Thursday, February 14, 2013
Lt. Governor Timothy Murphy recently announced 27 grants that were awarded to encourage regionalization and other cost saving initiatives.
This was provided by the office of Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray. Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray and Secretary of Administration and Finance Glen Shor Tuesday announced the 27 recipients of the $2.25 million Community Innovation Challenge (CIC) grant program to incentivize and support innovative regionalization and other cost saving initiatives. These programs will change the way local governments do business to maintain service delivery and stretch every tax payer dollar as far as possible. North Andover was among those communities that will benefit from one of these 27 grants. North Andover is part of the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission and the commission recently received an $80 grant for Regionally Improving Citizen …
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
The state representative displayed his vision for budgeting for cities and towns.
North Andover's legislators -- State Sen. Bruce Tarr, State Sen. Kathleen O'Connor Ives, State Rep. Jim Lyons and State Rep. Diana DiZoglio -- visited the Board of Selectmen meeting Monday to discuss their priorities in the new legislative session. One major theme of the discussion was Chapter 70 local aid. Lyons took the opportunity to push for increasing local aid with target share Chapter 70 funding. Fully funding a target share system would mean is that, instead of relying on lawmakers lobbying for funding increases, each community would receive up to 17.5 percent of its schools budget. Such a targeted aid system would allow towns to know how much to expect in state money, to better plan municipal budgeting, Lyons said. North Andover …
Monday, January 7, 2013
The former Newburyport city councilor is now a member of the state legislature.
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Monday, January 7
Kathleen O'Connor Ives was sworn in last week as First Essex District State Senator at the State House on Beacon Hill. She was elected to the seat in November and succeeds former State Senator Steven Baddour who resigned in April of last year. “I’m honored to join the State Senate and am ready to get to work,” said O'Connor Ives after the ceremony. “In the immediate future, I'll be focused on meeting with municipal leaders to discuss their concerns and priorities so we can be effective partners. I also look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate.” O'Connor Ives starts the 188th legislative session having completed staffing the First Essex District State Senate office. O’Connor Ives said, “Quality and responsive constituents …
Friday, January 4, 2013
A drop in the state's median household income led to the salary reduction.
Massachusetts lawmakers will get a pay cut this year, in accordance with a state law that ties legislators’ salaries to the state’s median household income. Governor Deval Patrick’s office announced the drop in wages this week. “As required by Article CXVIII of the Amendments to the Constitution, for the purpose of adjusting the base compensation of members of the General Court, we have ascertained, from the federal census American Community Survey and reports of average weekly wages, that the median household income for the Commonwealth for the preceding two-year period decreased by 1.8 percent,” Patrick said in a Jan. 2 letter to State Treasurer Steven Grossman. The pay cut amounts to about $1,000 annually from legislators’ current base …
Cool Fusion
7:22 am on Friday, February 15, 2013
Wiping coffee off my computer screen.......again. Lots and lots of words, a spattering of numbers, a slew of catch phrases with a dash of acronyms .. but no one has the vaguest hint of how this slurp is going to be squandered. more ›