Franklin Matters

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Senator Spilka Announces Framingham Office Hours

Senator Spilka Announces Framingham Office Hours

Senator Karen Spilka (D-Ashland) or representatives from her staff will be available for district office hours in Framingham on Wednesday, December 3^rd. Constituents are invited to share their concerns, questions and policy priorities and hear updates on the latest news and events from the State House and in the district.

Framingham Office Hours

8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

Nevins Conference Room

Framingham Town Hall

150 Concord Street, Framingham

Residents who are unable to attend or are interested in scheduling an appointment should contact Senator Spilka's office at (617) 722-1640 at any time.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Upcoming Events in Franklin, MA Area: FRI 11/21/14 - THU 11/27/14

FRI 11/21 6:30pm Art Night Uncorked at Franklin Art Center
FRI 11/21 7:30pm The Black Box: Diaries of Adam and Eve

SAT 11/22 9am-4pm Fall Craft Fair at the Franklin VFW, raffle to benefit VFW
SAT 11/22 9am Downtown Partnership Winter Beautification, meet at Hillside Nurseries
SAT 11/22 10am Turkey Shoot at Franklin Rod and Gun Club
SAT 11/22 1:00 - 4:00pm Affordable Housing Trust Open House 136 Chestnut St
SAT 11/22 7:30pm The Black Box: Diaries of Adam and Eve
SAT 11/22 8pm Circle of Friends Coffeehouse: The Stray Bords with Jordie Lane

SUN 11/23 9am Downtown Partnership Winter Beautification: meet at the center island downtown
SUN 11/23 3pm The Black Box: Diaries of Adam and Eve

TUE 11/25 7pm FPAC’s Open Auditions for “Arsenic and the Old Lace” at The Black Box

THU 11/27 7:30am 4th Annual Medway Turkey Trot at Medway HS
THU 11/27 8am 3rd Annual Turkey Trot to benefit Franklin Food Pantry at 91 Jordan Road.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

For all the Town of Franklin Public Meetings click HERE.

For event details click HERE.

*If you have any suggestions or events for the calendar, please email Renata@BetterLivingRE.com

136 Chestnut St - Open House for Affordable Housing Lottery

Take a look at the house that is available for the Affordable Housing Lottery scheduled for December. There is an open house scheduled for Saturday,Nov 22 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM

Zillow image of 136 Chestnut st

Additional details on the open house can be found in this flyer:

What is the Affordable Housing Lottery?

We Buy Them, Fix Them Up and We Resell Them

Lottery: Saturday, December 13, 2014 10:00 AM

Applications due by Tuesday,

December 9, 2014, 4:00 PM

Lottery Location: Franklin Municipal Building,

Council Chambers, 2nd Floor, 355 East Central Street, Franklin, Massachusetts

For Information, contact Maxine Kinhart at 508-520-4949

Additional details on the Affordable Trust Lottery can be found here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/11/franklin-municipal-affordable-housing.html

MassBudget: The Governor's 9C Cuts and Context

MassBudget		Information.
MassBudget		Participation.
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center		Democracy.

The Governor's 9C Cuts and Context

Yesterday (Wednesday) Governor Patrick announced a series of actions to bring the current year budget into balance. The need for mid-year budget solutions highlights two realities that have shaped Massachusetts budget debates for years: our national economy is still recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression and we continue to have substantially reduced revenues because the state adopted over $3 billion of income tax cuts during an economic bubble in the late 1990s (described HERE). Those tax cuts led to deep cuts in funding for local aid, education, public health, and other investments that can strengthen our economy, expand opportunity and improve the quality of life in our communities. In addition to forcing painful cuts, the loss of $3 billion in revenue has caused ongoing fiscal instability.

These long-term challenges are now compounded by a few short-term ones: a coming automatic reduction in the personal income tax rate, non-tax revenue collections that are below projections, and additional economic development spending commitments that were made with the expectation that there would be more revenue available than is currently projected. The administration estimates that combined these have created a $329 million gap for the rest of FY 2015. To close this gap, the Governor yesterday announced $198 million in cuts to executive branch agencies as authorized by Chapter 9C of the General Laws (explained in What are 9C Cuts?). The Governor also proposed additional solutions in areas beyond executive branch agencies -- including to local aid -- that can only be implemented with legislative approval.

The $198 million in 9C cuts to programs within the executive branch include:

$45.4 million by delaying the implementation of rate increases for providers in MassHealth. Net savings to the state, however, will only be about half this amount, since these cuts will lead to reduced federal reimbursements (for more detail please click HERE).
$18.7 million to Regional School Transportation, bringing funding down to FY 2014 levels.
$10.0 million to Pathways to Self Sufficiency, bringing funding down to $1.0 million for FY 2015. This job training program was newly created as part of last year's welfare law.
$7.1 million to the Municipal Regionalization and Efficiencies grant program.
$5 million from mental health services for children and adolescents, likely resulting in the delayed implementation of the Caring Together initiative for children in residential care.
$3.1 million to State Parks and Recreation.
$2.4 million in cuts to elderly support programs, decreasing the number of people able to receive in-home care, which keeps them out of nursing homes. This cut may result in wait lists for these services.
$1.0 million to Extended Learning Time Grants.

Additional proposed cuts to non-executive branch agencies, which the Governor cannot implement on his own, include:

$25.5 million in cuts to Unrestricted General Government Aid, which would bring general local aid down to FY 2014 levels.
$21.8 million in cuts to most other non-executive agencies (e.g. the attorney general's office), mostly the result of across-the-board 1.5 percent cuts.
$10.0 million in cuts and savings within the Department of Transportation.
$73.6 million in other solutions, including commitments from some quasi-public agencies to return a portion of funding received from a recent economic development bill. This total also includes some additional federal and departmental revenues.

The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget) produces policy research, analysis, and data-driven recommendations focused on improving the lives of low- and middle-income children and adults, strengthening our state's economy, and enhancing the quality of life in Massachusetts.

MASSACHUSETTS BUDGET AND POLICY CENTER

15 COURT SQUARE, SUITE 700

BOSTON, MA 02108

Circle of Friends Coffeehouse: The Stray Birds

The next show

Saturday, November 22

8:00 PM (doors open at 7:30)

The Stray Birds

with Jordie Lane $20

Reverb Nation photo of The Stray Birds

The Circle of Friends Coffeehouse is located at the First Universalist Society of Franklin on 262 Chestnut St. The intimate setting (up to 300 capacity) is acoustically great.

Circle of Friends Coffeehouse calendar for 2014-2015 season

Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary) is scheduled for Jan 24, 2015.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit their webpage here

http://circlefolk.org/

Find them on Facebook here

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Circle-of-Friends-Coffeehouse/157892691990

Thursday, November 20, 2014

The Town Council reorganizes, sort of

Reorg - sort of

The first order of business at the Town Council was to re-organize or elect their officers for the new year. The process is for opening nominations, closing nominations, and then voting on the nomination for each position. The Council successfully did that for the Vice Chair and Clerk but only opened and closed the nominations for Chair. They never officially voted for their Chair to remain Bob Vallee. There was no change in Vice Chair as Matt Kelly retained that position. Judith Pond Pfeffer retains the Clerk position.

This action was not intentional. It happened when the nominations for Chair closed with a vote, Padula nominated Pfeffer for Clerk which was not in the pre-determined order of events. They put that aside, took the nominations for Vice Chair and voted properly but 'forgot' to actually vote on the nomination of Vallee for Chair. It is likely the Council will need to re-do this at their December meeting. I don't believe it made a material difference to any of the proceedings.

FHS - grass to turf field

The School Building Committee represented by Chairman Tom Mercer provided some key updates at the meeting. Among them:

the building has a punch listing of items being worked by the contractor in off school hours
the new Panther Way connector should open on Monday (Nov 24)
site and ball fields will be worked to a sub-grade condition before the deep frost hits

The Committee also sought a 'sense of the Council' on an item where they proposed changing one field from grass to turf. They can do so within the budget as previously outlined and still turn 'savings' back to the Town. The field which was targeted for a practice field as grass could be used year round as a competitive field if turf.

New FHS layout, green section in front left position along Oak St is where the practice fields would be that are now going to be a turf field that will be regulation sized and available for games

The Committee has the authority to do so but due to the nature and discussion around the change wanted to bring it forward to gain some feedback before proceeding.

Note: If they really wanted to gain some public input on this item, they could have brought it out more fully. Clearly they had enough time to do so as representatives from the High School sports, Recreation dept and many of the major youth leagues were present at the meeting.

Tax rate set

The tax classification hearing was the shortest and briefest in my time reporting on Town Council meetings. The Council respectfully has an opportunity for preparing for the hearing and apparently prepared very well as there were very few questions. The opportunity to walk through the process to share how the calculation is made was 'lost'.

Effectively, the rate increases 39 cents from $14.45 to $14.84. Of note, if the bond increases for the new high school had not been coming online, the tax rate would actually have decreased. One of the key bright spots among the wealth of data shared was that residential property values have increased. Commercial /Industrial valuations are still lagging behind.

My full set of notes from the meeting can be found here

MassBudget: Understanding the Actual Cost of MassHealth to the State

MassBudget		Information.
MassBudget		Participation.
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center		Democracy.

Understanding the Actual Cost of MassHealth to the State

MassBudget, in partnership with the Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute, is releasing a new budget brief, Understanding the Actual Cost of MassHealth to the State. This brief describes the "net" cost of MassHealth, providing a much clearer picture of the impact of MassHealth on the state budget rather than looking at gross state budget totals alone. The FY2015 budget includes approximately $14.7 billion allocated for MassHealth and health reform programs, amounting to 37 percent of the total budget. This total includes $13.7 billion for the MassHealth program (35 percent of the total budget), and an additional $1 billion for health care finance and other health spending (2 percent of the total budget). However, taking into account the very substantial amount of federal revenue that comes into the Commonwealth to offset a large share of these costs, projected to be $7.7 billion in FY2015, the net cost of MassHealth and health reform is only 23 percent of the state's net budget dollars.

This is a supplement to a series of FY 2015 budget briefs produced by MassBudget in partnership with the Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute, a program of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.

Click here to read the budget brief.