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A WORSE FATE THAN GLOBAL WARMING

AH CLOUD

August 9, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

The return of the nuclear arms race requires the revival of the disarmament movement

“It is three minutes to midnight.” Young people reading those words probably won’t know what they mean. Folks who were adults when the Cold War ended with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union are more likely to understand. And to be very, very afraid.

The statement refers to the current setting of the Doomsday Clock—announced every year since 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Reaching midnight means nuclear war. The clock was first set at seven minutes to midnight when the United States was the only nation possessing nuclear weapons. In 1991, humanity rejoiced as the clock was set to 17 minutes to midnight when the US and USSR signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty resulting in deep cuts in their nuclear weapons arsenals.

Now, a quarter-century later, nuclear weapons are still very much with us, and the Doomsday Clock has been pushed up to three minutes to midnight for two years running. As close to midnight as the clock has been set since 1984—during the nadir of relations between America and the Soviet Union.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board—consisting of “scientists and other experts with deep knowledge of nuclear technology and climate science, who often provide expert advice to governments and international agencies”—made the decision based on a number of dangerous portents last year that show no signs of abating this year.

Their January 26 announcement stated that in 2015 “ … tensions between the United States and Russia rose to levels reminiscent of the worst periods of the Cold War. Conflict in Ukraine and Syria continued, accompanied by dangerous bluster and brinkmanship, with … the director of a state-run Russian news agency making statements about turning the United States to radioactive ash, and NATO and Russia re-positioning military assets and conducting significant exercises with them. Washington and Moscow continue to adhere to most existing nuclear arms control agreements, but the United States, Russia, and other nuclear weapons countries are engaged in programs to modernize their nuclear arsenals … despite their pledges, codified in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to pursue nuclear disarmament.”

The modernization referred to in the announcement translates to an estimated US investment of nearly  $1 trillion over the next 30 years. Money to be essentially stolen from much-needed social programs. The Obama administration made this commitment even as the President asked nations with nuclear weapons to “have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them” during a historic visit to Hiroshima, Japan—the first of two cities destroyed by atomic bombs dropped by the US in the closing days of WWII. On July 20, eight progressive senators—including Mass Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey (plus Bernie Sanders)—called on Obama to “restrain nuclear weapons spending and reduce the risk of nuclear war by scaling back excessive nuclear modernization plans, adopting a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons and canceling launch-on-warning plans.”

A fine statement. But a display of not even a fraction of the political muscle that will be necessary to successfully challenge the military-industrial complex to change American nuclear weapons policy for the better. And not a sufficiently strong demand given that the only safe number of nuclear weapons is zero. With the US, Russia, and China all planning to build smaller nuclear warheads that are more likely to be used than traditional larger warheads, and developing hypersonic glide vehicles that are harder to intercept than conventional ballistic missiles, the road from a single “surgical” nuclear strike to an all-out nuclear war will soon become much shorter than it has ever been before.

That’s why it’s imperative for everyone to follow the lead of antiwar organizations like Mass Peace Action—who have just organized a series of local protests for Hiroshima and Nagasaki Week—and international disarmament campaigns like Global Zero in demanding the abolition of all nuclear weapons. Failure to do so will at best consign another generation to the lifetime of fear that earlier generations suffered under, and at worst doom the entire biosphere to death by fire. So, get informed and get involved. We’ve got our work cut out for us. There are currently more than 15,000 nuclear weapons on the planet Earth.

For a better understanding of the terrible destructive power of nuclear weapons, check out the classic 1982 BBC documentary “Q.E.D.: A Guide to Armageddon” on YouTube.

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Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

PARTY POOPERS: BLUE AND RED STALWARTS SHOULD STOP ATTACKING MINOR PARTY SUPPORTERS

AH IMAGE STEIN

July 30, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS 

Blue and Red stalwarts should stop attacking minor party supporters for remaining independent—and start debating ideas

The quadrennial whinefest has already begun.

The RNC and DNC pageants are barely over, the presidential election is still over three months off, and yet major party stalwarts are already trying to police the growing margins of their parties and guilt trip them into voting against their consciences. Sadly, this behavior has become a ritual of American politics. One that needs to end if we’re ever going to have a system that offers voters more choices than “Column A or Column B.” Or, as comedian Barry Crimmins once put it: “Do you want to get hit over the head with a hammer or a mallet?”

In the last few days, I have read at least a dozen impassioned pleas from people on the broad political left in my social network begging anyone who will listen to not be “stupid” and “throw their votes away” by backing the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, or any party other than the Democrats this fall. When begging fails, they turn to hectoring—usually based on the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy: 2016 is 1933. Trump is Hitler. If you don’t vote Democrat, you’re letting the Nazis win.

When hectoring tanks, they start the insults. Which soon devolve into digital shouting matches. Convincing no one who wasn’t already convinced. But solidifying their belief that they’re the only ones possessing the relevant facts and the “maturity” to take “rational” action. That their political equation is the only political equation. That their choice is the only “sane” one. But that’s incorrect.

People can share some of the Democrats’ stated “progressive” views and still vote for minor party candidates, or for Trump, or for “None of the Above”—an option that many Americans choose on a regular basis.  Because they understand that, in practice, Democratic presidents often back reactionary policies in the interest of multinational corporations and the rich. And they prefer to vote for the best candidate possible, or simply lodge a protest vote. Which they have every right to do.

I’ve also seen similar arguments being made from the political right—if not as vociferously—mostly concerned about the Libertarian Party “stealing” votes from Republicans. (Although, at the moment, it’s looking like Libertarians will woo voters away from both the Democrats and the Republicans. Providing the potential for umbrage from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump supporters alike, one supposes).

So just a reminder to all major party supporters—including the Boston Globe’s Yvonne Abraham, whose hatchet job on Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein this week is a textbook example of the behavior in question: people in minor political parties are not in your political parties. They are Greens. They are Libertarians. They are Socialist Party (yes, they’re running national candidates, too), et cetera. And while they certainly have to figure out their relationship to other parties as part of their political strategy, they are not required to do what you want them to do. They are also not “idiots” for hewing to their own political course. Or for failing to fall into line behind the current duopoly.

Even though so-called “third” parties haven’t had a chance at winning major national elections for a longlong time, and even though we don’t have a parliamentary system in the US, that doesn’t mean their efforts are wasted. Or that their votes are “thrown away.”

Small parties run national elections for any number of reasons, but two big ones are to qualify for federal election funding and to earn a slot in the presidential debates. Others include: support for lower level candidates, demonstrating that their party has a national presence, the possibility of forcing one of the major parties to cut a deal on a key policy issue, and gaining visibility for their ideas. Whatever the reason, they are not stealing votes from anybody. They are vying for constituencies like any other party and trying to win them over and gain their support.

That’s politics, folks. It’s real life. The more power that’s at stake, the uglier it gets. As we just saw (and perhaps are still seeing courtesy of Wikileaks) with the highly questionable Clinton victory over Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Therefore I suggest that major party backers remember that fact in the coming months and beyond. You all can try to convince minor party members and independents to join your party based on the strength of your ideas. But, given the degeneration of the Democrats and the Republicans into caricatures of their past politics—the social democracy of the former morphing into neoliberalism, and the conservatism of the latter descending into a chaotic stew of faux-populism, racism and nativism—and given that both parties have long stood for militarism, imperialism, and state capitalism, it should be no surprise at all that more and more people are looking for political alternatives.

I certainly am.

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Also, a quick shout-out to Black Lives Matter Cambridge and Somerville allies for organizing this week’s “Setting the Record Straight” counter-demonstration in Union Square. That in response to the protest rally called by the Somerville Police Employee’s Association (SPEA) and the Mass Municipal Police Coalition (MMPC) in support of removing the “Black Lives Matter” banner that Mayor Joe Curtatone—in a welcome turn from his more problematic political stances—refuses to take down from Somerville City Hall. And replacing it with an “All Lives Matter” banner. A position based on the myth of “seemingly daily protest assassinations of innocent police officers around the country,” according to the original SPEA letter to Curtatone.

Yes, cops are people, too. But the city’s support for Black people’s humanity—and their demands for justice in an unjust and structurally racist political economic system that has historically been defended by police (and their often virulently racist unions)—takes nothing away from that.

More to the point, as the current excellent BLM slogan puts it: “If All Lives Matter, #Prove It!” Let’s see SPEA and MMPC support punishing killer cops and admit that there is literally no comparison between police deaths in the line of duty—which are actually in decline—and the ongoing execution of Black people by cops. Then there will be grounds for some genuine dialogue between area police and Black Lives Matter.

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Apparent Horizon is syndicated by theBoston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

MEDICINE FOR A MENDICANT MEDIA: Government support can revive American journalism

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July 25, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

[Note: This is the full version of this article. A shorter version ran in the print edition of DigBoston— also dated July 25, 2016.]

Journalism is in a tough spot. There are tens of thousands of trained journalists in the United States, but a dearth of funding and the rolling collapse of major news outlets prevents many of us from making a living plying our trade. Even as journalism schools continue pumping out thousands of new journalists every year. According to the annual newsroom census by the American Society of News Editors, we’ve dropped from a high of 56,900 jobs in journalism in 1990 to a low of 32,900 jobs in 2015–3,800 jobs lost in the last year counted alone. That’s just in print journalism. The picture for broadcast journalism is somewhat better, but no broadcast news sector is adding lots of new jobs. And there have actually been layoffs at large digital news companies that are supposed to represent the “future of news.” All this as the population served rose from 249 million to 321 million over the quarter century in question. Meaning that more and more Americans live in “news deserts.” Ignored and abandoned by the dwindling number of robust professional news operations. A very dangerous state of affairs for a democracy that requires an informed citizenry to function properly.

New entrants struggle to replace the old news industry

Two developments helped cause the sharp contraction of the news media over the last few decades. First, the absorption of many news outlets by multinational corporations — which then squeezed them mercilessly for profit. Second, the Internet’s near destruction of the old, flawed, advertising-based commercial model that used to fund the production of the majority of American reporting.

Fortunately, there is another significant media sector that produces news. Government-backed public media. Although woefully underfunded by Congress, it has done a good job of staying afloat for almost 50 years. However, its outlook is far from certain, and its commitment to news is mixed. PBS has never produced much news — especially local news — although it is justifiably famous for its documentaries. NPR and its affiliate stations, on the other hand, are now producing more than ever and are fairly stable economically due in part to popular local news shows and the donations they attract. But they have an aging audience — and only small numbers of young people, urban dwellers using public transit, Blacks, and Latinos tune in. Which doesn’t bode well for the future, despite the inroads the network has made with podcasts and other online content.

Neither service is sizable enough to keep enough journalists in the field to make up for ongoing news industry losses. So, neither can produce the amount of solid coverage that our society requires to remain democratic. And that’s unlikely to change with the federal government providing less than 20 percent of PBS and NPR revenue through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other sources. Which annually amounts to only a few dollars per capita while countries like Denmark spend over 100 dollars per capita on public media. Another 20 percent more comes from state and local governments. A figure that has been dropping due to budget cuts since the Great Recession. The rest comes from corporations, foundations, and individual donors that tend to over represent the white, college-educated, suburban, middle and upper classes. Groups that expect certain kinds of programming: garden shows, light opera, and folksy commentary from white guys in overalls. And don’t expect other kinds of programming. Like journalism focusing on the needs of younger, working-class, urban populations of color that live in news deserts.

As the situation has worsened, these factors have led to a wave of new journalism outfits that are attempting to fill the growing holes in local, state and national news coverage. Some are nonprofit, some are for profit, and most are having a hard time making ends meet … let alone flourishing.

Much of my career as a journalist has been spent running such projects. Last year, I co-founded the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ) with Chris Faraone and John Loftus — merging my seven year old, community newspaper-sized, online nonprofit Open Media Boston into the new regional investigative reporting incubator. It’s done quite well so far, producing 20 features and over 100 columns, running several community events, and paying good money for work by a couple of dozen area reporters.

But compared to the surviving corporate news outlets — or even alternative metro news publications like the late lamented Boston Phoenix — we’re operating on a shoestring budget. We raised and spent $70,000 in our first year, and just brought in another $25,000 as we enter our second year. Ironically making us incredibly efficient by the standards of the industry. Legions of news startups have tried to make a go of it — mainly online — on even smaller budgets in recent years. Very few of the new entrants started with stable funding. And even fewer have survived to grow into substantial organizations that come anywhere near replacing lost news organizations in their communities.

A study by veteran news executive Alan Mutter said that of 141 digital journalism startups listed by Columbia Journalism Review in 2010 one-quarter had gone under within five years (and he just missed counting Open Media Boston, which I shut down right after his report was released). These were the more established of a universe of hundreds of such startups, but many were still one and two-person operations. I helped launch a network for those online news organizations that same year — now called Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers. Some of those startups have thrived since then by dint of much hard work, experimentation, and willingness to share ideas with other outlets. Of the success stories, both inside and outside LION, only a fraction of the new online publications have been able to build up a larger staff and become forces in their regional news markets.

The largest of those successes — which are nowhere near the size of traditional newsrooms, but are at least moving in the right direction — have usually managed to find some kind of major donor to bankroll their operations. Often a wealthy person or small group of them.

And that’s a problem. There’s no perfect funding system for news production out there. All have their good and bad points. All affect news content. It’s just a question of degree. Ultimately, it’s always up to ethical journalists to resist pressure from any funding source to censor ourselves. Yet the essentially feudal funding system that’s becoming “The Dream” for many American news organizations, large and small, nonprofit and for profit, is seriously problematic.

When journalists go begging, journalism suffers

Going hat-in-hand to get a rich person to dump money on your news outlet — be it the Boston Globe, the Intercept, or the Texas Tribune — means that one more vital institution in our democratic society, the free press, increasingly exists at the sufferance of private wealth. The caprices of the rich can then more closely dictate what kind of news coverage the various American publics will see. Or not see (as we were just reminded when PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel took down Gawker). With no meaningful public oversight.

There are a number of alternatives to that model. BINJ, like many other news organizations, is trying most of them. Memberships and subscriptions (never an easy option in an era when people expect to get their news for free), crowdfunding, benefits, merchandise sales, sponsorships, and newer forms of (mostly digital) advertising are all in play. Foundation grants are also in the mix. However, fortunately or unfortunately, very few foundations give money for news production. And as BINJ’s Chris Faraone has pointed out, the foundations that fund journalism-related projects prefer to give their money to what they consider to be safe bets like university institutes (or the money pit that is the Newseum). Plus, grant funding is often just another form of feudal giving. If, to paraphrase Balzac, “behind every great fortune there is a great crime,” then the same may undoubtedly be said of the many foundations built on such fortunes.

Will BINJ join other news outlets in seeking money from rich people and foundations? Absolutely. We have to. Even though we aspire to pull in most of our budget from smaller donations by large numbers of people to avoid having to deal with editorial pressure from any one funding source, we would have a very hard time getting to that point without dedicated specialist staff that we can only pay if we can get larger chunks of startup money. As a nonprofit, we can’t go for venture capital, and wouldn’t get much if we could — since we’re an investigative reporting group that is frequently critical of giant corporations. So we do our best to find the coolest funders we can, and to pull in enough money to grow strong enough to chart a more independent growth course.

Even if we succeed and manage to hire 10, 20, or even 50 full-time journalists, and even if 100 other newer entrants to the news market — nonprofit and for profit alike — do the same nationwide, we’re still not going to replace the news ecology that once existed. And most jobs in the industry will remain low-paid, short-term, contract gigs — forcing talented journalists to scrape by as freelancers for a few months or years until inevitably throwing in the towel. So, begging rich people and foundations for our proverbial supper is clearly not a viable economic long-term economic strategy for the news industry. The much-vaunted “citizen journalists” are not going to fill the gap either — winking in and out of existence like so many untrained, unpaid, unaccountable fireflies as they do.

The alternative to mendicant journalism

Is there a better alternative to today’s busted model of mendicant journalism? I think so. The one least discussed in this country in this era, but perhaps the most important. Public funding. Real public funding. Not the anemic version conservatives have stuck us with thanks to ceaseless attacks against PBS and NPR since their formation in 1969 and 1970 respectively. This is the road mostly not travelled in the US. We need a big public fund like the National Endowment for the Arts or National Endowment for the Humanities — a National Endowment for Journalism, as has been periodically proposed — that would dole out grants to organizations like BINJ to produce a broad array of news in the public interest. And allow us to build the large grassroots member base that would make us truly independent. Given the long experience that many democratic nations (including our own) have with such arrangements, there’s every reason to believe that more public support would spark a flowering of journalism akin to the one that resulted from the postal subsidies granted to newspapers at the dawn of the republic. Not create the kind of a censorious Soviet-style news regime invoked by the hard right every time the issue of public funding for news production is brought up.

One key to avoiding such a regime will be running any public funding institution for news production as democratically as possible. Diverse regional boards that are elected by the public-at-large for limited terms could be put in charge of disbursing grants on a regular cycle. Staff could be hired to support the boards and housed in existing public facilities. To qualify for funding, news organizations would have to meet certain professional standards, demonstrate some ability to raise money, and produce content for a reasonable period of time (say, a year). Priority could be given to news organizations set up to cover underserved communities and run by journalists from those communities.

That’s just one possible public approach. There are many others worth considering. Foremost among them, fully funding PBS and NPR — after cutting the ties that bind them to oligarchs like the Koch brothers — and opening their doors to the diverse range of views called for in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Which will allow them to significantly increase the size, reach, and relevance of their news operations.

Where will the money come from for such innovations? A wealthy society like ours can figure it out. Eliminate funding for nuclear weapons. Tax the rich and corporations. And we’ll have a whole new journalism ballgame.

 

 

Looking for a good book on the idea of government funding for journalism? Check out “The Death and Life of American Journalism” by John Nichols and Robert McChesney.

 

 

This article replaces the July 21, 2016 Apparent Horizon column.

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

KILL SHOT 2: MASS PUBLIC HIGHER ED STILL ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK

UMass President’s Office at One Beacon Street in Boston Overlooking the Massachusetts State House

UMass President’s Office at One Beacon Street in Boston Overlooking the Massachusetts State House

July 12, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

Will campus advocates spark a rebellion for proper funding or cling to failed politics as usual?

Hot on the heels of the UMass Boston administration issuing pink slips to 400 Boston non-tenure track faculty last month comes this month’s announcement that the entire UMass system will almost certainly face tuition hikes for the second year in a row. Capping a quarter-century of relentless increases in tuition and fees at state colleges and universities that have made the Massachusetts public higher education system the ninth most expensive in the nation.

Locally, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, UMass Boston students “will likely see the biggest increase because that campus projects a $22.3 million shortfall in the coming fiscal year.”

The UMass Board of Trustees will vote on the matter on July 14. But given the Commonwealth’s worsening financial position in the wake of the Brexit crisis, and an expected additional deficit of up to $950 million for FY 2017, there will be significant budget shortfalls that UMass leadership plans to deal with by jacking up tuition on already overburdened students.

My basic response to the looming layoff of one-third of the UMass Boston faculty was to call for a rebellion by students, faculty, staff, alumni and parents at that school. So it should come as no surprise that my response to news of this latest tuition hike is to call for a systemwide rebellion at UMass. And at the state universities and community colleges of the Commonwealth’s three-tiered public higher ed system as well.

As to the specific form of the necessary uprising, I cannot say for sure what will be most effective. But something like the campus walkouts that Boston Public School students pulled off this spring, plus a general descent upon the State House and the establishment of an Occupy-style encampment as a base of operations would be an excellent start. Because if the politicians don’t feel major pressure very soon, public higher education will begin to disintegrate in the Bay State as regular budget cuts get worse and worse.

To those who might suggest that a typical lobbying strategy will be more effective than an extra-parliamentary strategy at this moment in history, I would say that the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate how playing nice in a state political arena dominated by monied interests is getting public higher education advocates — or advocates for any public good — anywhere of late.

As it happens, campus activist groups and labor unions have tried that approach for over a decade but no major positive changes have occurred in state higher ed policy. The general political trajectory has been for the legislature to continue decreasing state support for public colleges and universities causing administrators to raise tuition and fees to fill the budgetary gap. Gradually transferring costs from government to individuals — changing higher ed from a right for the many back to a privilege for the few moving forward. A reversal of nearly two centuries of democratic education reforms.

Power accedes to nothing without a demand. But such a demand needs to fit the circumstances. If the problem involves savage budget cuts, big tuition hikes— 5 to 8 percent at each UMass campus and similar amounts at the state universities being currently projected for FY 2017 alone according to UMass President Marty Meehan — and an existential threat to public higher ed then one can’t improve the situation by proposing good but relatively minor reforms that barely begin to touch the crisis at hand.* Including the “fair share” constitutional amendment that may be on the ballot in November 2018 — which will raise taxes on individuals making more than $1 million a year and target some of the estimated $2 billion in resulting funds annually to higher ed.

A lot of damage can be done to state colleges and universities in the minimum of three fiscal years that it will take to see such a millionaires’ tax operationalized — assuming it’s not defeated by the usual business-led coalition of anti-tax voters. And it’s still no substitution for the progressive tax regime that is needed to end the Commonwealth’s financial woes.

So Mass public higher ed activists face a crucial decision. Will they play an inside game that has not worked before and is therefore highly unlikely to work now without the mass support they have been unable to generate with carefully scripted rallies and lobby days? Or will they try something new? Something bold that might generate the required popular support. Something that will inspire all the tens of thousands of students and alumni being sentenced to a lifetime of debt bondage by short-sighted politicians that refuse to raise taxes on corporations and the rich — even when the very things that have traditionally made Massachusetts a great state, like our public higher ed system, are in danger of being destroyed. All while emboldening faculty and staff to fight for their jobs with the fury a deteriorating political economic situation demands.

That remains to be seen.

*On July 11, the Boston Globe reported that community college tuition would be increasing as much as 10 percent in FY 2017.

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Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director. 

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalismand media outlets in its network.

WELFARE KINGS: BAKER MOVES TO MAKE CORPORATE GIVEAWAYS EVEN SWEETER

1826 APPARENT HORIZON

June 28, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

If you think that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Boston lavishing $270 million in tax breaks and direct aid on General Electric in exchange for moving their world headquarters to the Hubis unconscionable, you should realize that the deal is only a more extreme example of the existing government gravy train for corporations hereabouts. In fact, to focus on but one of several programs that give public money away to businesses for dubious reasons, the state government is already able to dole out a total of $30 million in Economic Development Incentive Program (EDIP) tax credits each year to all approved corporate applicants.

But that’s apparently not enough for Charlie Baker. The governor sponsored an economic development bill in January (H.4413, formerly H.3983) that will allow the EDIP cap to be boosted to $50 million a year whenever another big GE-style deal is in the offing. And with the House expected to vote on it this week and the Senate next week, the proposed legislation is well on its way to passage.

The tax credits in question are approved by the Economic Assistance Coordinating Council (EACC)—a14-member board consisting of seven gubernatorial appointees (representing six regions of the Commonwealth and one institution of higher education) and seven high-level state government officials (one of those seats being currently vacant). The EACC meets quarterly to approve EDIP credits, and local Tax Increment Financing (TIF) credits proposed by qualified municipalities.

Interestingly, as reported in the Boston Business Journal, General Electric did not go for EDIP tax credits to help finance its new world headquarters in Boston. “It’s not necessarily that GE did not want EDIP credits or that the state felt infrastructure grants alone were the most attractive package, according to [Mass Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay] Ash. It’s that the state’s options for GE under the current incarnation of EDIP were limited.”

Baker’s economic development bill would make things significantly less limited for companies like GE —or, as the press buzz would have it, for the “next General Electric.” Because the already undemocratic EDIP process, overseen as it is by unelected staffers and appointees on the EACC, would be made even more undemocratic in the case of what the bill calls an “extraordinary economic development opportunity.” In a manner that CEOs on the make will find most advantageous.

And what exactly is an extraordinary economic development opportunity? It’s the situation that arises when a giant corporation like GE wants extraordinary amounts of state money to site facilities in the Commonwealth. To paraphrase the bill, if the secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and the secretary of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance agree that a corporation is going to build or rehabilitate a significant facility in Massachusetts, or relocate a business to Mass from a facility outside the Commonwealth—and either create at least 400 new jobs, or create at least 200 new jobs in a “gateway municipality” (state government speak for an economically depressed city) or in an adjacent city or town that is accessible by public transportation to residents of a gateway municipality—then it can be declared an extraordinary economic development opportunity and become eligible for much bigger EDIP tax credits than have been allowed heretofore. So large that the EEAC will be allowed to extend the total amount of EDIP credits it’s allowed to hand out in a single year from $30 million to as much as $50 million.

To clarify, let’s say that there are 29 companies each getting $1 million in EDIP tax credits in a particular year. Then a big company like GE comes along, and also qualifies for $1 million—which means that the EEAC has given out the $30 million in tax credits it’s allowed to disburse annually. Under H.4413, the big company can then be declared an extraordinary economic development opportunity and qualify for up to another $20 million. Reaching the special new cap of $50 million in EDIP credits for that year.

Two points to consider here:

  • First, the above bill language is clearly aimed at enticing large companies like GE to move major facilities here from another state. And perhaps GE is planning to go back to the public trough and apply for the newly expanded EDIP tax credits if the bill passes. One might even surmise that this language was written just for GE.
  • Second, such a move cannot be stopped by normal means. According to the bill, the “decision by the secretaries to designate or not to designate a proposed project as an extraordinary economic development opportunity shall be a decision that is within the sole discretion of each of the secretaries, and may include such conditions as the secretaries shall in their discretion impose.  Such decisions shall be final and shall not be subject to administrative appeal or judicial review under chapter 30A or give rise to any other cause of action or legal or equitable claim or remedy.”

Thus vast sums can be given away to big business by the Baker administration and its successors to favored corporations with no easy possibility of reversal.

Shocked? Outraged? Good. There’s still time to stop H.4413. Make GE Pay, the grassroots coalition that’s working to stop the GE Boston deal, has announced that they are working with Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D – Acton) and other legislators to remove—or at least improve—the EDIP cap section of the bill. Contact coalition coordinator Eli Gerzon (eligerzon@gmail.com) for details. And follow Make GE Pay on Twitter (@makeGEpay) and on their Facebook page (facebook.com/makeGEpay) to keep up with all the latest.

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Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

 

ADDENDUM

Since the list of current Economic Assistance Coordinating Council members is not on the Economic Development Incentive Program website, EDIP staff was kind enough to provide a copy upon request:

CY 2016 EACC Board Members

Director of the Office of Business Development (or Designee) – Co-Chair
Ms. Carolyn Kirk (Ex Officio)

Director of Department of Housing and Community Development (Designee) – Co-Chair
Mr. Louis A. Martin (designee) (Ex Officio)

Director of Career Services (or Designee)
Mr. Ken Messina (designee) (Ex Officio)

Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development (or Designee)
VACANT (designee) (Ex Officio)

Representative of MOBD designated by the Director of Office of Business Development
Mr. Nam Pham (Ex Officio)

Representative of MOBD designated by the Director of Office of Business Development
Ms. Annamarie Kersten (Ex Officio)

Director, Commonwealth Corp. (or Designee)
Ms. Rebekah Lashman (designee) (Ex Officio)

WESTERN REGION REP.
Ms. Kathleen Anderson (Governor)

CENTRAL REGION REP.
Mr. Paul F. Matthews (Governor)

EASTERN REGION REP.
Mr. Drake Behrakis (Governor)

SOUTHEASTERN REGION REP.
Ms. Jennifer Menard (Governor)

CAPE & ISLANDS REGION REP.
Mr. David Keator (Governor)

MERRIMACK VALLEY REP.
Mr. Joseph J. Bevilacqua (Governor)

Representative of Higher Educational Institute
Dr. Michael D. Goodman Ph.D. (Governor)

GE BOSTON DEAL: THE MISSING MANUAL, PART 8

Photo by Jason Pramas. Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas.

Photo by Jason Pramas. Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas.

June 21, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

Problems with GE Fort Point arrangement show need for democratic economic development planning

A new wrinkle surfaced earlier this month in the plan to use a big chunk of the $270 million in public aid and tax breaks being shoveled at General Electric to buy two of the three buildings that are slated to make up its new headquarters in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood.

In part 5 of this ongoing series of columns on the GE Boston deal, I mentioned that said scheme called for the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) to purchase the two former Necco company buildings from Procter & Gamble—along with part of the big parking lot outside its Gillette plant—and lease the buildings back to General Electric. Soon after, it emerged that while GE would pay up to an estimated $100 million to refurbish the buildings and build a new third structure on the site, it would not be paying rent. At all. For the entire 20 years of the lease. And that the terms of the agreement struck with the City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts only put the vast multinational on the hook for “annual operating expenses, property taxes not abated or subject to a PILOT [Payment In Lieu of Taxes] agreement, and interior renovations costs.”

John Barros, Boston’s chief of economic development, subsequently insisted that despite the agreement making no mention of rent payments for the former Necco buildings, by gum there would be some kind of payments! Yet there has been no further news on what those payments might look like. Or if the company will, in fact, ever be asked to make any payments in exchange for using the buildings at all.

Key to the plan was BRA ownership of the buildings—because that allowed GE, a corporate behemoth infamous for making huge profits and paying very little in taxes, to use the part of the promised $120 million in state grants that wasn’t used by the BRA to purchase the buildings to rehab them and make other site improvements. Since the state money in question cannot be used on private property.

Now it turns out that the BRA won’t be involved in the deal at all. Instead, according to the Boston Business Journal (BBJ), the state’s economic development arm MassDevelopment will own the Necco buildings and the $120 million in state funds “would be used in [its] acquisition of the Necco buildings as well as to improve utilities at the site, create a public park and improve the existing Harborwalk.”

As regards the lack of rent, a rather uncritical April 1 BBJ piece, “Of course GE won’t pay rent in Boston, so stop bellyaching,” noted that “the revitalized site could generate roughly $1.75 million in annual gross tax revenues to the city.” An estimated $35 million over 20 years. The next day, the Boston Globe quoted a higher estimate using “City Hall” figures indicating that a “comparably sized office property in that part of the city” would pay $48 million in taxes over 20 years—which a later Boston.com piece interpreted as the city pocketing $23 million over its $25 million in tax abatements to GE.

But when WGBH’s Jim Braude had interviewed Boston Mayor Marty Walsh a few days prior, hizzoner agreed there had been no discussion of GE paying taxes to the city to that point. After first putting it as an evasive double negative, “There’s been no discussion of not paying taxes.”

All that said, it comes down to this: The City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are giving millions of public dollars to a mind-blowingly wealthy conglomerate that doesn’t need it. To engineer the public purchase of two out of three headquarters buildings on which it will likely not pay much, if any, rent. Nor will GE likely pay significant taxes on the parts of the complex it is to own outright—if its past record as one of the biggest tax scofflaws in history is any guide.

The terms of the essentially secret deal that led to this situation—brokered by high public officials and GE leadership with no public oversight whatsoever—are already being violated. The place of the BRA in the complicated and highly questionable real estate transaction at the heart of the accord has now been taken by MassDevelopment. Once again with no opportunity for public comment or oversight.

Things just happen. Politicians and CEOs cut backroom deals. Much of the press lays down on the job. And the public gets shafted.

But what if the public didn’t have to bow down to private interests? What if we didn’t have to get shafted on deals like this? Imagine a Boston and a Massachusetts in which the public good—rather than short term gain for a few privileged actors—was the guiding political economic motivation.

Let’s say that the same city and state money being lavished on General Electric was put into something that many people have said was important—like strengthening and expanding the arts sector in Fort Point in ways that go much further than anything proposed in the city’s new arts plan. A sector that, after all, was largely responsible for making what the BRA likes to call the “Seaport District” attractive to big developers and corporate interests to begin with.

In that alternate Boston, the city and state would pull out of the GE deal. The state would buy the Necco buildings directly from P&G. Perhaps it would pick up the adjacent 253 Summer Street building as well. And it could even buy some of the available P&G parking lot and build desperately needed public housing—following the mixed-use zoning ideas for the area in the 2006 BRA “100 Acres Plan” a good deal more closely than that agency is at the moment. City and state money would refurbish the space as a creative industries incubator with an emphasis on new businesses run as worker-owned co-operatives. The focus of the project would be twofold. Create good arts jobs, and help Fort Point remain a major arts hub. That would be a much better use of public money than dumping it on GE. Especially because the entire development process would be transparent and subject to democratic oversight.

A robust popular movement will be required to make this kind of vision a reality. And such movements rarely appear on cue. But it sure would be nice if one did this time around.

HORIZON LOGO TRIMMED

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

 

KILL SHOT: YEARS OF STATE AUSTERITY BUDGETS PUT UMASS BOSTON IN JEOPARDY

UMASS TOP

June 10, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS 

Community needs to join Faculty Staff Union movement for a return to full funding

There is only one appropriate response to the looming layoff of 400 unionized non-tenure track faculty at UMass Boston. Rebellion.

We are well past the era of shots across the budgetary bow of public higher education in the Commonwealth. We are now in the era of kill shots. It is not possible to eliminate roughly one-third of the faculty of a major research university without destroying that university. One cannot run a school without teachers, after all. Teachers who are already denied the possibility of secure, properly-paid, full-time, tenure track faculty jobs—as has become the dominant practice at colleges across America.

So, the threatened faculty, the remaining faculty, the staff, their Faculty Staff Union (Mass Teachers Association), the other campus unions, the alumni, and—most importantly—the students and their families have to essentially declare war on state government. Now. The entire UMass Boston community needs to demand proper funding for the school. Or risk losing everything that generations of Bostonians have fought for. A public university of our own with an “urban mission” to provide a top flight education to its residents with as little expense to them as possible.

The proximate cause of the crisis is a combined $22.3 million deficit that the UMass Boston administration recently announced for this fiscal year and next. Their unfortunate response is to propose: increasing class sizes, raising tuition (yet again), and savagely cutting faculty jobs.

But the ultimate cause is the long term starvation of the public higher education budget by the Mass legislature. According to the Mass Budget and Policy Center, state funding for public higher education has fallen from $1,339,713,711 in FY 2001 to $1,187,476,006 in FY 2016 (numbers adjusted for inflation)—an 11.4 percent drop. Yet it’s worse than that statistic makes it seem since the budget was well below the FY 2001 figure every year between then and now. Meaning that the system has lost more than a billion dollars over the last decade and a half.

Put another way, the ultimate cause is ideological. And that ideology has a name: neoliberalism. Its central precepts of fiscal austerity, privatization, deregulation, and union busting in the service of making the rich richer have been followed with near-religious intensity for decades by both major political parties in state governments and in the federal government alike.

In the present context, neoliberalism translates to refusing to fairly tax corporations and the rich—which would allow our public higher education system to be funded to a tolerable standard—trying to run colleges like for-profit businesses instead of nonprofit services, and transferring once-public costs to individual families. Forcing students to take out increasingly burdensome loans to stay in school. A recipe for disaster, if ever there was one.

Writ large over the entire state government, the neoliberal ideology has led to one crisis after another—in the public health system, in public K-12 education, in the public transportation systems, etc., etc. And will continue to do so until the disastrous course its political partisans have put us on is reversed by popular political action.

All signs point to a small increase (1-1.5 percent) in state spending on public higher ed in the final FY 2017 budget, but nowhere near enough to make up for the years of cuts. Or even to keep up with inflation, let alone forestall the crisis at UMass Boston.

Saving UMass Boston—and the Mass public higher ed system—is going to take a real struggle. The Faculty Staff Union and its allies are doing a fine job of protesting the cuts. But they need solidarity. Lots of it. The kind of movement required has to be statewide and systemwide. And even that probably won’t be enough. A reform of the necessary scale will need help from outside the public higher ed community. It will need the newly emboldened radicals from the Bernie Sanders campaign, #BlackLivesMatter and other rising social movements to join the fight.

That’s a tall order to be sure. But every journey starts with a first step. Here’s how you can help:

  1. Sign the UMass Boston Faculty Staff Union petition.
  2. Get on the “Stop the Hikes and Cuts” bus at UMass Boston on June 15 and join the UMB community in protesting the upcoming UMass Board of Trustees meeting.
  3. Drop an email to FSU@umb.edu to get more involved.

Pressure on the UMass Boston administration is already mounting. That might explain why UMB Chancellor Keith Motley told the Boston Herald this week that “he has not approved any cuts on campus and that most staff who received pink slips would be called back for the fall.” Cold comfort for the 400 faculty members currently in limbo, unsure of whether they should start preparing for classes as usual—or continue looking for new gigs in a tight academic job market. And with UMass President Marty Meehan guaranteeing that budget cuts are coming to the entire UMass system by July, it doesn’t seem like Motley will be able to avoid finalizing the faculty layoffs for very long.

Unless he proposes cutting the often-outrageous administration salaries across the board to help balance the budget as public higher ed advocates have long suggested. Wouldn’t hold your breath on that one.

For a community perspective on the crisis at UMass Boston, check out the testimonial from recent graduate Cady Vishniac.

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

AUSTERITY BUDGET, PART 4

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June 6, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

The Worst of the Senate FY 2017 State Budget Proposal

Continuing to track the worst proposed cuts at different stages of the vicious and dispiriting annual Massachusetts state budget process, it’s time for a look at the full Senate budget proposal.

As with my overviews of the worst cuts in the governor’s,  House Ways and Means Committee’s, House’s, and Senate Ways and Means Committee’s FY 2017 budget proposals, the numbers in this column are based on the analytical reports that the Mass Budget and Policy Center (MBPC) releases on an ongoing basis. In this case, the “Conference Preview: Differences Between the Senate and House Budgets for FY 2017.” For all the details, check out massbudget.org.

Nothing really new to see here. To quote the current MPBC report, “In the end, the House and Senate budgets are very similar. Not only are the budget totals within 0.1 percent of each other (which makes sense since they had essentially the same amount of revenue to work with), but the two proposals are also within half of one percent of each other in every major category.”

And so it goes. There is no protection from the budget ax for programs that benefit huge numbers of Bay State residents. Especially with a $311 million budget deficit looming before the end of the current fiscal year – due to spring tax receipts that are significantly lower than the Baker administration’s rosy increased projections of January. We live in an era when politicians are reduced to spending their days wrangling over which group will get screwed more. With two exceptions: the rich and the corporations they control. The very groups that can no longer be taxed in a political system they have bought and paid for.

Environment & Recreation

The FY 2017 Senate budget proposal would cut $11.4 million (5.36 percent) from current FY 2016 levels. Leaving $201.4 million. A .14 percent smaller cut than the House proposal, after the Senate added back $5.1 million to this line during its full budget debate. Still a horrendous and ill-timed proposed reduction. And this far along in the budget process, one that is unlikely to be reversed.

Public Health

A minor bright spot. The FY 2017 Senate budget proposal would add $2.5 million (.43 percent) to current FY 2016 levels for a total $582.9 million. By adding $5.9 million back to this line during its full budget debate – mostly for substance abuse prevention and treatment – the Senate has now joined the House and Governor in essentially level funding public health spending in the Commonwealth.

Housing (funds for affordable housing, and shelter and services to homeless people)

The FY 2017 Senate budget proposal would cut $38.8 million (7.94 percent) from current FY 2016 levels, after adding back $3.5 million during its full budget debate. Leaving $450.0 million. $3.8 million more than the House proposal. As the MBPC report points out, “the Senate’s budget, like the House budget, is about $40 million lower than FY 2016 current spending for the Emergency Assistance (EA) program that provides shelter to low-income, homeless families. If this lower funding level is included in the final FY 2017 budget, it is likely that the Legislature will be required to provide supplemental funding for the program because the cost of providing shelter for those who are homeless and eligible for shelter will probably exceed the amount appropriated.”

Transitional Assistance (aka welfare, funds for short-term help for poor individuals and families)

The FY 2017 Senate budget proposal would cut $26.7 million (3.84 percent) from current FY 2016 levels. Leaving $667.1 million. Although the MBPC report doesn’t say it, this represents a $5.5 million cut from the Senate Ways and Means Committee budget proposal. So unlike the other lines reviewed here, the full Senate debate actually took more money away from its original proposal rather than adding any back. The poorest of the poor have few defenders in the legislature. And it shows.

Economic Development (funds for programs that, among other things, help unemployed people find work)

The FY 2017 Senate budget proposal would cut $14.1 million (9.2 percent) from current FY 2016 levels, after adding back $8.8 million during its full budget debate. Leaving $139.1 million.

CORRECTION
In his Apparent Horizon column of June 6, entitled “Austerity Budget, Part 4,” Jason Pramas did not properly reflect some changes in numbers used by the Mass Senate between their Senate Ways and Means and full Senate budgets that were analyzed by the Mass Budget and Policy Center in their “Conference Preview: Differences Between the Senate and House Budgets for FY 2017” report. As a result, the numbers used in the Public Health and Economic Development sections of the column were incorrect. And while Pramas did identify an MBPC typographical error in the Transitional Assistance section of their report, the numbers in that section of his column based on that error were also incorrect. For the correct numbers, please check the updated MBPC report at www.massbudget.org. The Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism regrets the errors — which do not, we hasten to add, change the fact of the savage cuts to the budget areas in question in any significant way.

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

#makeGEpay Budget Amendment Filed in MA Senate; Advocates Encourage Public Support [an Apparent Horizon breaking news report]

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May 25, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

The #makeGEpay advocacy network — including Jewish Voice for Peace-Boston and dozens of other local community organizations — just announced that Senator Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) has filed a “Community Benefits for Corporate Tax Breaks” amendment to the Massachusetts Senate’s budget proposal. If included in the final state budget, it would mandate that any part of state government that gives $25 million or more to a corporation “for the explicit purpose of economic development or job creation, shall provide at least 5 per cent of that total expenditure for the purpose of providing affordable housing in communities in the regional planning area where that corporation is located.”

The amendment was filed in response to what critics call giveaways to major corporations like General Electric — which was recently promised over $145 million in state grants and incentives with no public oversight (and over $125 million more from the City of Boston). It’s co-sponsored by Senators Barbara L’Italien (D-Andover) and Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford). Full text is available here.

Advocates are encouraging Mass residents to call your state senator and ask them to “support amendment 836 cosponsored by Senator Eldridge.”

To find out who your rep is and what their number is use this website:http://wheredoivotema.com/bal/MyElectionInfo.aspx/.

They also recommend that people tweet support of amendment 836 using the #makeGEpay and #SenBudget hashtags.

  

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

AUSTERITY BUDGET, PART 3

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May 24, 2016

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

The Worst of the House and the Senate Ways and Means Committee FY 2017 State Budget Proposals

A weekly column like this one can only keep up with a limited number of current events. Although committed to tracking the worst proposed cuts at different stages of the often-savage annual Massachusetts state budget process, I had to write about a number of other pressing topics in the weeks after the passage of the full House proposal. So I haven’t covered the House budget until now, and will instead simply roll it in with my review of the more recent Senate Ways and Means Committee (SWMC) budget proposal below.

As with my looks at the governor’s and House Ways and Means Committee’s FY 2017 budget proposals, I’m continuing to base this series on the excellent analytical reports that the Mass Budget and Policy Center (MBPC) releases on an ongoing basis. If you’d like to check out all the details, you can find the latest at massbudget.org.

All proposals to date have been austerity budgets. The many critical services not touched on here are mostly level funded or being given minor increases—neither sufficient to keep up with inflation, and therefore both tantamount to cuts. No new taxes of any consequence have been proposed—as the state government’s financial situation continues to get worse year after year. The rich and corporations remain safe from giving anything like a fair share of their profits to the people of this “Commonwealth.”

Environment & Recreation

House proposal

The FY 2017 House budget proposal would cut $11.8 million (5.5 percent) from current FY 2016 levels—less than originally proposed, after money was added during the floor debate. Leaving $201.0 million.

SWMC proposal

The FY 2017 SWMC budget proposal would cut $16.5 million (7.75 percent) from current FY 2016 levels. Leaving $196.3 million. A .75 percent larger cut than the governor’s proposal. And a 2.25 percent larger cut than the House proposal—making it the worst proposed cut to this vital state government department thus far. According to MBPC’s SWMC budget report, some of the cuts can be explained by shifting responsibilities like human resources from agencies within the Department of Environmental Protection to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, but the SWMC proposal “further reduces funding for several environment and recreation programs that have had significant cuts over the years.”

Public Health

House proposal

The House budget proposal level funded public health, as did the governor’s budget.

SWMC proposal

The FY 2017 SWMC budget proposal would cut $3.4 million (.59 percent) from current FY 2016 levels. Leaving $577.0 million. $7.6 million less than in the governor’s proposal and the House proposal.

Housing (funds for affordable housing, and shelter and services to homeless people)

House proposal

The FY 2017 House budget proposal would cut $42.6 million (8.71 percent) from current FY 2016 levels—less than originally proposed, after money was added during the floor debate. Leaving $446.2 million. $19.2 million below the governor’s FY 2017 proposal.

SWMC proposal

The FY 2017 SWMC budget proposal would cut $42.3 million (8.65 percent) from current FY 2016 levels. Leaving $446.5 million.

Transitional Assistance (aka welfare, funds for short-term help for poor individuals and families)

House proposal

The FY 2017 House budget proposal would cut $14.3 million (2.1 percent) from current FY 2016 levels—less than originally proposed, after money was added during the floor debate. Leaving $679.5 million. $7.3 million (1.1 percent) above the governor’s proposal.

SWMC proposal

The FY 2017 SWMC budget proposal would cut $21.2 million (3.1 percent) from current FY 2016 levels. Leaving $672.6 million.

Economic Development (funds for programs that, among other things, help unemployed people find work)

House proposal

The FY 2017 House budget proposal would cut $9.9 million (6.5 percent) from current FY 2016 levels—less than originally proposed, after money was added during the floor debate. Leaving $143.3 million. $6.4 million (4.7 percent) above the governor’s proposal.

SWMC proposal

The FY 2017 SWMC budget proposal would cut $22.9 million (14.9 percent) from current FY 2016 levels. Leaving $130.3 million.

HORIZON LOGO TRIMMED

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director.

Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.