental to our health. I'm thankful to the Healey Administration, as well as the trial court for continuing to put this on the radar screen of our bonding side of the spectrum to ensure that we work and operate in a healthy courthouse. But it's been far too long that that courthouse has been operating12130 without changes that need to be made to it. There is a proposal on the table that has been floated by DCAMM. Instead of building a new courthouse,12140 leasing a12142 courthouse. When I'm hearing your testimony before us today, Administrator, saying that one of the major cost drivers in your department are long term leases, particularly private long term leases. So my question to you is, should the Commonwealth be going down the road of12161 entering into further long term leases or should they be building a courthouse that is state owned, state12169 managed, and state operated?
AMBROSINO - I will tell you that the trial court fully supports the plan to partner with a private developer to12182 build a new regional justice center in Springfield and have it leased back to the Commonwealth on a very long term lease. The lease that we were approved for by the asset management board in January is a 40 year lease with two 10 year extensions. I can see that in a perfect world, the commonwealth would be better served, the trial court would be better served, if it were a commonwealth owned building, that would be my preference. I'm not sure anyone could argue against that. But the fiscal reality we faced both with DCAMM and as a trial court was if we sought to build it, via capital money, we would be waiting at least another decade.
This is a likely to be a $700 million facility, and the reality was there was not room in the capital plan for that large of an expenditure in any of the next few years. So recognizing that, recognizing how substantial the need is for us, for our workforce to get out of that building, we were pleased that there was some plan to expedite that12262 and this was the way to expedite it. Is it perfect? No. But the expectation is that this will be done much quicker, that we may be out of that building in five years if things go well as opposed to 10 years. And, yes, it will require the legislature to annually appropriate more money to the trial court for lease cost. But this is the12292 reality we face. And our goal, our overriding goal, other than to12298 be in downtown Springfield, close to public transportation for our users is to get out of there as quick as possible and get a new facility built. So with that need, we do support the effort to have a new building be built by a developer and lease back to the commonwealth long term, notwithstanding the fact that it will put annual pressure on lease costs.
OLIVEIRA - My follow-up question to that is, looking at the size of the Hampden County Courthouse, which is one of the busiest courthouse, if not the busiest district courthouse in the Commonwealth, would that be the largest lease administered by the trial court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?
AMBROSINO - I can answer that question when we go back. I will get you an answer to that question.12355 If it's not the biggest, it will be one of the biggest for sure. I think they're talking almost 300,000 square12361 feet. I can't imagine you know, the only one I can think of that could conceivably be that big would be something like Worcester or the high rise, but I just don't know. But I can certainly get you that answer, sir.
OLIVEIRA - Thank you. Just, you know, from my perspective, looking at the needs, the expediency to get out of the current courthouse is something I think we're all committed to, as far as Hampden County Legislators, given the nature of the building. The long term lease, obviously, there are going to be fiscal constraints that would be placed on the Commonwealth for entering in it. But for a regional equity issue, given that, you know, the Commonwealth would have likely spent close to $700 million to build a new courthouse, we deserve our fair share. And when you're not spending investing commonwealth bonding capacity in Hampden County, instead entering into a long term lease, it gets to a regional equity issue, in my lens, about state commitment and state support for our region of the Commonwealth. And I'll leave it at that.
KILCOYNE - Alright. Thank you, senator. I actually have a question that I wanna, it's not my question, it's, representative Anne Margaret Ferrante, the vice chair of the committee, couldn't be with us today. I know she's watching virtually, but she wanted to express a concern that I wanna relay to you on her behalf. We all know that there's been a huge increase in litigation since President Trump was inaugurated. We're seeing the Supreme Court remand many decisions to back to the authority of the state. Do you anticipate, with this new environment, that it's going to place a greater burden on the trial court, on the Supreme12475 Court, on the state level, or has there been any thought to that at all?
BRIEGER - I will take a stab at that, but, you know, in a courtroom, speculation is frowned upon. And anything I do say will be a little bit speculative, but I think the answer is yes. I think that constituents who are denied rights, constituents who do not get funds that they thought they were going to get, universities that12505 do not get the kinds of funds they thought they were gonna get may have a federal claim and go to federal court. But there are bound to be some ancillary state claims that12517 come along as well. And so,12519 one of the things that I said, and I truly believe, is12523 that we need to be ready, nimble, and able to meet the need and meet the time, and that's why we're asking for what we're asking for.
SPEAKER1 - I appreciate the the response.
12537 SPEAKER1812537 -12537 Senator?12537 Senator Brady.
BRADY - Thank you, mister chairman. Welcome, all of you, the chief justice, and12543 everyone else. So I was gonna ask a question that my fellow colleague asked.12550 So are you saying that leasing the buildings is more cost effective than owning the buildings? I know that we, fortunately, got a new courthouse in the city12558 of Brockton, that I represented, a couple years ago, and then12560 we got a new courthouse in Tauton with12562 Senator Pacheco's advocates. But then our superior court in Brockton's run by clerk, of course,12568 Bob Creed, and it's quite older than even our clerk down there. So, we probably need a new building at that point, you know?
AMBROSINO - I don't wanna say it's more cost effective, and I would really leave this to DCAMM to know the numbers. I would say it certainly12585 is going to12587 result in a quicker building being built. That if we waited for the capital plan to have capacity for this size building, we would literally be waiting probably another decade. Whereas this plan, which is moving forward as expeditiously as any construction can move forward, when you're talking about a public entity, is actually moving forward quite well. An RFP should be ready for the market, I think, by the end of this fiscal year. The expectation is to try to have a selection and a lease sign perhaps a year from now. And then12633 it's three or four years of construction, five years, we're walking into a brand new regional justice center. So the driver is more expediency than cost.
BRADY - And I think if we can do long term leases, that may make sense. Again, though, with the market, even the homeowners real estate market and renters, it's gone through the roof. And with the uncertainty of what's coming out of DC, you know, we get supplies from Canada. We12662 love to buy in America, but12664 sometimes it was more cost effective to get lumber, for instance, from Canada. All these tariffs and these decisions12670 that is coming out of left field every day, we're very concerned about that. I12674 know that we have to, I know that, you know, every group needs more funding and we're facing budget gaps. And I know that we have to live within our means in the Commonwealth, but that's one thing we'll look12686 into. It's very difficult. Has virtual meetings and Zoom meetings saved the court system any money than12695 having in person meetings? And I12697 got a follow-up for that too.
BRIEGER - I'm sorry.12699 You have a problem with
BRADY - No. I have a12701 follow-up with that. In other words, I was asking if the Zoom virtual meetings, have that saved us, and also to expedite cases too to get through the system?
BRIEGER - Well, in terms of saving money, I'm not sure how we could calculate that. In terms of expedition of cases, yes. We can for sure say that the increase in number of Zoom hearings is expediting our dockets daily in courthouses. If you call any lawyer friend and say, do you wanna drive to Norfolk Superior Court and sit there for six hours12736 while you wait for a hearing, or12738 would you rather sign in at 2:30, have your hearing, and then12742 go to, you know, Dedham District12744 Court, every one of12746 them will say that they'd rather be on Zoom.12748 There are some cases where we really can't rely on Zoom when, that are credibility findings and the like that12756 need to have a face to face experience. But, as I said, I am dedicated to Zoom as the way, forward, especially with the number of self represented litigants that we have.
BRADY - And I know that that's a world we're living in, especially during the COVID crisis. I mean, even in the Commonwealth and the sales, we're having some virtual meetings still and so forth. But and I'm lucky, I'm one of the older gentlemen, I'm lucky I know how to use a cell phone. But the other side of the court, some of our less fortunate constituents are elderly people that aren't well versed. We still got to abide by them. Would you make any recommendations of that?
BRIEGER - Yes. We are. We're very aware of that. We've, partnered with various public libraries to make sure that there are spaces within public libraries for folks12800 to go to. We have court service centers that have Zoom rooms in them. And we have publicly available laptops that people can use if they don't have one at home. We are aware of it and we are trying to expand in that area. It's part of our technology enhancement and part of, you know, what we're trying to do to make sure we're moving to be a digital court.
SPEAKER30 - That's great, Ozai. I know that
SPEAKER1 - Senator, I'm I'm12830 sorry, but we do wanna keep it to just 1 question, 1 follow-up. We still have another of other members who wanna ask questions.
BRADY - I appreciate that, Madam Chair. I'll just be very brief with two last quick things12840 if you don't mind. The staff that you have, the clerks because they've been doing great, helping out the less fortunate people, and I appreciate that. And the last thing, the lack of judges I've corresponded with the House of Bee as well, and I know there's a lot of individuals that have gone through the process, but they're not quite over the finish line to get appointed to judges. So if you make any recommendations to us to12865 let us get that moving faster, please let us know.
BRIEGER - I would be happy to.
SPEAKER30 - Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.
SPEAKER1 - Alright. We're gonna move on to the next question. I just wanna remind all the members, we are on panel 3 of 15. So if you can please limit it to 1 question, 1 follow-up. We have a lot to get through. And with that, I do wanna turn it over to representative Smola for a question.
SMOLA - Madam Chair, thank you very much. And to the panel, thank you for your testimony here today. Really appreciate it. I wanna go to self represented litigants. I might have missed this, what's the reason12902 why we have such an increase of self represented litigants? And I'll ask this all in one so that you can take this. Because I guess the next follow-up I would have to that is, if this is on the rise and it's having this chain reaction effect in the system, meaning that your frontline staff have to do more work, have to answer more questions, these litigants don't12924 know the procedure, the process. It's kind of a delay of the process. Is there a remedy that we can employ to this in terms of education? Or is there something the Commonwealth can do about this so that we can maybe discourage or better educate, or what's the remedy for this the12941 question?
BRIEGER - Well, the first part of the question12943 is why is it happening? And again, without speculating, and I'm loathed to do that, anybody checked what a lawyer costs these days? It's a lot of money and a lot of people don't have the money to pay for a lawyer to do something that they think, based on TurboTax experience, and, you know, downloading12963 pleadings off the Internet, they figure I can handle this. I'm not gonna12967 waste, you know, $2,500 on a lawyer. I'm imagining that that's a big part of this. And, yes, there are things we can do. And I know the appeals court is involved in this as well, and I'll turn it over to Chief Justice Blake. But we're all trying to figure out ways to make it easier for those who are not lawyers to have access to our courts, whether it's e filing, and whether it's court service centers, but we're all trying very hard to meet that need.
BLAKE - So, Court Administrator Ambrosino, mentioned that the trial court is about to launch this, but we've been well underway with this guided interview process, which has been fantastic through Suffolk University's, we call it the LitLab. And we get a lot of self represented tenants who are looking for a stay so that they don't have to be evicted, and that's what comes before us. And literally, they go online, they answer a series of questions. And as a result, they're able to spit out a document, a responsive pleading, to be able to put before the single justice, something that's cogent and makes some sense about why they don't think that they should be evicted. It is so incredibly helpful. And I would say that the amount of stays that our court is granting anecdotally has decreased substantially because we actually now have exactly what we need to be able to address it as opposed to having a self represented litigant either in person or on Zoom, trying to fumble their way. This guided interview gets from them exactly what it is that we need to help answer the question. So any innovation like that is something that I will sign up for every day of the week. And I've seen it really make an impact in real time.
BUDD - I also just wanna point out that we, an SJC committee on guidelines for self represented litigants, they've just finished those guidelines. They're being promulgated now, and judges will have a better sense of what things they can do to help those who come in and aren't represented.
Thank you, representative. We now have representative Exaros with a question.
XIARHOS - Thank you, madam chair. To the panel, fantastic presentation. Last year, we13104 talked about cash free bail. Is that still part of your domain? I don't see it in the budget.
AMBROSINO - I'm sorry. The last
XIARHOS - Cash free bail.
AMBROSINO - Oh, so our expansion item, which the legislature approved last year, was for us to take on the cost of the bail fee. We have done that. That was a $4.8 million increase that you gave to us. That is now built in to our maintenance budget. So every year from here on, we're taking on that cost, which we estimate to be about $4.8 million. So it's built into our FY 25 budget, and it's13149 built into our FY 26 maintenance budget. $4.8 million to cover that cost.
XIARHOS - Thank you. And someone gets arrested by the police, it's a typical case, let's say, of domestic violence or drunk driving. It used to be $40 that you would pay the bail commissioner, now it's 80, I believe, and that the Commonwealth pays it. So is it based on income or is it just everybody?
AMBROSINO - No. Every, so the bail commissioner or the bail magistrate goes out. If they grant bail, they put in a slip and we pay the $80 cost. It has nothing to do with ability to pay. We're picking up that statutory fee now on our own, so the Commonwealth is paying that through an appropriation to the trial court.
SPEAKER10 - Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, representative. Next up, we have representative Vanna Howard with a question.
REP HOWARD - Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your testimony this afternoon. It's a long day. The question is to Chief Justice Brieger. In your testimony, you stated that there are 17 judges, shortage of judges, 17. Are those 17 include the juvenile court?
BRIEGER - There's one vacancy on13239 the juvenile court. Yesterday, I believe, or the day before, I'm losing track, two juvenile court judges were confirmed. So there is now one vacancy on the juvenile court.
HOWARD - Just one vacancy. And so the 17 judges, the shortage in the trial court, is that reeled into the FY 26, the 17?
AMBROSINO - Yes. Yeah. We budget for all 393 judges that are statutorily created. So when13268 we put a budget together, we assume 393 judges.
HOWARD - And so the one vacancy for the juvenile, that's for13278 the entire Commonwealth?
BRIEGER - Right. There are seven sibling courts in the trial court,13285 the juvenile court being one of them. And of those seven courts, we have 393, judgeships. So the one vacancy in the juvenile court is a vacancy, and I can't tell you right now whether it's in the southern part of the state, Northern, Western. I can get back to you with that tomorrow if you'd like to know.
HOWARD - Okay. Great. Because I'm hearing a higher number.
BRIEGER - Well, there were a higher number, but there have been some nominations very recently and two were just confirmed.
SPEAKER2 - Great. Thank you. So yeah.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, representative, representative Holmes.
HOLMES - Thank you. Again, you've heard my theme of the day, so I won't have to repeat that to you, chief justice, because I know you are not aligned on on that question. So my question is, each year we get the summary of the trial courts for all of their diversity. And I'm gonna just say again, I'm thankful that we moved from blue shirts and white shirts to everyone wears a white shirt. You can't walk into the court now and see basically who's getting paid and who's not getting paid more. But we don't get those diversity numbers from the appeals court, nor do we get them from the SJC. And so, can they give it to me in the book, and they can show me what everyone's making13369 and as they're slotting, and as those things have been increasing over time. So my question to the appeals court and the SJC is, can I have a book so I can know my diversity all through my appeals court and my SJC?
And then to the trial court, my question is, you're on the superior court challenge, right? So you don't have enough superior court judges. Those are who's handling the most difficult court cases. Again, you've heard me talk about murder, unsolved murders. You understand where I am on this. What is the expected, you called it, what is the expected timeline for when a murder case is supposed to be solved? I know you said 74% of them are all getting solved, you know, 74%. But on these most difficult cases, I'm hearing when I go into the prisons that, hey, justice denied all of that, you know, speedy, you know, speedy trial. Some people sit in courts for three, four, five years sometimes people are saying on these murder cases. What is that expectation and then how often we clear those on time?
BRIEGER - Who do you wanna hear from first?
BUDD - Why don't we start with the first question you asked? First, I just wanna, say thank you13456 for the question. I personally am very proud of the DEI efforts that the court system has made, and although some portions of the federal executive branch are heading in a different direction, I wanna just be clear that we are continuing to make that a priority in the court system. In terms13478 of the numbers that we have in both appellate courts, it's wonderful that the trial court puts out a report on diversity. We're not in it because it's the13490 trial court's report, but there's no reason why we can't expand the report and make it a court wide report that includes the numbers of the appellate court personnel.
HOLMES - That's the best answer I heard all day. So we'll get the whole court system next year or soon.
BRIEGER - She's not the chief for nothing.
HOLMES - Alright. Alright. Excellent. Alright.
BRIEGER - Alright. On the murder cases, you know, every criminal case has certain established time standards and every murder case has problems along the way. You heard the district attorneys tell you that they couldn't comply with these new discovery requirements fast enough, there are folks that can't get lawyers fast enough, there are forensic examinations that don't get completed in a fast enough time. There are lawyers who want to have medical examinations that take a long time. In other words, the lawyers, in some ways, are driving parts of these schedules. The judges think they're in charge, and in many ways, they are. But if the lawyers are not ready to proceed and complain that their client will13566 not have a fair trial if they don't have more time, it13570 puts the judge in kind of an awkward position. So, I would say that the criminal clearance rate and the criminal time to disposition has improved. I think, it's in my, remarks. I think it's up 7% this year, over last year, and that means that we're moving those cases faster. Suffolk County has had a tough time because we're down seven judges and that's really, crippling.
HOLMES - Alright. Well, my quick follow-up is simply, this goes back when13607 I was a child, you know, and13609 it's still something I'm hearing every time I go teach at the prisons, and it's just a reminder to me13615 of something Richard Pryor said a long time ago.13617 Black people show up in court looking for justice, and we find just us, right? And so I13623 still keep hearing, you know, from many black and brown folks, I'm not13628 in court, my case is still delayed.13630 We really need13632 to if it's, as senator Brady said, around superior court judges, if that's the problem,13638 it sounds like it's more than that. But we really, it'd be great to get Georgia to get what that clearance rate is for murder cases, particularly in Suffolk County. That would be great to know, you know, and what's the average for how long those cases are sitting. I would very much appreciate it.
BRIEGER - We'll get back to you.
SPEAKER4 - Thanks.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you to this esteemed panel. I think that's all we have for questions. If there's any other member any other members with questions, we will now call the next panel up. Thank you so much for your testimony today, and
Next up, we have the sheriff's, the Mass Sheriff's Association.
SPEAKER21 - I always find April.
We get through Memorial Day. Alright.
SPEAKER2 - Sure.
That's good.
SPEAKER19 - Coach is not here. Callahan. Do I get 1?
SPEAKER25 - No. I'm gonna try this
SPEAKER4 - right here.
SPEAKER16 - I'm do I get 1? Coach is not here.
SPEAKER5 - I'm gonna I'm gonna drop I'm gonna drop
SPEAKER4 - his because they
SPEAKER2 - didn't give
SPEAKER3 - me 1.
SPEAKER19 - They they
SPEAKER16 - don't have time for that.
SPEAKER2 - I
SPEAKER19 - don't see 1 for time because we can probably draw on the back of that. Oh, I
SPEAKER2 - see. You guys got the good chair.
SPEAKER18 - Alright. Well, we did it ourselves.
SPEAKER2 - We pulled13751
SPEAKER3 - ourselves up from the.
SPEAKER4 - What we got left?
SPEAKER1 - Alright. I know Sherab Tompkins will be joining us momentarily, but you wanna maybe we'll start the testimony then you
SPEAKER10 - can jump in.
SPEAKER26 - Kick things off, sure.
SPEAKER1 - Alright. Sure. Great. Great.
PATRICK MCDERMOTT -MSA - Thank you. And good afternoon, Chairs Kilcoyne and Cronin, thank you very much. And members of this distinguished committee, it's great to be here in front of you, as fellow public servants, and guess all. I thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Massachusetts Sheriff's Association and the 14 elected sheriffs across Commonwealth. My name is Patrick McDermott. I'm the Norfolk County Sheriff and I also serve as the president of the Massachusetts Sheriff's Association. Before I begin, and I'm not sure if she's still here, is Sheriff Streeter? So I just wanna recognize the fact that we had with us here today our newly appointed sister sheriff from the county of Franklin. Lori Streeter was in the house, and we're very proud of Lori stepping up and coming to fill the ranks of Sheriff Chris13821 Donlen. So we're proud to have her as a voice among us.
Basically, I wanna start off with just saying about a commitment13827 to serve. At the heart of our work is a shared commitment to the safety of our communities, the rehabilitation of those in our custody, and the dedicated men and women who serve in our facilities. As sheriffs, we are not just jailers. We are community leaders, public health partners, and stewards13853 of hope for thousands who are striving for a second chance. We operate at the intersection of public safety and public health. And in that space, Massachusetts sheriffs are leading the nation. Whether through substance use treatment, mental health services, vocational training, or reentry planning. We have shown that when local partners come together on the local level, transformational change is truly possible. And if you forgive me a little bit of pride, we will say with confidence, nobody does it better than your Massachusetts sheriffs. So there is a disproportionate burden that we need to address, a need for fair funding across the board.
We're very happy with the commitment that the legislature has bestowed upon the sheriffs and the MSA. But just to understand the weight that the sheriffs carry, consider this. In 2024, the sheriffs' offices processed 28,066 admissions and 28,192 releases, nearly triple that of our friends in the Department of Correction. We serve a 30% higher incarcerated population yet operate with 8 and a half percent less funding than the DOC. Over 56% of those in our custody suffer from substance use disorders and 42% live with mental illness, many with co occurring conditions. Despite these challenges, however, we continue to provide national best practice programming. But the fiscal imbalance may in fact no longer be sustainable. And we are asking today that not just for fairness, but for the resources that we need and are required to maintain that13966 level of safety, dignity, and rehabilitation in13970 our facilities and in our communities.
Another little problem area13974 that we spoke about last year when we came before you was the no cost communication. A very well meaning policy and I think we would all agree has been a successful policy, however it has its unintended consequences. When the legislature passed that no communication legislation, it gave families a critical lifeline and I think that's what we all looked for. Since its implementation, phone call volume has increased 139%. Call durations are up 152%. Electronic communications have soared 560%. Communications between those in our care and custody and their families and loved ones on the outside has increased, and we've recognized that that has been a benefit within our respective facilities as well.
The estimated cost to sheriffs' offices alone, is 12.5 million in fiscal year 25. But the operational burdens are growing as well. Our staff see a little bit more of an overwhelming commitment to the monitoring responsibilities. And while our software technology is pretty sophisticated, we still need that human touch to catch some of the things that we're trying to catch in those communications. We have seen a spike in gang coordination, the attempts at fake account creations, and even family disruptions, sometimes involving children. So we ask as well, we came before and said the same thing. It was a cautionary tale last year, and now we have our stats to14078 back it up. But we will be sharing most of those detailed stats with you, if we14082 have not already done so, throughout the year. But we're looking obviously for an increase in the no cost communication trust fund, which would actually match the actual usage. And we've been working with A&F in terms of releasing some of those funds to help offset the loss that we're seeing in our facilities.
Second, fund additional staffing for monitoring and security. We are all looking at respectively within our divisions to make sure that the increase in communications also is reflective of our investigative opportunities that we seek to do. And we're also looking to reimburse the sheriffs for the $10 million in credit for the revenue loss to do elimination of commissary. And so that was another initiative that we have implemented, but there's a significant loss in our commissary revenue that we typically had available to us that went directly back14135 into programming. And so we've absorbed some of those costs, but unfortunately, when you're talking to those numbers, you know, at some point, things will break and we don't wanna see programming breakdown.
Those commissary reforms with respect to legislators intent, resulted in an additional $4.5 million lost in programming revenue. So, being able to restore a fiscal opportunity to support those previously funded commissary commissions would go a long way to help maintain14165 the kind of level of programming that we're very proud to offer our justice involved individuals. I think across the board, we just wanna recognize that we are all struggling, throughout the law enforcement community and corrections and recruitment and retention. It's a workforce crisis that has been in the making for a14187 long time, and we're certainly feeling the brunt of it. And we've had to get very creative in how we attract new applicants, a diverse group14195 of applicants that are ready to face the mission of the 21st century corrections, policies and vision.
Applications for our correctional positions have pretty much plummeted. Competition from other law enforcement agencies combined with the demands of our work makes recruiting very difficult. We are grateful for the cost of living adjustments that were supported by Governor Healey and allowed us to negotiate some fair and equitable contracts with our employees. It makes us more competitive and we're very grateful for that. However, we do caution that the long term impact of those increases on our budgets will have to be addressed. And as of right now, we're absorbing those costs, and so we haven't seen an increase in those. So, we ask that the legislature provide the budget support required to absorb that 20% increase in compensation driven by the COLAs and the collective bargaining, over the last decade.
Unlocking flexibility with retained revenue. Several sheriffs' offices return unspent federal reimbursements, to the Commonwealth. Those funds could make a real difference, being able on the local level. So when we reimburse some of our federal expenditures that we receive, or federal appropriations we receive, those are usually swept right into the general fund. We see that as an opportunity, perhaps, to offset the monies that I just alluded to before with the no cost communication.14293 It's just a door and14295 a window of opportunity that we suggest should be explored. In terms of standards and innovation, this is really important and this has been driven home, certainly, throughout the Commonwealth by our partners in the legislature. And we're working very hard to standardize our training, and expand transparency across all of our facilities.
So, we have put forth a unified Massachusetts Sheriffs Association training program aligned with the MPTC standards. We have support for data collection and analysis through the CJ cross tracking initiative, as well as continued collaboration with the Executive Office of Public Safety, and EOPSA. Our ask is, we do need an increase in our MSA line item for $250,000 to fund that standardized training. We're bringing forth a new training division office this year, which we're absorbing through this fiscal year. But going forward in order to make sure that we maintain the highest level of standards for our corrections officers and to standardize it across the Commonwealth, that funding would be necessary. And that also includes a $50,000 increase for operational increases due to support inflation and staffing within the small but strong office of the Massachusetts sheriffs. And we certainly ask for continued funding for that cross tracking initiative and IT infrastructure needed to meet the legislative reporting requirements.
You know, we recently launched with our our data analyst. We have active stats that are available to the public and to the legislature on a consistent basis. That has not been seen in many, many years, if ever. And, we're very proud of the fact that the access to those statistics are readily available to you, your staff, and the members of the public. On Medicaid reentry demonstrations. Massachusetts is a national leader as the fourth state to secure a Medicaid waiver, allowing benefits 90 days prior to release for our justice involved individuals. This will be transformative in breaking cycles of addiction, relapse, and recidivism. Access to healthcare is vital for these men and women who are coming out of our facilities. So being able to access Medicaid is extremely important for these individuals to get them on the right path towards success. And so we do thank the governor for including $10 million for this implementation. Our ask is a continued support for Medicaid infrastructure funding needed to make this program a success. And we believe it is a success and will continue to be with your blessing and support.
So to wrap things up a little bit from my end, and my colleagues are here to say a few words as well. I just wanna say that this is not just a budget request that our individual sheriffs come forth and ask every year from you, but it really is what we consider a blueprint for safer communities, for healthier individuals, and a more equitable criminal14499 justice system. Our sheriffs have proven that meaningful change is possible. With your partnership, we can continue to lead, to innovate, and to deliver second chances where they matter most. So I thank you for your time and support. We are going to submit, because there are 14 of us, and the MSA itself, has extensive stats. We are gonna be submitting some written testimony for those of you who really wanna do some deep dives into the numbers and to the concepts and some of the program that we have in the sheriff's office. But we wanna thank you for your continuing support and our collective work together that I think we've seen a lot of success over the last decade. So we appreciate it. So I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague, vice president Pat Cahillane from Hampshire County.
PAT CAHILLANE - MSA - Hi. Thank you all for allowing us to speak. And I will submit what I was going to read to you because of the the hour and the amount of time that you have all sat here patiently listening to everybody. The only thing I would say is that, the figure 28000 intakes into the system every year, 28,000. All of those people have medical issues, mental health issues, and we become the medical and mental health providers for those people. And when they're leaving the system, and we're 28,100 plus leaving the system every year, we, in most cases, are the provider that connects them with services in the community and ensures that they have a medical and mental health provider that is going to continue their care, hopefully keeping them out of our facilities. That's our goal. So, I will leave you with that. I will be submitting from my office what I was going to read to you. But thank you thank you for listening to us.
MCDERMOTT - And forgive me. I I did forget to introduce. I just wanted to, in the audience as well is, is our executive director, Carrie Hill, is with us as well as our government affairs director, Scott Campbell. He's in there just in case that's the person who's usually
SPEAKER4 - going down. And who else do we have? We do. Who else do we have? Do we
SPEAKER1 - have sheriff Ogden in the house?
I know we have sheriff Tompkins up next. So give sheriff Tompkins a little shot.
STEVEN TOMPKINS - MSA - Thank you, Mr. President. On behalf of the men and women at the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, I bring greetings to you, Chair Cronin, Chair Kilcoyne, and to the honorable members of this joint committee. I think that most of you are familiar with a situation that we had at our doorstep called Mass And Cass for several years. We had an encampment there of about 2 to 400 people on any given day, and it was a pretty sorry situation, frankly. People that were at the low ebb of their lives, people that needed help in every way possible. And I received a call from one of the major newspapers to ask what did I think about that. Did I have any ideas on how to help? And I did. And I told them that I said, I can take at least a hundred of the folk off the street immediately. This was late August going into September to give them housing, clothing, reunification, casework, medication.
And we went through the conversation for quite some time. And we got to a point where we were allowed to do this program, but there were14728 a lot of caveats along the way.14730 And at the end of the day, after we had begun the program, the program came to an end, which was unfortunate. But these things happen. Instead of taking our ball and going home, had a conversation with our executive director, Carrie Hill, and she suggested that we go down to the Department of Justice, go down to DC, and talk to the federal government about the fact that we needed some help, we needed some assistance. On any given day, the vast majority of my population is afflicted14769 by mental health14771 issues or substance use issues at a tremendous cost. And so I felt, as the other14779 sheriffs feel, that it's incumbent upon us to do all that we can to address the situation.
The Department of Justice and14789 others were strong advocates for what it is14793 that we discussed doing and became serious partners with us to achieve the aims of helping people that were suffering from mental health issues and substance use issues. And so I'm gonna14808 read you a quick statement on a program that we've begun with Boston Medical Center14814 called Project Evolve. And here's the thing, although the justice department, Department of Justice, was in favor of this, what they told us was, they said, look, when you get back14827 home, you got all these great hospitals. You need to partner with one of14831 the big hospitals to14833 make sure that you get the requisite care for folk. This is despite the fact that I have a full blown infirmary, that I have mental health practitioners, that I have substance use practitioners.
Part of the pushback to us was 1, that we are a carceral facility. And therefore, folk had the nerve to say that we were criminalizing people, which was outrageous on a number of fronts. But particularly, because for far too long I've got members that suffered from mental health and substance use. Excuse me. And so to say that we would do anything to compromise the lives of the people that we are trying to help was ridiculous. That's it. Let me read you this quick statement about Project Evolve. When we came back, we reached out to three hospitals, two said no. Boston Medical Center said yes. And they've been great partners. Project Evolve is a mixed acuity mental health and substance use disorder treatment initiative delivered in collaboration with the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department14916 and the Boston Medical Center.
Project Evolve features a multidisciplinary program team from BMC that delivers intensive mental health and substance use disorder therapy to criminal justice involved residents and includes licensed certified psychiatric and addiction treatment personnel, as well as clinical social workers and case managers, who are actively involved in arranging post treatment, after care components, and individual case management plans. Group therapy takes place six days per week and includes evening sessions. Daily program operations also offer individual patient therapy sessions, daily administration of medication for opioid use disorder, treatment component, and a robust medical needs evaluation is conducted for every pretrial detainee remanded to the Suffolk County Jail by the courts. In order to identify detainees, who on a voluntary enrollment basis, are seen as best candidates to benefit from a care management plan that pairs them with a uniform core team of BMC providers14987 and case managers.
In addition to the services offered to provide a more welcoming space within the Suffolk County Jail, two units previously used for traditional housing of detainees were retrofitted, creating a softening of existing jail units, moving away from the traditional veneer of correctional institution and into a more therapeutic, supportive environment. We've taken two of our units, 2,1 and 2,2, which are both operational now. And when we go full board in April and May, we will have approximately 45 individuals in those units. Anyone with an identified substance use disorder, serious mental illness, or a history of trauma, PTSD, will be eligible for treatment within the program as long as they volunteer to participate in treatment. Upon admission to SESD, Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, everyone will complete their required intake screening with SESD staff and our CPS medical providers. Anyone that meets the criteria for Project Evolve will then be additionally screened by BMC clinical staff.
Finally, treatment plans are individually tailored. The length of stay ranges, as I mentioned before, between 60 and 90 days. Upon completion, participants will reintegrate back into general population if they are to stay with us, or are released to another facility for sentencing, are released back to the community with wrap around services in place. And the wrap around services are crucially important because in the absence of that, people will fall back, people will be recidivate. They will come back. This is not a guesstimate. We know that half of the people that leave us today will be back in three to six months. This country is too powerful, has too many resources for our citizens to be subjected to this kind of pathetic situation. This program is, on average, is gonna run us between 2.5 and 2.7 million annually. I respectfully15131 ask for you to consider15133 working with the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department to work with folk that are at the low end of their life. The information that I just read has been given to your staff members. If there's any questions, we'd love to answer them. And I'm offering you an invitation to each and15151 every one of you to come to15153 our department, to talk to our personnel, to15157 talk to BMC, to talk to the inmates, and talk to the residents whose lives we are saving. Thank you so very much.
SPEAKER1 - Thanks, sheriff Tompkins. And now, sheriff from Bristol County, Paul Harrow.
PAUL HEROUX - MSA - So good afternoon, everyone. It's nice to be back here with some of you. For those who remember me, I served in the House from 2013 to 2017 as a rep. And then, you know, it was after I became mayor. But it's nice to be back with all of you. I'm15189 gonna offer a couple pieces of trivia before15191 I give my testimony to maybe find interesting. Back this up just a little bit. Is that better? Is that hopefully, that's better. You all know what a penitentiary15199 is. Right? Penitentiary. Do you know where the word penitentiary comes from? The old Quaker model. It was, when you would go into your cells to do your penitence, you actually had a small, shorter doorway. It forced you to bow before God to do your penitence. Hence, the word penitentiary comes from another fun little thing you might pick up when you're working in jail or prison, the term homey. You ever heard of a homey? Homey.
Homey comes from a lot of the people who are, you know, were in jail or before that in a group home. The kids would be in a group home with each other, and they then call each other homies. So a little bit of trivia. So I thought you might find that interesting. Third piece of trivia I'll just offer up is politics, what that means. And I know Rep Hawkins has probably heard this, but politics with that poly means many and tick is a blood sucking little insect. So, I just joke about that. But I'm here15253 to basically advocate for my jail. The Bristol County Sheriff's Office, we15259 have 22 housing units in Dartmouth. At the Dartmouth Jail, we have 11 of those 22 housing units don't have locks on doors. Now think about that for a second. You don't have a lock on a jail door. You might remember about two years ago, there was an uprising at my jail in the GB Housing Unit.
That wasn't the first time there was an uprising there. It happened the Easter riot in 2001 under my predecessor, Tom Hodgson, exact same housing unit. There weren't locks on doors. We need to have locks on doors. And before I ask you for money for locks on doors, I'm going to tell you a couple of things that we're doing that you might appreciate at the jail. We're running a really lean jail in Bristol County. We don't have a drone unit, we don't have an equestrian unit, we don't have a motorcycle unit. We don't have a patrol unit. We don't have a marine unit. We're just running a jail. Other jails have those, and other counties have a need for that stuff. And I'm not, you know, begrudging them, but we're lean. We're just running a jail. When I got15323 there, there were about 4 million, almost $4 million worth of jobs out of a $60 million budget that really didn't have anything to do with running a jail. There was a lot of programs outside the jail. And I redirected all that to working inside the jail.
We got rid of the SLAM program, which actually made kids worse off. It was like a non aversive scared straight. Got rid of the Homeland Security program. Got rid of RU Okay. Got rid of Project Lifesaver. I mean, I was doing DOGE before DOGE was DOGE. You know, it was a running a lean place. So, you know, the way we're operating as well is, you know, that we're putting air conditioning in housing units. And you might say to yourself, why are you putting15363 air conditioning in the housing units? Well, it's because the correctional officers asked for it. Because sometimes15367 the housing units get up to 85, 90 degrees. And these officers, you know, are exhausted. And when the15373 temperatures go up, the tempers of the inmates go up as well.15377 So what we're doing is we're actually having inmates pay for the air conditioning for their benefit using the old commissary profits. So the inmates are paying for it, we're putting solar panels on the roof to pay for the electricity. And, you know, so that's another thing we're doing. So we're stretching our money there quite far.
Phone calls. We're looking to renegotiate the contract to get a lower rate for the phone calls. So, we're doing all these things at the jail to save money. But there is the thing that I need your help on, and15409 that's to put locks on doors. This is a jail. Inmates can15413 victimize each other in the middle of the night, be victimized by another. They can, you know, some housing units have one officer overseeing 60, 70 people at night, and you could have a hostage situation. We were lucky we didn't have that in April of 2021. We had the best possible outcome. Nobody got hurt when it ensued. So the reason there are no locks on the doors in 11 of our 22 housing units is that there used to be locks on doors but the SJC in, I think, 1998 or 1999 said you can't have inmates in a cell without a toilet, but put a lock on the door. So at the time, the decision was to take the locks off the doors. They should have put toilets in the cells instead. That would have made a lot more sense. So instead, they took locks off the doors. And we've had a lot of problems ever since, well before I got there.
If we were to put locks on doors, to do that, we have to put toilets in the cells first. That's why the cost is a little bit higher than you would expect. But, you know, if and I'm just asking for this. I'm not asking for anything that other jails don't already have. I'm not trying to be a groundbreaker here or break any, I just want locks on my jail doors. I'm not asking for a lot. Other sheriffs and other jails have locks on doors. When that uprising happened two years ago, five sheriffs' offices responded to help and the DOC. And again, we had 75 people in that housing unit. Several of them were awaiting trial on murder charges. They were awaiting trial on what serious weapon charges. You know, and we were lucky we didn't have a hostage situation. Again, I'm asking for locks on doors in a jail. And how much am I asking for? $3 million. That's not gonna do the entire jail, though. That's gonna15519 do three housing units out of 11.
But here's what I'm willing to do, though. You give me $3 million add that to our budget. Add $3 million to our budget, which you can do. And I was a rep for five years. I know how this works as well, so, I was on the bond committee for five years. We don't need to bond for this. We can just add it to our budget. Please do. You do that, I'll15538 put locks on doors in three housing units, and then I can close the Ash Street Jail, the oldest continuously operating15544 jail in the country. I'll close15546 Ash Street Jail, bring all the inmates back from there, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars we're spending every year15552 at Ash Street, I'll reinvest that, and then we'll go and do the other eight15556 housing units that need locks on doors. So if I just get this little bit of a nudge upfront, what we can do is take the money we get from closing Ash Street, because I can't bring those inmates back from Ash Street until I put locks on those doors.
So you give me the money, I'll close Ash Street, bring the inmates back, and then the money we were spending on Ash Street, we'll spend that going forward. We don't have to come back and ask for more money. So the $3 million isn't enough, but I can't impress upon you enough how serious the situation is to have one officer watching 60 inmates at night on third shift when we've been lucky, you know, that we haven't had a real crisis. And we've had a couple of uprisings. one happened under my predecessor. one happened under me, the exact same housing unit. But before I stop to take any questions, I'd like to, president of MSA knows that I was gonna offer to do this, but I wanna give my superintendent and assistant superintendent and CFO a chance to comment briefly, before I take any questions because they're part of the testimony. They've been there, for a lot longer than I have. So, superintendent Oliver.
JOE OLIVER - BRISTOL COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE - Good afternoon, everybody.15625 Thank you for having me. The sheriff basically took all my thunder, so I'm just left with a little bit of sprinkle left. So it's not gonna be much, but I feel it's very important. I started as an online officer. I worked up through the ranks as Assistant Superintendent Torres, who's behind me to my right, also came up with me. The locks on doors, until you're there and you experience what can go inside the jail, I was there for the Easter riot 2001. I remember, you know, officers being thrown out of windows unconscious, I remember radio calls coming from an officer that was taken hostage.
And some of these units involve those units that didn't have locks on doors. You fast forward to 2023 when we had the GB disturbance where we had outside agencies assist us. The unfortunate part is that that involved, again, one of the same units that we had to deal with in 2001. My experience coming up from behind the wall, you can be the best communicator, you can be the best deescalator. That's not always enough. You need other security measures in place to depend on to maintain control inside of a housing unit, and the locking of doors is one of those things. So thank you for hearing me, and I hope we can get the resources to get that done. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER8 - Excuse me. We're actually gonna move on to questions. Sheriff Perot, I know this is a very important issue, and I respect the work of your, subordinates in in this very critical state of the jail, but this is a hearing where it is invitation only for testimony.
SPEAKER6 - Got
SPEAKER8 - it. We will invite, if members have specific questions on the situations, you're welcome to see to 1 1 of your, associates and colleagues to answer that member's question. But we really do have to, move on to allow the rest of the people to testify for set hearings.
SPEAKER6 - Sounds
SPEAKER7 - good. Looking looking forward to taking questions.
SPEAKER8 - Great. Thank you15746 so much. Just quickly, I want to acknowledge representative Shirley Arriaga has joined us from Chip Chicopee. Thank you so much. And sheriff, Kaye Elaine, I just wanna thank you for recognizing that the members of the committee, I can attest, are able to read. So thank you for submitting your written remarks, and I will take this opportunity for the panels that we have left. We have a long still a many panels to go before us and still a long day. All of us are capable of reading. So if you have written prepared remarks, if you're able to submit that to the testimony for us to review closely and can focus on show focus your testimony on what is vital for us to hear before the budget debate, so we can allow everybody to testify and members to ask questions, that will be great. So without further ado, I will we do have a couple of questions, I know, on the house side. We'll start with representative Exaros.
XIARHOS - Thank you, Madam Chair, and you're doing a great job managing this. First of all, we appreciate what you do, not only taking care of the people behind the bars, but those of us that are outside. I was born and raised at 18 Cedar Street, right across from the Ash Street Jail and I spent a lot of time inside the jail visiting the sheriff, Dabrowski, and his family. So I know what you're doing. Sheriff, the Evolve Program, fantastic idea, concept, and reusing the resources that are there. It's smart. But on the phone calls, that's always been a big issue. So $12 million to allow inmates to communicate.15846 I15848 don't think it's by phone anymore, I think it's by laptop. Could you talk about that as quickly as you can? And is15854 there a way to limit the time so they're not using it all day, all night?
SPEAKER1 - Oh, Pat. Go ahead. Grab that.
CAHILLANE - The way the legislation was written, it did not set a time15866 frame or a time limit. So it was anything that was in place at the time of the signing of the legislation was what we had to conform to. And so, therefore, if you had tablets, phones, video visiting on a laptop or, tablets, all of those things, if they were in place at the time, we had to supply it because of the way the legislation was written. And there was no time limit, it was, an unlimited
XIARHOS - Can you make a time limit as the sheriff?
HEROUX - No. We're actually not allowed to. What I've said over and over again is unlimited is unreasonable. Unlimited phone calls is unreasonable. What's happening is it's, and I support the program. It's important that inmates keep in contact with friends and family to facilitate reentry. Nobody disputes that. But what's happened is that a lot of times, inmates are now talking on the phone when they would have been doing programming. You also have an increase, correlation with an increase in witness intimidation, and increase in, you know, like, drug dealing coordination as well. So, you know, but the program is a good program. We should continue to do that, but unlimited is unreasonable.
My suggestion is that the legislature amend the law and make it so that there's a cap on it. Maybe, I'm making something up. You guys can figure this out. Maybe it's 15 minutes a day, maybe a half hour a day, maybe every inmate gets, you know, an hour a week, 2 hours a week, whatever it is. Put a limit on it. And if inmates wanna talk beyond that, then what they can do is they can, their families can pay for it like they used to. But at least the state is giving a bare minimum to facilitate the indigent inmates who couldn't have otherwise paid for it themselves. I support the program, but unlimited is unthinkable.
CAHILLANE - During COVID, we took the steps ourselves to grant phone calls so that we could make sure that they continue to have safe contact with their families, but we set limits on it with our phone providers, and it worked really well. And so there are ways to do it but it would need a change in legislation.
TOMPKINS - Just for the record, I've never been in favor of free phone calls. I understand the need for families to be in touch with their loved ones. I get that. I don't get free phone calls, I just don't, and I don't think that they should either. That said, we're mandated to do that, and so that's gonna follow the law, absolutely. But as my colleagues just mentioned, that unlimited phone calls is, not only is it cost ineffective, but then it becomes something inside of a carceral facility where the bigger guy says to the smaller guy, I want your time, I want your minutes. And that happens. And so we have to be conscious of the fact that, if we're gonna give them free phone calls, give inmates free phone calls, fine. But let's put a cap on it.
SPEAKER9 - Thank you, sheriffs, and thank you, madam chair.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you.
SPEAKER11 - I wanna recognize senator Feeney.
FEENEY - Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sheriff Tompkins, I'll give you my minutes any day, my friend. All you got to do is ask. Although now I can outrun you because you got that boot on. Thank you to the sheriffs for being here, and for your testimony, and for what you do every single day. I know each of you and the work that you do.16069 I have a question based on, and Sheriff McDermott, good to see you. Long time no see. Thanks for having me at your facility this morning. You had mentioned, you know, workforce, obviously, like everywhere is a challenge, right? And and recruiting and retaining, COs and other staff that you have in your facilities is a challenge, and we understand that. I think you, Sheriff McDermott, said, today and sheriff Ferrell, we've talked in the past with Sheriff Tompkins about, you know, it's brutal. You train people, you get them in the door. They start to develop a skill set and then a local PD in one of our 351 cities and towns taps them and and and, you know, brings him or her to the department because they're great deescalators. They are able to make decisions in challenging environments. And that's who we want as LEOs, right?
So with that, you know, we've engaged in this discussion especially through Ways and Means and through various committees of jurisdiction over the last few years about pay parity for county corrections offices versus maybe their counterparts in the state DOC side, and also, you know, how it relates to going to a municipality to work in a PD. Any thoughts? And I know that the association has been, you know, involved in discussions as well. But even from individual sheriffs, I'd be interested to kind of hear your thoughts on what we can do in the legislature as we engage in these, you know, fiscal decisions with Ways and Means. And every time the budget comes up, we talk about pay parity. Is this something we should be doing now? Is it something we should be having a plan for? And just kind of look at your thoughts on making sure that we're giving you the resources for your officers so that they stay with you behind the walls, where you're training them.
MCDERMOTT - Well, I just said, thank you, Senator Feeney. You know, as I said, recruiting is a struggle across the board. And, yes, they highlight the fact that we do do extensive training with our officers, and they are so well trained that they become attractive to local police departments. Any chief of police is gonna tell you that some of their best officers are officers that they recruited out of the sheriffs' offices just because of their level of communication skills and their deescalation skills. And so, you know, it does come up annually, the pay parity with Department of Corrections. We typically don't have a lot of competition as between that other than the pay parity issue. I think that the compensation adjustments that have gone on the last few years have come a long way to helping retain, some of our officers that are there. The starting salaries have have creeped up a little bit to make it somewhat attractive. But, you know, once again, we're not just up against, you know, the Department of Corrections or fellow sheriffs' offices. It's the police departments too, and the state police as well.
So we're always looking for that, when you say the pay parity, looking to try to get competitive salary. But, you know, many of our agencies, I mean, the small rural, there's medium size, and then there's large jails too. So any significant, compensation adjustment can be a significant one depending on the size of your agency. But, certainly, money drives a lot of the debate here. And so to attract quality corrections officers, yeah, increase in pay is always gonna help a lot. However, as I've said to my unions, you know, compensation only get you so far. It's about, you know, leadership development, opportunities, for corrections officers to advance, specialty opportunities to work with. And many of the sheriffs do work outside of the four walls of the jail, and our corrections officers do get the benefit of being able to do detailed work with local police departments.
And in Norfolk County, we do a significant amount of security at Gillette Stadium, for instance, and that is attractive to a lot of corrections officers to see that. So, we got to get creative. That's what it comes down to. It really is. And we're trying to all different angles to get, and it is a generational thing too. Years ago, years ago, you'd have, you know, a drawer full of resumes, and you'd have no problem getting people in jobs. These days, it's a lot more competitive. The generationally, the new folks coming in, you know, they're not as career oriented and they wanna stick around long enough. A lot of the newer officers coming in, they're testing the waters, sampling things out. And a lot of times we see them move on, whether it's to another PD or even outside of the public sector altogether. So we have to do a good job, a16340 better job at retention as well, not just recruiting.
HEROUX - So here's how the current practice is actually making the situation worse for each jail. When the parameters come out and we're allowed to negotiate a raise, and I'm gonna make up a number, like 10% over three years. If all the jails are allowed to offer a 10% raise over three years, if my jail's average CO is making $70,000 a year and another jail's CO is already making $80,000 a year, now 10% of 80,000 is is 8,000. 10% of 70,000 is 7,000. So these guys got an $8,000 raise, these guys got a $7,000 raise. That's, you know, are gonna, you know, now these guys are making 88,000. These ones are making 77,000 with that 10% raise. What used to be a $10,000 gap is now an $11,000 gap. So the current practice of allowing us to do raises based on a percentage is actually making the situation worse.
What we really should strive for is to have a base rate for all the COs where then, you know, all the COs get paid paid the same. And then we, we don't do it as a, like, as a percentage, you know, for, you know, like, go one once you're on that, once you're on the same place, then the percentages won't hurt us. And if each sheriff needs to be able to negotiate the working conditions and contracts, we can do that on our own with what we go above and beyond parameters using our own budgets. But the current practice probably needs to change. And I don't know if that's with you or if it's with A and F and the governor's office, but the current practice makes the disparity between each sheriff's office even worse.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you. Thank you.
16456 SPEAKER1316456 -16456 Representative16456 Sabadose.
SABADOSA - Thank you. You mentioned in your remarks that you needed the legislature to support Medicaid infrastructures. I just wonder if that's something within your budget, if you mean within our current healthcare systems in general. If you could elaborate on
MCDERMOTT - The Health and Human Services, we have a partnership, obviously, with them. And the more that the availability of those funds are for us to be able to get at and work with the HHS is the better off we're gonna be.
SPEAKER13 - Okay. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you.
SPEAKER8 - Oh, sorry. Representative Bryant.
SPEAKER14 - Yeah. That can't open it up. Okay.
REP MORAN - So, thank you very much, Madam chairwoman, and I'm proudly representing Suffolk County, I just wanna try to understand that it really is voluntary for these individuals to undergo these treatment. And I guess the direct question would be, suppose someone was section 35 on the streets, which I'm not a big fan of because often I think that people need to discover for themselves that they need to seek recovery. But let's say, forget my opinions, these are seven opinions. No. It's fine. Who cares about my opinion? But the direct question is if you were section 35 and brought into, a jail, would you be forced into this program, and why or why not?
TOMPKINS - No. You wouldn't be forced into the program at all. We offer the programs, and we want people to take advantage of the programs. When you're section 35, and we don't do much of that, sir, for section 35s. 1, because there was a a lawsuit that I believe the state lost for men and there's a pending one for women. Carrie, is that still in effect? Section 35.
CARIE HILL - MSA - Yeah. We know.
TOMPKINS - Is it now famous, the pending law suit still in effect? So, I kind of steer away from that. Also, because of we're built into the Section 35 when you come in, and we've had some people come in, because of the way the law is crafted we cannot give them an assessment. We cannot give them an assessment, which is kind of, I'm not gonna be critical but we would love to be able to because everybody who comes through our doors, we wanna assess their health needs and that sort of stuff. But if you're a Section 35, and as I said, we have them you can count them on one or two hands. We can't do that as much as we'd like to. So, we don't force them in, is the answer to your question.
MORAN - But is the program voluntary for, it does say it's voluntary, so. Have there been people opting out of it in the pilot for Evolve?
TOMPKINS - No, it's just began, it's just began. I think we have 20 individuals for Evolve right now. And so, when folk come in we assess them and we have a conversation with them about what their needs are. If they have a outside healthcare practitioners, we have conversations with them also. So, in fact, we don't force any of our programming on any individual but we highly recommend it, frankly. And then we work with external partners and BMC so that when they get out they can have that continuum of care.
MCDERMOTT - I would just say, you know, it's true all of our programs, there's an enormous amount of programs that each individual sheriff does run within their respective facilities. And they're all voluntary. And I'll go back to the value we have in our correction officers. They're the first people, for the most part, other than medical staff, that interact with the justice involved individuals on a day to day basis. And they're the ones that we charge with interacting with these men and women and encouraging them to take advantage of opportunities that are available there. I know in Norfolk that's what we do. We're fortunate that all of our programs are readily taken advantage of, whether it's financial literacy, or nurturing fathers programs, or high school GEDs, or college education. These are programs we don't force on anybody but it's amazing once you get a couple of test cases of some of these men that come through the program. When they go back to their housing unit and they open up and say, yeah I'm gonna advantage of this thing.
And it's just it is amazing when you watch an individual get you know, I just16804 graduated three men from our nurturing fathers program, for instance. It's an intensive 12 week program that really teaches men how to be better fathers. And to watch those three men go through a graduation ceremony, give speeches with their children, and their spouse or, their girlfriend in the room, their mother, their grandmother sometimes, it's heartwarming to see, and that's16826 the transition that we're looking for. So, yes, it's voluntary, but, yeah, we strongly suggest that that men and women take advantage of the programming that we offer.
SPEAKER8 - Representative Arriaga, and then I think we're gonna have to move on to the next panel. We are not even halfway through yet, and it is almost 04:00.
REP ARRIAGA - Thank you Madam Chairwoman, I appreciate the opportunity. Quick question in regards to the locks, $3 million to replace the locks, or just the locks?
HEROUX - That's all inclusive. And that's probably not even enough to do each housing unit. So there's three housing units. Two of them are identical and one of them like, those are in the women's center. And then the other one is, GB where we had two uprisings, one 2023. On average, $1 million is for the locks on doors, toilets and cells, and also for the two in the women's center also to put their sprinkler systems. And honestly, that isn't even enough to do those three, but we'll make it work. You give me that, you know, do those three housing units, close Ash Street, and then we'll go ahead and, you know, the money we save on Ash Street, we'll then take it from there. But thanks for asking that clarification. Yeah.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you so much. Thank you all very much for your testimony today. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you very much.
SPEAKER8 - If everybody could just take their conversations outside in the hallway, we wanna try to get through this as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Please begin.
DAVID WILSON - STATE ETHICS COMMISSION - Good afternoon, Chair Cronin, and Chair Kilcoyne and members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means.
SPEAKER8 - Please keep your conversations quiet until the door is shut. We are trying your testimony. Thank you. Sorry about that, commissioner.
WILSON - Thank you. My name is David Wilson, and I'm the executive director of the state ethics commission. I'm pleased to have with me today, the commission's, government affairs officer, Jenny McCullough, and the commission's public information officer, Gerry Tuoti. Of course, I'm here to ask you for more funding than the commission received in H 1. But before I do that, I would like to start by thanking you from the bottom of my heart for your support, over the years, of the commission and your interest in the commission's work. I became the executive director in 2017 but I have been an attorney for the commission since 1986. So essentially, my career and my profession has17067 been governmental ethics. Since I became Executive Director in 2017,17073 the commission has made substantial progress in better serving the commonwealth and its people. And that has been because of your support. We were able to build17091 the commission up, which had17093 fallen to 17 employees to its current staff17097 of 29 employees, which is really the minimum that it needs to do its work. We've been able to, through bond funding, develop a new online training program, which you probably have all experienced by now, which is presented to the public on a learning management system.
It's currently in use by over 312,000 public employees and 800 public agencies, including every one of the 351 cities and towns of17133 the Commonwealth. It's been a huge success and it's making compliance with the statutory educational requirements of the conflict of interest law much easier for everyone. We've also, through bond funding, over the past several years, and finally launching, on March 4, been able to develop with the help of EOTS a new legal case management system, which we are now using to do all of our paperwork. And it's going to offer new and easier to use public portholes for people to communicate with the commission. So thank you very much for your support of that acquisition by the commission.
In addition, we recently17184 received bond funding to develop a new, SFI, statements of financial interest, filing application. The current system that we have, you have experienced it and it's difficult to use and integrate it. And we're very happy to be able to develop a replacement for that. That is a work in progress. We just started that in January and it's going to take a couple of years to launch. But it should be a real improvement. So, those improvements have all been, a result and made possible by your support. I would also like to provide you with a little context for our request. And I think, you know, you're now dealing with the independent agencies, and perhaps it's a good idea to kind of refocus, because you've gone from these huge agencies to our agency, which is really, really tiny.
Our tiny agency, however, has a very important mission. And that mission is to foster integrity17269 in public service in Massachusetts at all levels of17273 government and to promote public confidence in that service. It's never been an easy mission but it has always been possible. Today, however, we face an unprecedented challenge and this challenge is one that emanates from the nation's capital. It's really an attitude towards ethics, governmental ethics. And it's an attitude which essentially say, hey, governmental ethics is not important, it doesn't matter. What matters is governmental efficiency. Well, I'm here to tell you17318 that it does matter. It matters very much. It matters nationally and it matters in the Commonwealth. And I think as inspector generals might tell you, the tone at the top of any organization is17338 very, very important. It really matters how the people at the top of any organization behave because the tone at the top tends to spread throughout the organization. And if you have rot at the top, you eventually have rot in the whole.
Observing Washington, state and17363 local officials may begin to question the ethics laws that restrict them. They may start to ask, if high ranking federal officials can profit from multi billion dollar deals with the federal government, why can't I do business with my agency? If the president can issue executive orders17390 or direct the justice department to17394 punish his perceived political enemies, why can't17398 I use my governmental powers to punish my political opponents or reward my friends? If the Supreme Court justices can accept hundreds of thousands of dollars of gifts, including gifts from people with interest in matters before them, or potentially coming before them, why can't I accept any gift worth $50 or more? Why must I comply with the conflict of interest law? What's so important about governmental ethics and integrity anyway?
Well, I know that you know the answer to this question because I know that the legislature takes governmental ethics seriously, and you've had training. I think people had training yesterday. Any of them. The answer is that governmental integrity, in following the conflict of interest law, is essential to democracy as we have known it. Democracy survives on the belief of the governed, that those who they entrust with governmental power are serving the public interest. The core concept of17482 the conflict of interest law is that public effect, with interest in matters before them or potentially coming before them. Why can't I accept any gift worth $50 or more? Why must I comply with the conflict of interest law? What's so important about governmental ethics and integrity anyway? Well, I know that you know the answer to this question because I know that the legislature takes governmental ethics seriously. And you've had training. I think people had training yesterday. Any of them.
The answer is that governmental integrity, in following the conflict of interest law, is essential to democracy as we have known it. Democracy survives on the belief of the governed, that those who they entrust with governmental power are serving the public interest. The core concept of the conflict of interest law is that public officials serve the public interest and not their own or other private interests. While public officials should be businesslike and efficient, they are not business executives. The government is not a business. Businesses exist for private profit, the government exists for the public good. The conflict of interest law compels public officials to act in the public interest, fosters confidence in government, and helps preserve the democracy we cherish. The conflict of interest law upholds the principle that the fundamental question for those governing in a democracy is not what's in it for me, but rather what is in the public interest. I know you all understand that. My job is to making sure that everyone in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who holds a government job or position understands that.
And in the face of the federal threat to government ethics and integrity, it is more important now than ever before that Massachusetts have a strong state ethics commission. Because of your support, the state ethics commission is strong and able to provide the conflict of interest law training and advice that will help Massachusetts public employees to continue to act with integrity in the public interest. And it allows the commission, when necessary, to sanction those who failed to do so. I can probably say that the state ethics commission is a national leader, as Pericles said of ancient Athens. And as John F Kennedy said of the commonwealth in his city on the hill speech, we do not imitate for we are a model to others.
We have some great programs because of your help, because of the funding that you provided that are a model to ethics commissions around the country. People cite our cases, we really set the pace but we can only do that with your support. And I am here today to ask you to continue to support the commission's vital work by approving our funding request for fiscal year 2026 of $4,046,721. Compared to what you've looked at today, that's a minuscule amount but it does a heck of a lot of good. We use that money well. We produce a lot of results. You'll read in my written testimony the details, but we provide advice to 6,000 requesters per year. We investigate 900 complaints. Last year, we had 24, and that is fiscal year 24, we had 24 public cases, and we imposed and collected $350,000 in civil penalties. All of that goes to the General Fund.
We provide services, legal services that save municipalities and state agencies hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in legal costs that they don't have to bear. We never charge anyone for what we do. We don't receive any chargebacks from anyone. Meanwhile, we're paying EOTS, $55,000 a year just for our website, and that's a due charge. So ours is a simple request. We have one line, which is17831 everything. It's nearly 95% employee compensation and technology. I have to say that we have a really great staff and very little staff turnover. Many of our staff have been with the commission for over 15 years, and are highly skilled investigators, attorneys, and other professionals. We also have many rising stars with less experience but tons of talent. All are dedicated to governmental ethics work and do not17868 do it for the money, but they nonetheless deserve to be appropriately and fairly compensated for their services.
Accordingly, our budget request includes about $140,000 for salary increases that are not included in the commission's House 1 recommendation, which only funds collective bargaining increases for our eight staff who were paid under a collective bargaining agreement. I think the rest of our staff who are not paid under the collective bargaining agreement deserve the same cost of living increases, and for the junior folks, the same step increases, that is longevity increases, as people who were paid under collective bargaining agreement. These are after all the terms that the administration agreed to that really set the market for the services of these folks, and I hope you will agree with me on that. It's really a small price to pay for retaining and building a great staff to keep the commission running at peak performance. And the following is true, retaining great staff is the greatest economy. Replacing staff is time consuming and productivity wasting, so help us retain our great staff.
In addition, our funding request includes $40,000 for a new part time entry level IT application support person, which is also not included in H 1. Adding this new position will more than repay its cost by freeing up our other more highly paid staff who are currently providing support rather than performing or spending all their time performing their primary duties. So it's been noticed if you compare what you're asking for, with House 1, House 1 has an apparent increase for the commission of $125,000 or approximately it appears to do that. We thought, okay, at least we've got some increase. It is in fact not $125,000 increase because $105,000 of that increase goes to new EOT's chargebacks, okay? So we don't get it. The actual increase that House 1 gives for the ethics commission in this time of challenges to governmental ethics nationwide is 0.5% about 18, 19 thousand dollars This minuscule increase is not adequate given the inflation which is only going to increase that we experience in our other expenses.
So I ask you, please look carefully at our written testimony, which sets all18075 of us out in detail and think about it. Think about whether the ethics commission and the cause of governmental ethics is worth an additional investment. I guess it's $380,000 that we're requesting over our last year's appropriation. It's about 250 so over H 1. I point out it's only a little bit more than what we returned to the General Fund in FY 24 in penalties. So it's a pittance relative to the state budget, but it's extremely important to the state ethics commission. And I would submit it's extremely important to the cause of governmental ethics, good government, integrity, and public service in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So I thank you very much for your kind attention and your time, and your past support. And if you have any questions
CRONIN - Director Wilson, I just wanna say thank you to you and your team and, express a special gratitude for, your service to the Commonwealth in the state ethics commission since 1986, and your dedication to all those, that are more important that ever, so I just wanna say thank you very much.
WILSON - Thank you. If I could just, I would like to just, for your information, because it's important, I've been with the commission 38 years but our public education division chief has been there 37. He is retired, Dave Giannotti. And I just wanted to say that we are really grateful for his service. And he is an example of the type of person that we hire at the ethics commission in our ability to retain really talented people. And I got to say, I should have made it a separate budget request because he's a, this guy works so hard. He is a person and a half. And I don't know where I'm gonna find the person to work as hard as he has done. And I might have to add another person next year just to make up for the loss of Dave Giannotti.
United.
SPEAKER11 - Opportunity first.
SPEAKER6 - So you
SPEAKER14 - can make up for
SPEAKER6 - it there. So that's
SPEAKER17 - the right time.
SPEAKER11 - Thank you. Representative.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you, senator. And I echo the senator's sentiments. Thank you so much, all of you, for your service. We do have a couple of questions we do have a question from Representative, Kelly Peace.
PEASE - Thank you, Madam Chair. And it's not really a question, a comment. What you do for the Commonwealth and and keeping us straight. And I wish your comments would've just stuck to your written testimony instead of becoming so partisan because now you make me question whether you only look at ethics on one side. But I've been assured that you do, and I appreciate your service. So let's move forward. But please try to keep comments to nonpartisan issues. Thank you.
SPEAKER14 - Well, it's this
SPEAKER8 - I Director, you can respond if you'd like.18291
WILSON - Yes. I would submit that I'm not being partisan,18295 I could also include it. This is not just this administration, this is an attitude that has infected the court, the supreme court,18313 which is both people, which are appointees of both parties, not any single party, has nothing to do with political party. I think that there are people of high honor in both political parties. I think that Massachusetts
PEASE - And that's great to hear. And I know we're short for time. So I appreciate that because that's not how it
SPEAKER8 - Representative director Wilson, are you finished with your comments?
SPEAKER4 - I was just asking how it came across.
WILSON - The commission is absolutely nonpartisan. And my point, if this were a Democratic administration, I would make the same criticism because the criticism, it's not a partisan criticism.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you, director. Representative, do you have any follow-up?
SPEAKER14 - Alright. Sounds good.
SPEAKER16 - Alright. Great. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER8 - I do wanna try to avoid crosstalk, everybody. So just try to be respectful of the responses that our, panels and testifiers are given. And and likewise to our panels, please be respectful of the representatives. With that, though, thank you so much for your testimony. We are gonna move on to the next 1. Thank you.
SPEAKER14 - Thank you very much.
SPEAKER8 - Next up, we have next up,18393 we have the office of campaign finance with executive director William Campbell.
SPEAKER11 - I just wanna thank you for your patience here today. I know it's been a long day, but please know you have our full attention and grateful for what we can do.
WILLIAM CAMPBELL - OCPF - I appreciate. My name is William Campbell, I'm the director of office of campaign and political finance, and I appreciate all the attention you've paid to the comments today. I know it's been a long day for you as well, and thank you for keeping with it and listening to us. I'm gonna take advice from Chairman Kilcoyne, and we had submitted last night our testimony as well as supplemental material electronically. So I'm just gonna highlight I'm gonna focus on finance. I'm gonna highlight18453 a couple of places. I wanna tell you that we are one of the smallest agencies18457 in the Commonwealth with just 18 full18459 time employees. And just an example, you're all familiar with our office, you all deal with our office. I just wanna tell you, since January 2023 through yesterday afternoon, the agency received and reviewed over 103,000 reports containing over 903,000 contributions, which is just under a million, and over 176,000 expenditures, so that staff of 18 goes through each one of those line items. They do a lot of work and they do it well.
A couple of initiatives we have. In the middle of April we're gonna be launching a new website, which was created entirely by our in house staff. It's gonna be a responsive website, meaning whatever, your desktop, laptop, phone, it's the same functionality. We applied for and received a $50,000 grant from the state share cybersecurity grant program, and we're preparing a written cybersecurity incident response plan. We have had some unexpected changes since we first submitted our budget request back in October to A and F, and you've had the same unexpected changes as well. One of the things we implemented was the transit match program for our staff. And because we're an independent agency, we're picking up that. And we also had EOTS chargebacks to the agency increased by 55%, $13,000 which we learned about after we submitted our budget to you.
90% of our budget is dedicated to staff salaries. And we've really tried to do what we can to reduce spending. I wanna introduce CFO Britney Johnson, who joined the staff last July. And what she did when she came in, she took an initiative to review all of our relationships with our vendors, all of our expenditures, and she looked for places that she could cut costs no matter how big or how small. For example, we had a telephone in our conference room. I've been there for years and I don't think anyone ever picked up that telephone to use it. She had that line decommissioned and we saved a little bit, but it was something. After her work on going through all of our accounts, calling vendors and renegotiating what they charge us, we were able to save about $5,000. Not a lot of money out of a $60 billion budget, but we're a tiny agency with just a $2 million budget, and it made a difference for us, and I appreciate all the work and the initiative that CFO Johnson showed.
I have two suggestions, I'm almost done here, two suggestions in ways that we could further save money or find money for the legislature. There are two bills, H 848 and S 515, which are comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation. There are two sections in there that I'm gonna recommend, if it's appropriate, that you consider as an outside part of your budget. One is our budget request includes $65,000 for a records digitization project. Currently, we store boxes at the state archives and also at the private vendor. We have over 500 boxes at storage, some of them at a monthly cost. There's also transportation charges, there are over a million pieces of paper. We estimated between a18659 million and a million and a half pieces of paper in those boxes.
Right now, we have to keep those forever. We have to keep them in18665 perpetuity. And in those two bills18667 that I mentioned, H 840 and S 515, there's a proposal to allow us to dispose of records after 15 years. That would eliminate the need for us to digitize those18679 records. And I have to ask myself, what is the value of a campaign finance record from 1983 for a candidate who ran for state rep and didn't win but is sitting in state archives' vault? I think at some point,18694 these records should be able to be put18696 to bed. The other thing, and I had brought this up last year, is the state election campaign fund. And that was established in 1975 to provide limited public financing for statewide offices, the constitutional offices.
The fund was intended to encourage broad participation in the political process by allowing individual taxpayers to contribute and later designate a dollar of the tax liability to fund, to reduce dependence of candidates on large contributions from private sources, to encourage the entry of candidates into campaigns for statewide office, and to limit campaign contributions. We prepared a study that demonstrates the original purposes of that program are not being met and really have never been met. In the alternative, our suggestion was, last year, of converting, transitioning that program from one that provides funds to the constitutional officers to one that would allow taxpayers to dedicate a dollar to a local election fund.
I'll tell you now that in 1996, a legislative commission found that you need 70% participation of taxpayers in order to make this a functional program. We're about just over18770 4%. We have been at that18772 level for decades. Only three times did it ever go over 10%, that was in the 90s, sometime in the18778 90s. It was a three year period, the late18780 90s. Last year, I thought it was a good idea that we rededicate the funds to a local election fund. I still think it's a good idea. But with all the budget restrictions, maybe it's just a time to just eliminate the program altogether. Right now, there's $1,051,532 just sitting in account that's gonna stay there until next year. It's just sidelined. If you need a million dollars, there's a million dollars there. We wanted to point it out.
If you do decide to transition to a local election early voting fund, I think it's a great idea. I'm a former city clerk. I know what helps city and town clerks run their elections. I know it helps cities and towns. And maybe we would then achieve those goals of the program, which is broad based participation. Because right now, people are saying, I'm not gonna give a dollar for statewide election campaigns. But if they knew the dollar was going to help run their elections in their community, early voting, mail in voting, maybe you would have greater participation. Either way, I think it's a solution. I think the program itself, dating back to 1975, never really worked. It's time for it to go. It's just whether you decide to transition it to local elections or you say, we need the money for other purposes.
So our fiscal year 2025 budget, current budget, is $2,201,861 For FY 2026, we're requesting $2,322,833 which includes, salary adjustments and the records digitization project that I mentioned, which the intention of that is to reduce long term storage costs, and then a minor adjustment for non salary items that just come with inflation. If the agency is permitted to dispose of the records, as we proposed, and the digitization project is not needed, we could reduce our budget request by 65,000. In the meantime, we respectfully request the legislature to set the budget at $2,322,833. I thank you again for your time and consideration today.
SPEAKER8 - Doctor Kabel, thank you so much for your thorough yet concise and brief testimony. The committee greatly appreciates it. I don't think we have any house members currently with questions, senator Conan. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER17 - Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER6 - And we
SPEAKER8 - will look over your supplemental material carefully.
SPEAKER4 - So thank you so much for staying.
SPEAKER17 - Have a great night.
SPEAKER8 - Next up, we have the post commission panel.
SPEAKER6 - Okay. Go ahead.
Go
SPEAKER8 - ahead.
MARGARET HINKLE - POST COMMISSION - Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Margaret Hinkle, chair of the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission, otherwise known as POST. I'm joined today by my fellow commissioner, Charlene Luma, who serves as the POST treasurer. I'm also joined by our executive director, Enrique Zuniga, and our chief financial officer, Eric18992 Rebello Pradas. As you all know, the mission of POST is broad and ambitious. Every one of the approximately 22,000 peace officers in19002 the Commonwealth is in some way19004 affected by the work that we undertake. Over the past four years, the nine commissioners and our staff have worked diligently to build our new agency and to meet the objectives of our enabling statute.
As you know, we collaborate with the Municipal Police Training Committee on important initiatives. This year, we began the process of jointly crafting agency certification standards, including officer code of conduct, use of force policy, and use of force reporting. Our collaboration with the MPTC will necessarily continue as we adopt additional standards to certify agencies. Even more importantly, we collaborate with the19050 433 law enforcement agencies under our jurisdiction. Those agencies interact with POST on a regular basis to maintain information pertaining to police officers. Their ongoing cooperation is critical to our agency's success and to our shared goal of improving policing and enhancing public confidence in policing in the Commonwealth.
In 2024, I apologize, we continued the task of building our agency to meet our mission and our obligations under our statute. We remain committed to the central goal of police accountability. The mission of POST is to improve policing and to enhance public confidence in law enforcement by implementing a fair process for mandatory certification, discipline, and training for all police officers in the Commonwealth. Our specific goals include, as you know, certification, decertification, or reprimand in the event of certain misconduct. Our enabling statute also codified into law certain prohibited conduct. POST is required to receive, to investigate, and to adjudicate officer misconduct complaints, including instances of bias, of improper or excessive use of19140 force, of actions that resulted in serious injury or death, and of unprofessionalism. We maintain a public database of officer information, including certification status,19153 suspensions, and disciplinary records. Enrique?
ENRIQUE ZUNIGA - POST COMMISSION - Thank you. Sorry about that. Once19164 again, Enrique Zuliga. I'm the executive director of the POST Commission. I have been in my job since the beginning, almost going on three and a half years as we enter this fourth year. We're very thankful for all the funding, the increased funding that we have received in the short life of the POST Commission. We need more growth. I'm gonna go off script here. I'm not gonna go through the prepared remarks that we have for you in recognition that we're, this has been a19197 long day. I will, however, touch on the highlights of our request. The governor's House 1 recommendation, appropriates $8.9 million for the commission's operations for the next fiscal year. This represents 2%, growth from the prior appropriation.
We had projected, however, that we need additional growth, which is the request that we had for A and F was $9.5 million, which is what we're here to ask that you consider and restore. The basis for that19241 increase is mostly related to an audit program that we want to implement. The statute dictates that all agencies submit complaints within two business days. We issue regulations to have those investigations done within 90 days. And, you know, we get ongoing requests for extending those investigations that happen at the local level. We issued a lot of regulations relative to that process. And it's fair to say that we don't know for sure that everybody is complying with those regulations. We know that many people try. We have 433 agencies that we have to deal with. And every now and then I get anecdotal evidence that some of these compliance may not be entirely like we would like it to be.
So we issued regulations relative to auditing and maintenance of records recently, actually last year. And our intention with this additional request was to really begin an audit program. We don't anticipate that we will be auditing 100% or anywhere near all the agencies or all the records that we are required to collect from agencies. But having an audit program, we believe, is critical to ensure compliance by everybody. That's the genesis of our request. We need additional investment in technology, even though it's a lot less than what we initially requested and obtained for our upfront infrastructure development. And all the employees that we currently have are are busy, they're quite busy. We get complaints directed to us. We get about 30 complaints per week submitted to us. We get about 10 complaints or 10 incident reports submitted to us by the agencies. Sometimes members of the public, submit complaints to the agency and us at the same time or separately. We have to reconcile all of that and make sure that everybody gets an answer.
We have the mission of ensuring that whoever complains to us gets an answer. They might not like the answer they get all the time, but they at least get an answer. Managing all of that data, the 22,000 individuals that we deal with, that we certify, has been an important project, an important effort. We need to continue doing that. The chair mentioned the Disciplinary Records Database. That's something that's been public since last since August, of 2023. We continue to make a lot of enhancements to the quality of that data. We are getting a lot more of more of the reports in real time. And and all of that requires a lot of resources. So, we've done a lot that was required for the statute. We've met the deadlines that were embedded there. But we also now need to look forward and look towards a big, big topic, which is the topic of agency certification. The statute requires us to certify agencies. We've started, as the chair mentioned, to have a lot of important conversations with the MPTC to set up those19459 standards and whatnot. That will require a lot of consultation with the19463 Chiefs Association and everything else. That's a big19467 reason why we need to be19469 in continuing in growth mode. Not the same rate that we started, not the first three years, but we still need some additional resources for those two main reasons, the audit program and the agency certification. Let me pause there and, turn it over to Commissioner Luma.
CHARLENE LUMA - POST COMMISSION - Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Cronin, Chair Kilcoyne, and members of the Joint Ways, sorry, members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. Again, my name is Charlene Luma, treasurer of the Peace19506 Officer Standards and Training Commission, and I'm also19508 a licensed clinical social worker. In my involvement with the commission, I have corroborated the importance of its mission to instill public confidence in law enforcement. I've also realized, successfully as treasurer, how POST consistently adheres to the highest standards in fiscal stewardship. Like Chair Hinkle, I have been here since the commission's inception, and I've personally witnessed an an agency start with one employee and work its way up to 51 throughout six divisions.
We have employed an incremental approach to hiring. A position is created as it's needed. The legal division continues to expand due to the number of public records requests. The Division of Police Standards recently hired its fourth intake coordinator to keep up with the processing of complaints. Although we've relied on outside consultants during the startup phase, we began to phase out those contracts and costs as we've onboarded personnel, especially in the legal division. This resulted in a significant reduction of consultant costs. But make no mistakes, as our executive director mentioned, we still have a lot to do. We need additional resources for staffing and IT to meet other mandates in the statute. The precise19591 resources for implementing new programs such as the auditing of law enforcement agencies are really difficult to predict. I would like to close by thanking the committee, especially for its patience in helping POST through our startup phase. We look forward to continuing this partnership as we approach full operational status. This ends our prepared testimony, and we are happy to take any questions that you may have. Thank you.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you very much. We currently don't have any questions on the house side, senator Cronin. Thank you so much for your testimony.
SPEAKER2 - I have a question.
SPEAKER8 - Oh. 0, sorry. Hold on a second. Representative Holmes?
HOLMES - Alright. Thank you. Commissioner, you just said something I was trying to figure out, but I think you're answering it. When you say you're at full operational status, that means you think you have everything you need because when we met last year, the number was substantially lower. We raised this substantially. This year, you're only asking for only 600,000 more. So, how close are you to what you think chair, executive director, commissioner, to full? I heard her say full.
LUMA - Yeah. So just to clarify, we19673 are approaching full operational status, but I'll let our executive director speak more to that.
ZUNIGA - Thank you, Rep Holmes for that question. We've done, some benchmarking with other POSTs around, the country. There's always differences. I will say that, we are approaching, as the remarks say. There's a big question into how are we gonna tackle the topic of agency certification. In my view, there could be different models to try to do that. Because it's such a broad topic, it merits that we do it incrementally. If we attempted to come up with standards that apply to everybody, and by the way, we deal with very different size agencies, very different level of sophistication, and that might merit a very different approach.
HOLMES - I'm trying to cut you off because I just wanna, that wasn't really my question. I was just trying to make sure I heard you say that so I want to understand. The backlog. So if I come in today and I complain, I'm one of those 30. When we started this19745 three years ago, one, we wanna make sure everybody's been certified now, right?
ZUNIGA - Yes.
HOLMES - Now I'm going through19751 my second phase. And so I will repeat the first person who came back. So that first year, they're gonna be certified this year, they're gonna be recertified, right?
ZUNIGA - That's correct.
HOLMES - Okay. So what is the backlog for complaints? Like, if I come in today, you say I'm gonna be responded, I'm gonna be responded to with saying, hey, we got your information. Or how many, when you look at me that way, chair, I'm asking, how many things are still on investigation? What number of investigations are happening now to know if someone has a complaint? What does that look like?
ZUNIGA - Well, let me make a distinction between two different processes. We get complaints directly submitted to us, and we have to reconcile whether they have been submitted to the agency as well or not. We rely on agencies to do the first level of investigation. Now, there are some19808 agencies, and I have been public about19812 this. Boston Police Department has the largest backlog. The regulations say they have to submit all complaints and incident reports within two business days, even though there's a little leeway for them to ascertain the credibility, by the way, within that time frame. But we see it as very short time. You have19836 to submit the first time to us right away. Compliance with that, with Boston PD is not great, but it's getting a little better.
Just for comparison, the state police seem a little bigger bigger agency. They do a very good job in keeping up with that time frame. They have 90 days to complete the investigation, the internal affairs investigation. Boston PD, again, is the one with the largest lack of compliance. And I can get you the exact numbers. I've reported them to the commission at different times. I've been reporting them quarterly. The next one is coming up. Except for criminal cases, which everybody has to wait until the criminal case is resolved to then figure out if there's gonna be a disciplinary process. We track that compliance, and again, Boston PD lags, you know, compared to everybody else in both number and time. They get the most complaints, we understand that. But, you know, that's that's the reality.
Now, after the local process happens or anytime beforehand, because we're aware and we're overseeing this process, we may take action in the form of a preliminary inquiry, which is our own investigation. And we bring those cases, in front of the commission ultimately. I didn't mention the cases that were in my prepared remarks, but we have about 100 cases currently in our pipeline at different stages of discipline. Many of those will likely result in a decertification19944 just given the level of transgression. But more and more, we're getting into the matter of just discipline, suspension, retraining, which is always, I think, part of the intent in the statute that we also look at those. Now there's a lot of discipline that happens locally where we are satisfied with the results after the process that I just described, which again takes time, and then, and we just publish it because, you know, we're not gonna take any action. Does that answer your question, representative?
SPEAKER8 - Thank you. And thank you for your testimony today.
SPEAKER19 - Thank you.
19989 SPEAKER819989 -19989 Now19989 we will have the committee for public council services.
ANTHONY BENEDETTI - CPCS - Chair Kilcoyne, Chair Cronin, members of the Ways and Means Committee, good afternoon. Thank you once again for the opportunity to appear before you and talk about our budget needs. I am here with two people who many of you probably know, General Counsel Lisa Hewitt and our newest member legislative counsel, Diana Williams. I wanna thank you for this committee's ongoing support of the Committee for Public Counsel Services and the legislature's support20059 of the Committee for Public Counsel Services. It is because of that support that we are considered to be20065 one of the best programs in the country. I may have said this last20069 year when I testified before this committee, I cannot tell you how often I get phone calls or emails from individuals in other jurisdictions who are looking to improve their program and they're told, call Massachusetts. They're doing it right. And on top of that, we have people who come from other countries who are trying to set up indigent defense programs, and they are told by national experts, come to Massachusetts.
So I wanna thank you for the support that you give us because we would not be able to do it with the funding. So I'll do a brief overview of our agency. For anyone who, is not as familiar with us as others, I will be brief. You should have written testimony in a PowerPoint. I am not gonna read from that. It's late and I know you still have some people that you wanna hear from, and it's me and and those people standing between you and your weekend. So, I am gonna try and be brief. But we provide representation in four major areas, adult criminal, juvenile delinquency, children and family law, and mental health, as well as a number of other specialty areas. Our system is a system that is primarily private, the private bar, 2800 private attorneys who take cases in all those four practice areas. We have 800 staff, 400 of whom are full time staff attorneys.
Last year, we handled 217,000 cases across all of our practice areas. Our current status, I probably should have been up here with the district attorneys earlier because I'm here to tell you pretty much the same thing about the salaries. But we are in a good place because of the support that this committee and the legislature has given us. We have gone from a starting salary, just talking about attorneys right now, of 40,000 to 72,000. You heard the DAs say their starting salary is 72,000. That has made a huge difference with recruitment and it's made a huge difference with retention. We have become more competitive with other public defender agencies. We've also been able to increase salaries for many of our other professionals as well.
The private bar right now is stable but that is where we really need an influx of funding for an hourly rate increase, which I'll get to in a moment. What we have been doing to deal with the capacity issue, and that exists in certain locations and certain practice areas across the Commonwealth is, essentially, we've been setting up incentives. So when there is a number of clients who are waiting for counsel, and, honestly, any number is not good, people should get counsel appointed right away, what we've done is set up incentives where we say, if you take a certain number of these cases of the backlog, we'll give you extra money. And so, we've had different incentives and different practices in different areas. And in every case, it has helped clear up the backlog. So I think that does say, that money, if you pay them, attorneys will do the job.
In terms of our budget request, the message that I'm here to say is the governor's budget is extremely harmful if it were to be adopted. The governor's budget is $30 million below our maintenance request and it really threatens all the good work that we are doing. It would be a 7.1% cut from what we expect to spend in the current year. It would be a 10% cut from our maintenance budget, a maintenance budget that you can see on page 7 of our PowerPoint, which has been revised from what we originally had requested. In our 1,500 line item,20306 we had requested originally $99 million for maintenance. We went back, we revisited it, and we came back with a smaller number, cutting it by 5 million down to 94 million. So even with that revised number, we'd be looking at a 10% cut.
This would do real harm to our clients, the legal system, and quite frankly, public safety. We recognize, or I recognize, all of us recognize the fiscal challenges, the tough decisions that you all need to make. We're well aware of the uncertainty of the federal situation. And so with that in mind, that is why we come to you with what we think is a conservative proposal in the revised maintenance in the 1,500 line item. You can see the details of our request, as I said, on page 7 of the PowerPoint. Our ask is20360 a little over 356.4 million. What that would do is that would allow us to20366 maintain current operations. We would be able to compensate20370 our staff by annualizing salary adjustments that we gave this year and to make further progress next year. And those are critical because right now, we certainly want to maintain, what is for the most part, equity with the district attorneys. I know they're here asking, or they were here, asking for 80,000 to start. Our20393 maintenance budget would not allow us to go20395 to 80,000, that would allow us to stay at 72.
20399 The20399 other piece is, what they also mentioned is, we don't wanna fall further behind, the attorneys in the executive branch, the unionized attorneys in the executive branch who already are ahead of both us and the assistant district attorneys. The other thing that we would be able to do with this maintenance is, we opened up an office in Holyoke, a public defender adult criminal office. And that office was for the purpose of representing clients because we20429 had capacity issues with the private bar in Western Mass. And so that office has made a huge difference. And now that that federal ARPA money is gone, we had to roll that into our maintenance budget. And so with the governor's budget that would be one of the things that I would need to look at, to make up that $30 million cut.
The other areas in which we would have to look at is, we have 17 job offers out for the fall, attorneys for our public defender20462 division and our children and family law division. That represents approximately 2,200 cases, that if we weren't able to hire those people, those cases would have to be handled by the private bar, again, private bar that has capacity issues. That Holyoke office I mentioned, on average, handles about 2,600 cases. Again, if we had to look at getting rid of that office, those cases would have to be handled by the private bar. The maintenance budget would allow us to be fully staffed. That would be another 12 attorney positions, again, additional cases. So when you add all of those up, you're talking 6,500 cases, which would have to be handled by a private bar that, as I said, that I've continually said, we have capacity issues.
What would happen is, it would turn what has been a relatively stable system into likely a full blown crisis. If we were not able to get our maintenance funding, you wouldn't essentially, you wouldn't be doing any sort of cost saving. All it would be doing would be switching costs from one line item to another. Other things we'd have to look at is freezing of our salaries, no more COLA adjustments. And so I'm asking you to please, don't let us lose ground in terms of all that you have already helped us to accomplish. I mentioned the private bar, the 1510. That's the 1510 line item. We got an hourly20562 rate increase a few years20564 ago, and it made a huge difference, and I wanna thank you for that increase. The problem is it hasn't changed behavior enough of the private bar. In other words, we have not been able to get enough attorneys to take20579 more cases who are already on the panel. And we haven't been able to get20583 enough new attorneys to join the panel.
There is a page in our PowerPoint which shows that for the most part, the number of attorneys on the panels has stayed pretty flat. But what that doesn't tell you is that, of those people that20601 are on the panel, many of them20603 are not taking the same number of cases that they used to. And20607 so, we've got to be able to get people on our panel to take more cases, and we've got to be able to recruit more people onto the various panels. A lot of the panels are composed of aging attorneys, quite frankly, and we need to get people who want to do this20625 work. And so it's critical that we have some movement on the hourly rates for the private bar. And, again,20631 I say that knowing full well that you have a difficult job in front of you, but we want to be able to do our job and provide representation, timely representation to the people who are statutorily or constitutionally entitled to it.
One of the things that I wanna mention is that we're not just here asking for more funding for the private bar and for our staff. We've been doing a lot of things to support our private bar. One of the things we've been able to accomplish is get private bar loan forgiveness. That is in place for attorneys who do this work, essentially, full time as private attorneys. We have gotten feedback from private attorneys that millions of dollars have been forgiven, and so that is a huge accomplishment. That's one of the things that we're hoping helps to help our recruitment efforts in getting people to join the panel. We have done an upgrade to our billing system, something that is a big deal for the private attorneys. We've been using one system, which essentially measures the distance from one place to another, and we're replacing that with a system that also factors in time. And you can see how that would matter to someone, for instance, who's driving around in Boston. It may only be a two mile drive, but it takes them 45 minutes to get from one place to another. Whereas it takes 45 minutes out here in Central Mass and you get into Western Mass, you can go quite far in 45 minutes.
We have connected with the Health Connector to set up, we're about to roll out, essentially, one stop shopping for our private attorneys, where they will be able to have someone to contact and get information on healthcare plans. And, hopefully, get information that allows them20747 to save some money. We're hoping that that will be a benefit to our private attorneys. And we've also20753 done a number of things bureaucratically to make it easier to be a part of the panel. And so, we're doing a lot to try and make this a more attractive thing. But at the end of the day, if private attorneys cannot pay their bills, all of these things we're doing aren't gonna make a difference. And when you hear 2,800 attorneys who handle 80% of the cases, they really are the backbone of the system. And so I urge you to consider some movement on the hourly rates.
Public defense isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. Your commitment to indigent defense is a hallmark of Massachusetts' dedication to justice. It feels like so many of the people you've20795 heard get up here today talk about how we20797 are a national model,20799 and we are no different. By approving our full maintenance request and providing some relief on the hourly rate, you we can avoid devastating personnel cuts and ensure that our clients get timely representation. I wanna thank you for your attention. I know it's late in the afternoon, so I will stop there and see if I can answer any questions.
CRONIN - Thank you, miss Beth. I really appreciate hearing your testimony. More importantly, all the critical work with CPCS estimates, proposes for the private bar nearly $5 million, $4.7 million. Could you articulate what the impact of a funding cut on the private bar and those CPCS attorneys that, portion of the case load would be? what would that look like, and what would you do if you received the $4.7 million?
BENEDETTI - That's a great question. Thank you, for asking that. Putting aside the frustration and the real, you know, we hear a lot from the private bar about why it's so critical that their hourly rate goes up because of the cost of doing business inflation and, you know, things that you've heard from so many of the people that you've heard from before this committee. What this budget does is it cuts from what we expect to spend in fiscal year 26. And as you can see, it's below20895 what we expect to spend in fiscal year 25. Now, in recent years, the legislature has fully funded both our 1510, which pays the private attorneys, and our 1520, which pays all of20907 the expert witnesses who work with the private attorneys and our staff attorneys, which has been fantastic because the attorneys know we're gonna get paid. They're always gonna get paid, but they know they're gonna get paid on time.
There have been times, and it's been a while, where we would ask for x and we would get y, and, eventually, we would spend x. We would get essentially 80% or something like that of what we knew we needed. And attorneys would start to get worried that they weren't gonna get paid, they would stop taking cases. And so20940 assuming that we got the lower number and that the legislature, like it always does, would cover what the20948 bills were, the problem is is that it sends a message to the private bar that they need to be concerned about if they're gonna get paid, even though we know they're gonna get paid, but more importantly, when they're gonna get paid. There20962 were a couple of years way back when they didn't get paid until November. And so that's really the problem.
Same thing with the 1520. a couple of years ago, we20976 got $10 million more than we requested. We got $45 million. We only spent 35. Last year, we got 35, but we gave back, 10.20986 And so they cut 10 off the 35, and they gave us 25, which we still can't figure out how that makes sense. But that's a huge percentage cut to the line item that pays20999 the expert witnesses. And we've been able to raise the rates that we pay expert witnesses because we have the21007 authority to do that, unlike the rates for the attorneys. And so that has helped us to keep a good cohort of experts in all the different areas that we need them. If that line item were to be cut, it would be the same message to the experts that, well, are we gonna get paid? And if we're gonna get paid, when are we gonna get paid? And the experts are much more likely to not take cases because they can go and do work for someone else and make a lot more money. So that's all, I know a long answer to your question, but I hope I've addressed that.
KILCOYNE - I just wanna say I appreciate your candor on what the impacts of some of the proposed cuts may be on your organization and on your attorneys. And thank you for trying to extrapolate from the PowerPoint that will, and we'll certainly take a closer look at it. And quick shout out to your team too. Diana is a veteran of the legislator staff as myself, has done incredible work on the judiciary committee back when I was, her office was in the judiciary committee. So wonderful to see you. And, Lisa, I know you've been an incredible advocate in Beacon Hill for many years. So great to see all of you here today.
I don't have any question from house members. No questions, and, I think we'll move on to the next panels. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER23 - Thank you all very much. Appreciate your attention. I know it's late.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you. Next up is the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation.
LYNNE PARKER - MLAC - Good afternoon. My name is Lynne Parker. I'm the executive director of the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation. I wanna thank Senator Cronin and Representative Kilcoyne for this opportunity to speak with you today, and as well too thank all of the committee members. I will try to keep my comments brief. I wanted to start out by just sharing that MLAC is the largest funder of civil legal legal aid organizations across the Commonwealth. These organizations provide representation and protections for21146 people with low incomes across21148 the state who are facing civil legal crises. The MLAC line item provides support and funding to 16 legal aid organizations across the state, that includes 10 statewide legal aid organizations and six regional legal aid organizations.
The purpose of civil legal aid is really to assist people with low incomes who are facing serious barriers to accessing their most basic needs. This generally includes housing, family law, and domestic safety, economic stability, employment, healthcare, education, veterans benefits, and more. I wanna be sure to say thank you to the legislature. The amount of investment that MLAC and civil legal aid has received over the years has really made a difference to civil21197 legal aid and the people that they21199 can represent. Particularly, the state's continued in21203 specific investment and funding in for civil legal aid over the past five years has made a notable difference in both sound economic returns both to legal aid clients and to the Commonwealth. The state's continued investment has also impacted the turnaway rate.
The turnaway rate is something that we look at when we're trying to determine how many people are being served and how many people are not. And, basically, those that qualify for civil legal aid and have a serious legal problem, but can't get representation because of limitations on resources. Approximately FIVE years ago, the turnaway rate was approximately 60%. With the investment that the legislature has committed to civil legal aid, the turnaway rate is now at 40%. That's a notable difference that21257 I think we should be celebrating as we work to provide representation to more people in need. The state's continued investment, I think, has shown that the increase is working, and hopefully, we will continue to do that in the future. Currently, those who qualify for civil legal aid need to be at the federal income poverty guidelines at 125% of poverty or below.
What that means for this year is that a family of four needs to have approximately $40,000 in income and an individual would need to have approximately $19,500. So we always ask people to sort of pause and think about that in terms of how difficult and challenging it would be to try to live on that level of an income and maintain all of your basic needs, and then think about what that means. If you're facing a serious crisis, that may mean the possibility of losing your home, the possibility of not having food to feed your family, etcetera. Unfortunately and concerningly, one of the things that we're seeing now is that more people are falling into extreme poverty levels. More than 325,000 people within the Commonwealth are now at extreme poverty, which basically means that they're below21336 50% of the poverty line.21338
In addition, nearly 40% of the population that are eligible for civil legal21344 aid fall into that category. So this is a concerning issue and something we're looking at closely and will continue to look at closely as we move forward into FY '26. Positively, and we are happy to share that in FY '24, legal aid organizations served more than 105,000 people and secured an estimated benefits of $109 million in economic benefits both to the Commonwealth and to civil legal aid clients, which is an increase of $9 million over FY 23. Additionally, in FY 24, the statewide and regional legal aid organizations that MLAC funds closed over 26,800 cases. And residents in 94% of Massachusetts cities and towns were assisted by civil legal aid, which I think is really, you know, quite assisted by civil legal aid, which I think is really, you know, quite something to be happy about and celebrate as well.
Legal aid organizations are problem solvers. They provide essential services to people facing urgent civil legal problems when they need it most. Legal aid organizations are also partners with legislators. When a constituent comes21420 to you or to one of your staff, you know that you can reach out to the legal aid organization in your district, and that legal aid organization will work to do whatever they can to try to serve those constituents in need. And we wanna continue to be able to give them the funding that will enable them to continue to do that. So in FY 26, we're seeking an increase of $3 million over FY 25. That would be a total of21451 $54 million. As I noted, progress is being21457 made, but we're still looking at 40% of people being turned away that have a civil legal aid need. So that's why we're asking for that $3 million increase in FY 26.
I think it goes without saying that legal aid organizations face challenges every single day about who they can represent and who they can't. And those are difficult21478 decisions being made by staff that are incredibly committed to the work that they do. They're dedicated, they work, you know,21486 beyond what most21488 people should be expected to do.21490 And they care so much about the well-being and the ability of their clients to thrive and, hopefully, to get out of poverty. An additional $3 million in funding in FY 26 will obviously help staff serve more clients facing urgent legal needs. Hopefully, the $3 million will also help to get more people who are in extreme poverty out of extreme poverty. And the legal aid organizations will be able to continue to recruit and retain a talented workforce, support the infrastructure they need, handle more cases, and assist more clients with serious legal needs.
One of the things that we're seeing is that many people who have worked for civil legal aid organizations have done that for the bulk of their career. Many of them are at the point where they're looking at retiring or have retired. So it's critically important at this juncture to make sure that we are providing the resources, we're providing the salaries, we're providing the support to make sure that newer attorneys have the ability to stay at civil legal aid organizations and to see it as a career opportunity and not as a stop along a way to where they might be able to get a higher salary, because people really do want to work in these organizations. They really do care about the work that they're doing. I also just wanted to take a brief moment of your time to talk with you about the access to counsel program.
Many of you are probably well aware that in FY 25, the access to counsel pilot program was put into place. MLAC was tasked with being the organization to oversee and manage that program, and the program was funded at $2.5 million. This program provides that legal aid organizations will provide representation to both low income tenants and low income owner occupants in eviction proceedings. One of the things that we felt was important was that MLAC should take the time to thoughtfully and carefully think about the way that the project should be stood up and implemented to make sure that it would be a strong project going forward. We developed an RFP, sent that out across the Commonwealth, considered applications that came in, and then have funded eight organizations to do the work for the access to counsel program.
21630 We're21630 proud of the way that the work has started, the way the project has rolled out. The work began in January and the project is focusing on four separate areas. And these areas were chosen because we conducted a stakeholder survey across the commonwealth of over 200 people that we thought could weigh in well on what the highest needs were in terms of representing tenants and low income landlords. The project is focusing on representation of tenants with housing vouchers who are facing eviction and could potentially lose the termination or face the termination of their voucher, representation of tenants facing eviction living in a property managed by a housing authority, representation of tenants facing eviction by particularly problematic landlords that own large buildings with a large number of units, and then representation of low income owner occupants in eviction proceedings.
The reason that these areas were chosen is because the stakes are incredibly high for people in those kinds of settings. If somebody has a housing voucher, if somebody is in public housing and they face the loss of the voucher or the loss of the ability to live in public housing, they're likely not gonna be able to be in that kind of housing or have a housing voucher again for a very long time. So these are vulnerable residents. They're often seniors. They're often people with mobility impairments or mental illness, and they are, typically, people in communities where it's just more difficult for them to potentially retain housing in other areas. So in FY 26, we're asking for funding of $5 million which is $2.5 million over last year. We believe that this increase will really make a difference.
It's critically important for the legal aid organizations to be able to continue to provide representation to those tenants that are getting representation but their cases21749 haven't concluded. And also to provide representation to21753 more clients with the staff21755 that we have in place, with the efficiencies and the infrastructure that we've developed21759 in order to make sure that people that are facing homelessness can get the assistance that they need with this increased funding. So I just want to thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you for considering MLAC's FY 26 funding request. And thank you again for the legislator's long term support for civil legal aid and for MLAC. It really does make a difference. I'm happy to take questions. And I also wanted to share that we do have written testimony that we'll be providing imminently.
KILCOYNE - Thank you so much, Director Parker. We will take a look at that testimony. Just wanna thank you for the work that you do. It's an incredibly important organization that I know helps so many in need. I can say in my own experience, we have local attorneys right here in Clinton who have advocated for your organization and for its support. So we thank you and all the attorneys that you work with for your efforts.
I think we do have 1 question so far. Representative Holmes?
HOLMES - My question is about uniformity. So, are there rules for what you put down to the 16 organizations for what cases they take or don't? Because there have been times when folks have called me and they're just desperate, and their case is not taken. So, do you have rules to say here's what, I guess I should say, what is the criteria for not taking the case versus taking the case, and is that uniform across the Commonwealth?
PARKER - So for the line item funding that MLAC receives through the state budget, not the access to counsel program, the funding is given out to the regionally, all of the 16 legal aid organizations. They have an ability to determine some priority about the needs that exist in their communities. But I would also say that the areas of work that identified are those that I think they primarily focus on with some adjustments also depending on what the local needs are. I think the21882 challenge is that some organizations are, as I said, you know, in a position where even if somebody qualifies and has a need that the legal aid organization would normally help, they have to say no sometimes because they don't have the ability of their attorneys and their paralegals to be able to do the work, and that's just an unfortunate situation. And, again, I think we've made great progress, but they are just tasked sometimes with saying they can't help somebody even with a critical need, and it's certainly not something that they like to do or want to do.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you. And I don't think we have any questions from the committee. Alright. Thank you so much, director Parker. And next up, we are going to hear from the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
MICHAEL MEMMOLO - MCAD - Thank you, Madam Chair, and, thank you to distinguished members of the joint committee. I'm joined today, Justine LaVoye, our press secretary and legislative liaison. I know it's been a long day, so I'll get right into it. I've submitted just sort of lengthy testimony, but I would be remiss if I didn't raise some of the points contained therein. My testimony raises the alarm about21968 the reductions to civil rights and anti21970 discrimination protections that we're seeing. We've already seen the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion in anti discrimination protections for the LGBTQIA plus community, and particularly for transgendered individuals. We need to continue to strengthen our collaborative and unabashed21987 commitment to anti discrimination protections and civil rights here in the Commonwealth.
We have worked collaboratively21993 with you all over the past few years to financially support the MCAD. And we thank you for all of your work in that vein. But we are again at another crossroads where we need your support to close the remaining gap in our agency's funding. Although the MCAD was fully funded in fiscal year 23, the year over year value of our federal contracts has not been annualized. This was intentional. It worked well for us, as we were allowed to retain those funds and use them to22022 fund our operations, and it allowed the Commonwealth to reallocate those funds to other important items. The net result is the MCAD has22032 still relied on federal funds to support 20% of its overall budget. As previously stated, the reductions to civil rights protections and the federal agencies that enforce them has put our work and our funding in serious jeopardy. Our two partner federal agencies, the EEOC and HUD, have already been affected by the many changes in Washington, and even more devastating reductions to these agencies and their missions are imminent.
As the ability for Massachusetts residents to file their discrimination complaints at the federal level continues to be reduced, the MCAD will be the only agency of recourse for them. If our federal funding is not replaced, it will be an untenable task for the MCAD to adequately enforce the Commonwealth's robust antidiscrimination laws. I'm before you today to request, in addition to the $600,000 increase we're seeking to our direct appropriation, that the Commonwealth fund, again, through our direct appropriation, all of the agency's expected $2.4 million in federal funds for a total increase of $3 million in fiscal year 26. To put a finer point on what the loss of these funds would do, on July 1, the MCAD would not have a dedicated housing unit to address housing discrimination in the Commonwealth. The agency will not have the funds to finalize payment on our new case management application of $1.3 million due in the next fiscal year, and we will not have the funds to support certain agency wide operational expenses.
The compounding result will be the MCAD will not be able to substantially address housing discrimination in the Commonwealth. We will realize significant cuts to our operations and22139 staffing levels. This will result in an incredible increase to our remaining investigators. For22145 perspective, when I appeared here last year,22147 our average caseload for investigators was 175 cases. This year, it's 211 with some of our most senior investigators carrying caseloads of 300 to 350 cases. This is despite the agency adopting extensive process changes to streamline operations and making the difficult decision to limit our intake to align with our staffing levels. We have mitigated the inflow of complaints to the agency that it could never realistically and meaningfully, investigate within our timelines. Even with the incredible changes that we've made, we expect the backlog to continue to grow.
We will be enacting even more changes as we prepare for the launch of our new comprehensive case management systems by enacting case triage. We will be putting more resources at the front end of our process in preliminary investigations, which we know will result in determination to complainants within weeks, not years. This will also allow us to perform more robust investigations for those complaints that are authorized to formal investigations. Simply put, the agency will be leveraging our statutory authority as we can no longer apply a one size fits all model. This process has been baked into our new CCMS application we'll launch this fall, which will be used by the public, attorneys, and our staff. The application will usher in a new era of online filing for complaints of discrimination in the Commonwealth and provide the agency and its staff with a powerful tool to accomplish their work.
However, none of the above is possible if we realize a deficit in our anticipated federal funding. I implore this committee to support our request today and to continue to support the MCAD, our work, and the robust anti discrimination protections of the Commonwealth. I'm pleased to answer any of your questions today. And I do wanna inform you all that we will be having a legislative briefing on April 8, Tuesday, April 8th, to provide more information about our funding, support for our MCAD fund bill, and support for our fair housing partners in the Commonwealth who are also realizing significant and extreme cuts to their federal funding as well. I thank you for your time, your patience, and for sticking in there today. Happy to answer any questions.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you so much for your patience, in today, and and thank you for your testimony. I do have a member that has a question. Representative Holmes?
HOLMES - So what is your current goal for finding the, if it's a probable cause, and are you22312 meeting it? Is it, it used to be22314 18 months, right? But what is now the goal for me submitting to MCAD and getting an answer?
MEMMOLO - Yep. Right now so, representative, if you're getting to the backlog and, you know, the 18 months is not tenable at this point. We are more in a 22 to 36 month backlog at this point right now. The backlog
HOLMES - I'm sorry. You said 36 months?
MEMMOLO - 22 to 36 months at this point.
HOLMES - So I get an answer in three years?
MEMMOLO - Correct.
HOLMES - Okay. When was the 18 month goal set? Wasn't that two years ago or so?
MEMMOLO - So the 18 month goal has sort of been baked into our regulations as an aspirational goal. And we are working consistently to try to mitigate, yes. I can see. Yep. That's every day I wake up, with that exact feeling. We feel that our CCMS application is going to be a game changer. We are fundamentally going to be changing the way that we perform investigations at the MCAD. It is not going to be the practice and the policy anymore for people to wait years. We fully expect weeks and months for decisions to turn around. Obviously, a little bit longer with a formal investigation, but quite simply, the agency has, for decades, taken in more complaints than it can ever realistically have been able to investigate based on its staffing levels. We finally made that change midway through fiscal year 24 to completely align our intake capacity with our actual staffing levels. It helped to mitigate the backlog this past fiscal year. We were happy to see only a 3% increase. But you'll see in my testimony, we expect, an explosion, this year because fiscal year 23 was, again, a year that we were22429 just taking in thousands of complaints that we did not have the22433 staffing ability and capability to investigate. So22437 we are working on this each and every day and have made our goal and our, with our case management system to fundamentally redefine the way that we do our work at the MCAD.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you so much, director Mamolo, for your testimony. And next up, we I don't think we have we have no more questions from the committee, so free to go. And we will look at the anything you provide, and and thank you so much today for your
SPEAKER6 - Thank you
SPEAKER24 - so much.
SPEAKER8 - Your testimony today. And next up, we have the Massachusetts office of victim's assistance.
SPEAKER22 - Good afternoon. Chairs, Kilcoyne Cronin? Oh, sorry.
SPEAKER8 - Oh, no. I just was gonna say good afternoon.
SPEAKER7 - Thank you.
SPEAKER8 - Good evening. Yeah.
SPEAKER1 - I said
SPEAKER22 - it and then interrupted. Yeah.
LIAM LOWNEY - MOVA - Thanks to you both and the members of the committee for, the opportunity to testify today. Like everyone else has said, I know you've had a long day, and I will be focused and brief on my comments. My name is Liam Lowney. I'm the executive director of the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance. We're an independent state agency that are governed by the Victim and Witness Assistance Board. That board is made up of, by statute, the attorney general, two district attorneys, and four public members, three of whom have to be survivors of violence. We're unique nationally in that regard, and it's frankly a great place to work. We sent written testimony in advance of the hearing, talking specifically about MOVA's appropriation and our administrative line. In addition, about the governor's budget and its inclusion of the victim compensation program and transferring that from the Attorney General's Office to MOVA I'm not gonna talk about that right now, but I'm happy to answer questions if you have them.
Today, I'm gonna focus instead on the funding that goes to services in all of our communities that support crime victims across our state. MOVA is back again this year seeking a $20 million annualized state investment, to continue supporting crime victim services across mass. Through our discussions, we've realized that we can do this either through appropriation, or through some other mechanism, like a trust or some opportunity through appropriation. But most importantly, we need to get that funding because it doesn't come to MOVA. We pass it through to programs across the state through contracts and grants. We have been advocating for this funding each year for the last three years. Thank you for your continued support. As we began this conversation initially, it's because MOVA receives federal funding from the crime victims fund through the Department of Justice. Those funds are made up of fines and fees at the federal level. They're administered to the 50 states and we then administered it to programs for free confidential services.
They fund rape crisis centers, domestic violence programs, child advocacy centers, homicide bereavement services, general therapy services, some victim witness services in the DA's office. We have a contract with MLAC, who was here earlier, to provide legal assistance across Massachusetts. So it's a very diverse pot of money, and its main goal is to serve survivors in our communities. Over the past years, since FY 18, the amount of money that has come from Congress to Massachusetts and every state has decreased and that's because of a problem that existed in the fund. We had been informed that that fund would rebound in some time, which is why we've been coming back every year asking for a $20 million investment to bridge that gap. Initially we said22677 three years. That's what we were told. We're back here. It's year 4. And it's because that fund22683 has not rebounded in the way that everyone22685 anticipated. And yet there's programs still serving survivors in our communities. And so just to share, some numbers with you, our last full year of data is from FY 24. Obviously we're, we're supporting programs right now, as well. But as far as FY 24 is concerned, we contract with a 16 victim serving agencies across the straight state. In FY 24, we served 30000, survivors. Just over 39,000 of those were served with the state funding and with that investment.
Those survivors received over 227,000 services, from those programs. And I think as many22727 of you know, that can be an advocate in a courthouse.22729 It can be a advocate in a hospital for a sexual assault survivor who reports there. It can be an interviewer for a child in a child advocacy center, and it can be a lawyer through MLAC helping a survivor of domestic violence get a divorce. More locally, because we're in Worcester, we'll celebrate Worcester22747 County, we'll celebrate Worcester County. 7,200 victims were served through22753 MOVA funded programs, and 3,319 were served with the state dollars, and over 14,000 services were provided in Worcester County. I know some of you represent other counties, and we're happy to get that data to you as well, if you wanna reach out and ask.
But we still need funding. We need the $20 million because Massachusetts just can't rely on this federal funding from year to year. We really need to change our practice and that's why we're requesting an annualized investment of $20 million so that22791 we can ensure some sustainability to our programs. They are operating from year22795 to year, they get contracts with us in July, and then they wonder whether they should fill positions the following22801 May until they hear whether they have a contract again. It's not a good way to provide services, it's not a good way to do business, it's not efficient, and so we need to change that. Additionally, we're looking at some other challenges. We've been talking with programs a lot about some of the discussions going on in the national level through executive orders.
And so some of our programs that specifically serve LGBTQIA plus survivors, programs that serve undocumented and immigrant survivors, and in communities of color. Some of22835 those programs are very concerned about what it means for their ability to continue to access22839 federal dollars, as well as what it means for them to report data to us, through22845 us, up to the Department of Justice. We've been engaging in conversations. We're trying to tell folks we are where we are. We're gonna prepare, should that change happen. But nothing's happened yet. But that being said, state dollars allows us to fund programs, all programs, all survivors. We can maximize the federal dollars to support survivors who are eligible under that program. We can use the state funding to support all survivors at Massachusetts values. And so again, we're asking you to support us with a $20 million annualized investment. And the programs that we're serving continue to support victims every day and even though their own staffs have been shrinking over time. So I'm gonna cut it there and I'm gonna tell you that, we're committed to supporting these programs. I know you have been and I really appreciate the support you've had with us over the years. And with that, I'll look to you for any questions you might have.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you, director Lowney. We have a rep we have a question from representative Higgins.
LOWNEY - Hello, representative.
REP HIGGINS - Sure. Can you talk a little bit more about, if there's going to be any22943 improvement? And can you just explain kind of how much there's backfills of that gap? Because it's my understanding the $20 million doesn't make these organizations whole. It's trying to to just backfill some of that missing funding.
LOWNEY - Sure thing. To your first question about, and thank you for the question,22964 representative. To the first question about the Crime Victims Fund, this has been an22968 ongoing issue that relates to the way the Department of Justice22972 used to resolve cases at the federal level. As I said, fines and fees go into the fund. The Department of Justice for a period of time switched to doing non prosecution or what's called deferred prosecution agreements, which allows companies essentially to take responsibility for what they did, pay a fine and a fee, but not plead guilty. But since it wasn't a guilty, the money didn't go into the crime victims fund, it went into the general treasury. So Congress was appropriating out crime victim fund money, but there was not as much going in to the fund in receipts. In FY 20, I worked with many of our national stakeholders, domestic violence, sexual assault stakeholders nationally. I was the past president of the VOCA assistance administrators association.
We worked,23023 we got past the fix. We called it the VOCA fix, at the time and President Biden signed it in 2021. The hope was at that time, non prosecution agreements, deferred prosecution agreements, fines and fees would go into the fund. They have. Over a billion dollars that wouldn't have gone into the fund have gone into the fund since that fix was passed. But the fund itself hasn't replenished itself. It depends on prosecutions, it depends on investigations, it depends on how they are resolved and how timely they are resolved. So it's not a predictable mechanism for when that funding comes in. And of course, changes over time as investigations and prosecutions change over time. So we are working with the federal government to understand what their predictions are, but even their predictions sometimes are hard to manage. To your second question, I think you asked me about
HIGGINS - Will this make the organization's whole? Yeah.
LOWNEY - So the $20 million that we've been requesting and getting over the last three years that we're very grateful for has not increased services. It has not given programs raises because of the size of the federal awards we've got. They've decreased significantly since FY 18. As an example, in FY 18, we got a $65 million award. The last award we got was I think $16 million, so it has changed significantly over the years. We have the ability to push that funding out. We have three years to spend down the awards. And so basically we have been mitigating cuts to programs over the past years, rather than being able to even maintain them at funding levels, which even three years ago, it's way more expensive today. So like I said, programs end up through attrition, they lose staff and then they just don't fill the position. But we know that survivors are still calling and still showing up in hospitals and courthouses.23141
HIGGINS - Thank you.
KILCOYNE - Director Lowney, I did wanna just a brief follow-up. I appreciate the efforts about the 20 million funding for VOCA and how critical it is. I just wanted to give you an opportunity if there's any other administrative funding request that you might wanna highlight in addition to that 20 million. I know you cover a broad23167 range of programs that support victims. So just if there's anything else you wanted to highlight, I just wanted23171 to give you the opportunity to do so.
23173 LOWNEY23173 -23173 Sure.23173 Thank you, chair. Essentially we are taking over the victim compensation assistance program from the Attorney General's Office with support of Attorney General Campbell. It's just a great opportunity to put all survivor services under one agency. Typically, survivors call us and then we send them to them and then they send them back. So we're trying to streamline that. We've been trying to do it as a cost neutral proposal, and the governor's budget includes in the outside section the legislative language to move victim compensation. And it included a $700,000 increase to our line to count for the staff that we'll have to hire to administer the program. It costs the Attorney General's Office $700000 to administer the program. We anticipate it would actually cost us about $900,000 because we actually have to hire a fiscal person and a data person to be able to do some of the administrative work that, of course, the AG's office is significantly larger to do. So we're trying to keep it as a cost neutral stretch, but the reality is we really need $200,000 more than what is in23241 the governor's budget.
SPEAKER8 - Well, thank you for highlighting that. Thank you for your testimonies. Is there any other additional questions from the committee? Thank you so much, and enjoy your weekend.
SPEAKER22 - Thank you. You too.
SPEAKER8 - Yes. Well, it's not quite there yet. You got some Still have a few more to go.
SPEAKER22 - Thanks so much.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you. Next up, we have the, Disabled Persons Protection Commission.
Thank you so much for your patience.
DAVID FALCONE - DPPC - Oh, thank23277 you. We're happy to be here. Thank you, Chair Kilcoyne, Chair Cronin, for hosting us in Clinton23283 tonight, and thank you to the committee members. My name is David Falcone. I'm the chief operating officer at the Disabled Persons Protection Commission. I'm here today with my colleague, Andrew Levrault, deputy general counsel. And on behalf of the commission and our executive director, Nancy Alterio, we wanna thank you for this opportunity today. To just briefly explain our mission, the DPPC is an independent state agency charged with investigating and remediating abuse against persons with disabilities ages 18 to 59 by their caregivers. Essentially, the DPPC serves a population between the Department of Children and Families, DCF, and the Executive Office of Aging and Independence. And together, the DPPC and AGE typically, collectively are referred to as the Commonwealth's Adult Protective Services or APS.
As an initial matter, the DPPC acknowledges the fiscal uncertainties this budget cycle. While the Commonwealth's revenue appears to have stabilized, projected federal revenue streams are not stable. Given this scenario, the23370 DPPC was grateful for the governor's recommendation in House 1 of an operating budget of 12.793 million for next year. From this committee, the DPPC has requested a small increase of approximately $333,000 for a total operating budget of 13.126 million. It's a modest increase for a23397 small agency that always strives to utilize its resources responsibly and maximize the23403 benefit to the public. We did provide a more robust overview of our operations and spending needs in our written testimony. To be respectful of your time, I will only briefly highlight specific requests that comprise the difference between House 1 and our budget proposal to your committee.
To inform you of some trends in DPPC's overall operations, DPPC caseloads are up across the board. Since 2022, the DPPC has seen a 17% rise in both abuse reports through our 24/7 hotline and ensuing investigations. As COO, I oversee the intake, investigations and oversight units, and I can attest firsthand to the strain these rising case loads have placed on the agency. Not only does it impact our operational units, who must screen complaints, conduct complex investigations, and oversee the provision of support services to victims, it affects every facet of our mission. More investigations result in more outreach and referrals for our sexual assault response team and more appeals and litigation for our legal unit, more case processing for our administrative personnel, and more work for our IT and quality assurance units.
That said, we are meeting these demands with our existing staffing plan. This committee, your colleagues in the legislature, and the administration have allowed us to steadily augment our ranks over the past several years. However, we do have several personnel needs. As you just heard from the Massachusetts Office of Victim Assistance, MOVA's federal allocation has significantly diminished over the past several years. A MOVA grant partially funds a crucial aspect of the DPPC, its sexual assault response team. This team is comprised, in part, of survivors with disabilities who offer support and service referrals to victims with disabilities in sexual abuse investigations. This peer to peer communication is vital in connecting survivors with specialized trauma services they need in the aftermath of a sexual assault.23546 This23548 program has been a resounding success in assisting this historically marginalized population.
However, as our grant funding continues to decrease, we cannot fully support the program and we are seeking an additional $25,000 for 3 part time peer support positions. The DPPC is also requesting approximately 125,000 to hire an intergovernmental adult protective services services compliance manager. In our written testimony, we've outlined the details of two federal requirements. 1 is improving existing health outcomes for Medicare and Medicaid recipients promulgated by the Center for Medicaid Services. This rule will necessitate changes to the incident management system for recipients. And the DPPC's hotline and abuse reports are23606 a key component of this system. The other new regulation issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services standardizes adult protective services across The United States. This is a sea change in APS, which has historically been a mix of state, county, and local systems, each unique to its jurisdiction.
The new federal APS minimum requirements will likely necessitate significant changes in the DPPC's operations to ensure compliance. These new regulations are on the books, and we need to prepare for their implementation. They will require considerable study, review, and coordination with other state and federal agencies. These responsibilities cannot be23655 absorbed by our current staff, and our adherence to these regulations is needed for the Commonwealth to maintain federal23663 funding for each program at issue.23665 The last personnel related request concerns the state23670 police detective unit assigned to the DPPC. By statute, the DPPC has a five member detective unit comprised of a sergeant and four troopers from the Massachusetts State Police. This specialized unit is highly trained in the unique aspects of APS, such as state residential care models, communication barriers for victims, stigmas associated with mental health, and perpetrator profiles.
The SPDU troopers navigate the complex interplay between criminal justice and adult protective services, and they typically work in conjunction with DPP staff conducting investigations in residential programs, psychiatric facilities, and in the community. Sadly, these involve the most extreme cases of abuse against adults with disabilities. Yet unlike every other specialized state police unit such as those assigned to the district attorneys and the attorney general, the DPPC's troopers do not have a dedicated line item for overtime expenditures. The DPPC has been utilizing its own resources for overtime operations, but it cannot continue to absorb this cost. The DPPC is requesting an allocation of $35,000 for its SPDU to ensure that victims have around the clock access to our troopers and that time sensitive criminal investigations can be completed outside the confines of business hours.
Finally, there are some ancillary expenditures that have increased since last fiscal year. The Executive Office of Technology Services and Security increased their charge back for supporting aspects of DPPC's technology resources. The increase was 102% year over year. We can appreciate the complexities of maintaining the Commonwealth's IT system. However, the scope of the increase was not announced nor was23799 it anticipated when we submitted our budget proposal. In23803 the same vein, the DPPC is seeking additional funds for our own IT needs of approximately $35,000. We anticipate some needed technology upgrades, including to our abuser registry. I know members of this committee were champions of this registry. And this initiative to prevent abuser recidivism is an important aspect of the safety of our population.
There are costs associated with maintaining a user interface website, including cybersecurity. We are also hoping to expand the registry and modernize our enabling statute in the upcoming legislative session through bills we have drafted, Senate 139 and House 243, which are currently pending in the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities. We'd be grateful if members would consider supporting these bills as well as our proposed budget of 13.126 million. Again, thank you for the time today to hear our request. And we're happy to address any questions from the committee if you have them. Thank you.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you so much, officer Falcone. I don't think I have any questions on the house side or, senator Cronin. Alright. Thank you so much for your testimony.
SPEAKER25 - Thank you. Thank you. Have a great night.
SPEAKER8 - Next up, we have the board of bar examiners.
SPEAKER11 - I just wanna before we get started, I wanna say thank you for your patience today. We know it's been a long day,
SPEAKER22 - and we are delaying the start
SPEAKER11 - of your weekend, but we're very grateful for all your work throughout the year and, and you're being here with us.
SPEAKER13 - Thank Thank you. Are you kidding me? Thank you for still being here. It's a long day for you folks as well.
KANDACE KUKAS - BBE - Members of the board, good afternoon, Senator Cronin and Representative Kilcoyne. My name is Kandace Kukas, and I am the executive director of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners. I am very new to this position. I've been here for23947 two and a half years, so this is the first time I've had the pleasure of testifying in front of you. Little bit by way of introduction, I am a, I understand some of you are as well, but I am a very proud graduate of Suffolk University Law School. And prior to coming to the Board of Bar Examiners, which was not my, you know, growing up job ideal, I taught at Western New England University23970 School of Law as well as Northeastern University School of Law and Mass School of Law. So, I've come to you from the academic side23978 and hoping to make bar licensure a little bit easier in the Commonwealth and a little bit more palatable.
Today, I'm joined, by Liz Storms, who is our23987 board counsel, and Robert Milt, who is our senior manager of testing and operations. Oh, you are. You do have both sides. I only have one side. As well as our board23997 chair, Carol Kelly. So we are here to talk to you a little bit about the24001 Board of Bar Examiners. We have already24003 provided testimony, so I will avoid giving you all of the gory details of what we do. But we are a small publicly funded agency, we have five volunteer board members, such as, Ms. Kelly, as well as representatives from Plymouth County, Norfolk County, Middlesex County, and Hampden County. We are a staff of only nine people. And I do understand that many of you do have some common background in the legal profession, whether you have attended law school or taken the bar exam.
For those of you who are not aware, we administer the bar exam twice a year to about 2,200 test takers, people who are seeking to have admission to the Massachusetts bar, as well as evaluating over 500 people coming in from other jurisdictions throughout the United States, and 50 people who are seeking admission to the Massachusetts bar from foreign countries. To do this, we are required by the Supreme Judicial Court to evaluate their qualifications, including their education, but also doing a thorough background check. We do that through criminal background checks, as well as financial responsibility, and common character, including honesty and diligence.
What I'm really proud about is we are looking at someone's current character. We24084 are not just focusing on what they have had happen to them in the past. We realize that people come from varied backgrounds and that's gonna make them phenomenal lawyers. So I'm very proud24094 to say we are looking at their current character.24096 In addition, we are required by the American with Disabilities Act to offer nonstandard testing to test takers who require that to keep them on equal footing. We've just heard some of, the great agencies that I'm sure are helping some of our candidates. And unfortunately, we see that rising to about 30% of our test takers in the coming couple of years. And the reason for that is the trends that we're seeing at colleges and law schools.
I wanna add, at this point, we have a very24125 close relationship with all nine law schools in Massachusetts. We provide them with guidance and we go out and provide information with lawyers concerned for lawyers regarding wellness and coming24137 to the profession fit. And I say all this just to let you know, we're not just the testing people that, you know, torture people. We are folks who are truly committed to the public protection, and that's our main mission. I'm being lighthearted because it is six o'clock, and I'm sure we're all ready to go home, but I appreciate you listening to us. We are an independent agency of the Supreme Judicial Court. We do have a separate line item. And we are the ones that are functioning to administer the bar exam to all of these 2,200 people. And it is quite an extensive endeavor.
And I briefly share with you, we contract with the Massachusetts Convention Center. We currently use the BCEC in the Seaport to administer the bar exam. We also secure hotel space for our test takers in the area. We also offer the bar exam in Springfield at Western New England University. So we're renting facilities throughout Massachusetts to administer the exam. We also need to purchase the exam from the National Conference of Bar Examiners, at a pretty extensive cost. But to actually keep security over the exam, we need to hire over 120 proctors per year per administration, 30 graders. We hire physicians as well as psychiatrists to evaluate the nonstandard testing accommodations, and then we hire also technical proctors. We do a lot, believe it or not, for nine people. And unfortunately, I'm here today, of course, to to ask you for an increase in our budget
We are asking for an increase to $2.59 million which is $240,000 over the governor's recommended budget. Our annualized costs are outpacing our H 1 budget. And despite all of that, we are still maintaining the integrity and public protection within our agency and within our commitment to the Commonwealth. So I'm, obviously, quite grateful the for the General Court's support over the years, and understanding what we do. And I promised my 7 minute speech would be down to about three minutes. So here we go. I really wanna just thank you. Thank you for still being here and, and having us, and please consider our budget increase to 2.59 million.
SPEAKER8 - Is there any is there any other members of the panel? Nope.
KILCOYNE - Thank you so much, Director Kukas.
KUKAS - Nope. We're doing this quick.
KILCOYNE - I appreciate that. I also appreciate the work that all of you do. I'm also a proud alumni of Suffolk Law School, as is Senator Cronin. So we greatly respect the job that you do in maintaining the integrity of legal profession and ensuring those that enter into the field, who are tasked with a huge responsibility of upholding our judicial system of our legal protections is all up to the standard to make sure that justice is served. So thank you so much. Thank you for your brevity as well, and thank you24316 for your patience.
Thank you. Any questions from the committee before we let the panel go?
SPEAKER11 - I would say thank you for your patience and good cheer. I never thought I'd have sympathy for the board of24324 parliament.
SPEAKER13 - No. No. We get that a lot. Don't worry. We get that a lot. Thank you.
SPEAKER8 - And, last but certainly not least, we have the prisoner legal services panel. Please, come up.
Executive director Dave Reaney, thank you so much for your patience today, and, please, you're welcome to share your testimony with the committee.
DAVE RINI - PLS - Thank you. And thank you all so much. I know that I'm the last one between you and the weekend, so I very much appreciate it. And my fiance is also a Suffolk Law grad, so always nice to see Suffolk all over the place. I've already submitted some written testimony to the committee, so I'll do my best to be brief and to highlight only the top level items here. My name is Dave Rini. I'm the executive director of prisoners legal services or PLS. Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to the committee today about our budget request for FY 26. PLS was founded in 1972 to provide civil legal assistance to prisoners in Massachusetts with the24385 core focus being to ensure that they had access24387 to the courts and access to justice, recognizing the substantial obstacles24391 that were in the way of prisoners in order to24393 do that, especially indigent prisoners. We are very proud to continue that mission over 50 years later, and we're incredibly grateful for the legislature's partnership on protecting people in custody, including landmark areas like the Criminal Justice Reform Act a couple of years ago, as well as no cost calls, medical parole, and a number of other initiatives like those.
Right now, PLS is made up of nine attorneys, four specialized attorneys and legal fellows, and about 20 support staff. That team does its best to support the legal needs of nearly 13,000 incarcerated people across the DOC and the counties. And as you heard the sheriffs mentioned today, the churn through the counties is actually substantially higher than that. That leaves us with a ratio of about 1 PLS attorney to 1,400 incarcerated people. So we do our best to be as efficient as we possibly can be. Unfortunately for us, we haven't seen a substantial decrease in the legal needs of our clients. This fiscal year so far, we've logged about a thousand new intakes. Those are cases or issues that the incarcerated people that we work with bring to our attention ranging from things like violations of civil rights in the inside, violence by correctional staff against prisoners, violations of medical rules, or insufficient medical cases. And that doesn't count the intakes that we've had from years before. Oftentimes, we work with clients for many, many years in trying to resolve the issues that they're facing.
These intakes give us a really good and detailed understanding of what's happening inside the correctional facilities across the commonwealth on a really day to day basis. We see what's happening, and we're getting the calls directly from the folks who are being affected by it. These intakes inform24490 our litigation docket of about 12 systemic impact cases tackling correctional policies and operations, covering things like substance use treatment, use of force, disability support, and conditions of confinement. We work directly with incarcerated24503 people to advance multiple legislative initiatives with have included partnership with the legislature in terms of things like no cost calls and the CJRA. We support members of the private bar with advice on prison litigation, and members of the legislature oftentimes reach out to24517 us to get assistance in working through issues with their incarcerated constituents.
A huge part of our work is in partnership with all of you. My team is often named to legislative commissions. We piloted getting incarcerated people into legislative hearings to testify about what was happening to them and being able to see them. Through these efforts and others, our goal is really to make sure that the purposes of the laws that the legislature passes, especially around correctional operations, are being followed. We form a sort of oversight, partnership with the legislature in that in that way. Last year, PLS's direct appropriation was $3.2 million. This year, we're requesting a modest increase of about 200,000 to cover a new managing attorney position that MLAC, recommended we bring on board to help reduce some of the burden on our senior legal staff. My staff24565 has been instrumental in getting DOC to24567 install ADA compliant fire alarms for deaf and hard of hearing prisoners, changing the way substance use disorders are treated and addressed inside, changing use24575 of force procedures to be more humane.
I really do24578 believe that our work makes correctional facilities safer by making sure that the laws that you pass to make sure that those facilities are operating within the legal boundaries are being maintained and followed. We24588 want safe prisons. We want the folks inside, both staff and prisoners, to be safe24592 and making sure that civil rights, that appropriate use of force, that all of those things are maintained and followed. We're also really conscientious stewards of the Commonwealth's money between working in deep coalition with other advocacy groups or the, organizations. We try our best to make sure that every dollar that the Commonwealth, uses for our purposes, we give back more, in services and support. Very quick example of that is the medical justice alliance, which is a group of volunteer doctors and physicians now working nationwide to assist, prisoners in things like medical parole hearings. That organization started here in Massachusetts primarily because of the work of PLS in setting it up. And that allows us to promote and push the idea that prisoners need access to expert medical advice and recommendations sometimes when things like medical parole are being, denied. Thank you for staying so late on this Friday. It's very much appreciated. I'm happy to answer any questions that the panel may24652 have, and thank you for your time.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you so much, doctor Eaney. I we have a question from, representative Exaros.
XIARHOS - Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Sir, I appreciate your perspective. It's different in a way. Were you here when the sheriffs were testifying?
RINI - I was.
XIARHOS - You mentioned no cost calls. Obviously, there's a $12 million cost apparently. One of the possible solutions would be to limit put a limit on the amount of time that the inmates are using, whether it's a laptop or whatever other device. What do you think about that?
RINI - I can, only sort of support the idea that, we know that community connection with family members, with partners, with organizations that they need to connect with has been shown to reduce recidivism. And understanding the importance of reducing recidivism, making24707 sure that when folks leave, as we know that more than 90% of folks coming out of correctional institutions are going home, at24713 some point, whether it's the counties or the DOC,24715 anytime someone doesn't come back is a lot of24719 money that they're saving. So the ability of being able to ensure that folks have those strong community connections, to me, seems like the strongest way to reduce the cost of those things. The sheriffs, I recognize, have their perspective. Our job is to promote the needs and support that prisoners require.
SPEAKER9 - Thank you, sir. Thank you, madam chair.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you, representative. Much. Is there any other questions for the committee? Representative
SPEAKER6 - Holmes?
HOLMES - My question is about Mattis. Have you been providing comments to Parole or to the inmates, particularly those 200 or so, matters, folks. How will they continue now to go get the representation they need because of the fact that, obviously, we've opened up the SJC has opened up a lot of opportunities. Have your group, been, when I'm in the prison, they're saying they need a lot more support. And have your group, had any focus on the Mattis defendants?
RINI - Representative, I wanna be upfront that I've been the executive director for about six weeks. So I know Mattis by name a little bit, and I apologize. I don't wanna get it wrong.
HOLMES - If you know it just by name, we're good.
RINI - Have a good day.
HOLMES - No. No. No. Don't worry about it. We'll we'll chat about it later.
RINI - But what I can say is that our our team is spending a lot of time and energy in a couple of different monitoring cases, whether it's for some of the parole situations or it's for some of the substance use related cases, including some of the lawsuits we've had about the closure of MASAC. And so our team does play a role in helping to monitor those and are oftentimes in contact with incarcerated folks inside. If something was supposed to be happening and it's not happening, folks24827 call us. And our phone lines24829 are one of the few that are live answer and open for incarcerated folks to contact.
SPEAKER8 - Any other questions from the committee? Alright. Director, thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you for your patience again.
KILCOYNE - Before we adjourn, I just wanna issue one more big thank you to our hosts, here at the town hall in the town of Clinton. They were responsible for setting all of this up. And LIS, for helping us make sure this was streaming remotely. Thank you so much for all your efforts. And I just wanna just echo one more huge thank you to both my staff and Senator Cronin's staff for all the work they did today to make sure this happened. A lot goes on behind the scenes to pull this off, so we're very appreciative of all the work and everybody that came here to testify and all the members for hanging in. And the court officer, I, of course, thank you so much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
With that, motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second. Alright. Hearing is adjourned. We'll see you Monday at The Cape.
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