End of Session Review: Tricia Farley-Bouvier
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The formal legislative session came to a close at the end of July, and 3rd Berkshire Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier says the highlights of the two-year session include a massive opioid bill and energy policy.
"Massachusetts will one again lead the nation when it comes to renewable energy with a requirement for procurement of big hydro, which will likely come from Canada or upstate New York, and excitingly off-shore wind, which we will see being built out off the shores of southeastern Massachusetts," Farley-Bouvier said.
The state's new energy bill also includes a provision to disallow electric companies from raising rates to fund a new natural gas pipeline. In the last two years two proposed natural gas pipelines have been proposed to cut through the Berkshires, one in Sandisfield and one further north.
The Northeast Energy Direct project proposed by Kinder Morgan faced fierce opposition from the central and northern Berkshires where that was proposed, while the Sandisfield line had been taken to court over the use of protected lands, but ultimately, the plan is still going forward.
With such opposition, the state added the provision to keep rate payers from having to shoulder the burden of paying for the new pipelines. Also of local interest, Farley-Bouvier said, the energy bill also includes a tax credit available for energy-from-waste facilities.
"We have put in a provision that gives tax credits to waste to energy facilities. That will be very useful when it comes to the Covanta plant. It might, possibly, allow it to continue operating as it is with the continued owner of Covanta. We're not sure that can happen, but at least this legislation has made it possible for it to continue," Farley-Bouvier said.
Covanta plans to close the Hubbard Avenue plant in March of 2017, citing the costs to run it as the primary reason. The plant burns trash - including that gathered from curbside pickup - and turns it into energy, which is then sold to Crane & Co.
"It is difficult to keep this plant open. It is one of their most expensive plants to run. We wanted to do what we can to support them because we know their closing it or no longer running it will have a significant impact on the city of Pittsfield," Farley-Bouvier said.
When it comes to the heroin and opioid epidemic, Farley-Bouvier said the Legislature was able to increase the number of beds for treatment as well as clamp down on prescription medications.
"This was driven clearly by a long history, of advocacy for prescribing, from big pharma. Big pharma has made a lot of money from this crisis. I believe they created it. So, we're addressing it at the physician level. What we've done is continue to strengthen the prescription monitoring program. It's an online database that doctors go to to see the prescribing history of a patient. What was in place before was the first time a patient was prescribed an opioid from a physician, they had to check the prescription monitoring program," Farley-Bouvier said.
"There were some problems with it, to be frank. Because it is a big software program, it was bulky, we got feedback from physicians that it was slow and cumbersome. There was a great deal of investment in that program to make it more streamlined. First we made the investment and now we are having additional requirements of physicians that they check every time they write a prescription."
The bill limits the amount of opioids for a first prescription to just seven days, and children can't be prescribed more than seven-days worth at any time.
"Opioids on a developing brain are particularly dangerous and particularly addictive. I've had a particular focus when it comes to dentists. We have an awful lot of young people who get their wisdom teeth out and they come home with 30 opioids, 30 pills. That's 10 days worth of that very dangerous prescription when they might possibly need two days worth and most probably need to take Tylenol or Motrin," Farley-Bouvier said.
Meanwhile, Berkshire Medical Center and the Brien Center have been eyed to increase its capacity to provide treatment to those addicted. BMC opened a Clinical Stabilization Services center for people to step down to after detoxification, and the Brien Center has been approved to open a new facility, although the state hasn't released the funds.
"We have a new facility at Berkshire Health Systems, 30 beds there, and there is another new one coming online that will be focused on caring for and treating women. Right now Keenan House treats both men and women, so we will split that population between two facilities. The one for women is addressing a great need in Berkshire County," Farley-Bouvier said.
The Pittsfield Democrat sat on the Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, which had a role in the opioid bill. But, on the mental health side, Farley-Bouvier said she was able to continue support for National Alliance on Mental Illness's Berkshire County chapter to continue training sessions for police officers.
"We continue to work with, for example locally NAMI, on suicide prevention and on supporting the academy that NAMI runs locally to train police officers on mental health issues. It is a full-week course that NAMI sponsors with some state support to have police officers, in a 40-hour training, understand more about mental illness and the response when they are called to a scene," Farley-Bouvier said.
She also sits on the Children Families and Persons with Disabilities Committee, where much of the focus has been on the Department of Children and Families. Farley-Bouvier said the committee has held a number of hearings meeting with foster families, birth families, alumni of the program, social workers and other stakeholders.
"We spent a lot of time talking about the really startling and sad statistic that only 3 percent of foster kids go to college. What that results in is the continuing the generational cycle of kids not having opportunities," Farley-Bouvier said.
One of the major issues facing the department, however, is that case loads are too high. Periodically, children in the state's care are abused, or even found dead, making state and national headlines. Farley-Bouvier said that despite a vow to lower case loads, the state isn't making enough progress in actually doing so.
"We are not making what I consider good progress on the caseload issues and this is why: One, the number of kids coming into foster care is growing exponentially. I think we have 1,500 more than we had when the governor made the commitment to lower caseloads. That's a lot more kids. That comes from two sources. There are more kids in need, particularly because of the opioid crisis. The opioid crisis is having a significant impact on the Department of Children and Families. The other reason is because of the caseloads, because of the very difficult work, because of the added pressure and scrutiny that social workers have, because of the some of the requirements we have that has more paperwork than actual social work, social workers are leaving the field," Farley-Bouvier said.
"We are seeing a revolving door of social workers. While there is a commitment to hire more, we can't hire them fast enough."
The matter is pressing locally, she said, because the caseloads in the Berkshires often are throughout the county, requiring additional travel.
Another bill Farley-Bouvier boasted about was the Municipal Modernization Act, which had gone through multiple legislative committees before returning to the governor's desk, where it originated. The large bill eliminates a number of outdated regulations for municipalities in an effort to help local governments.
"There is more ability to give tax breaks to senior citizens and veterans. There are some agricultural things in there that tend to play well on the eastern part of the state. But we want to give municipalities as many tools as they can to control their budgets and not put extra burdens," Farley-Bouvier said. "The procurement one gives extra options for online advertising for those bids as opposed to what is a pretty expensive print version."
Over the two-year session, Farley-Bouvier has sponsored a number of bills. The legislature can meet in informal session and a few of those are nearing the end of the process and could be passed.
She filed one bill to mandate insurance companies to pay reconsider how medications such as eye drops are measured. When it comes to pills, the prescription is simply written to take a certain amount at certain times. But with eye drops, the amount isn't do simple.
"Somebody with a prescription of eye drops, you don't count that prescription the same way you count pills. If you need to put eye drops in, it is a little tricky. It might run down the side of your face. You might miss. Especially with the elderly who have shaky hands. Some people are better at putting in eye drops than others," Farley-Bouvier said. "So let's say you run out on day 26 of your glaucoma eye drops, what do you do? You can either pay out of pocket for those four days or more likely, you'll go four days without it."
She has been working on that bill for four years and it has finally passed the House of Representatives. It is now in the hands of the Senate.
Another bill Farley-Bouvier has been working on is the sexual assault survivors "bill of rights," as she calls it. One of the main aspects of that bill has been focused on the retention of evidence collected during a medical examination after an alleged rape. Farley-Bouvier said in many cases the victim wasn't told where the rape kit was at any given time, or what the status was, and the state often was destroying them without informing the victim.
Her bill included many provisions for sexual assault victims, but the retention of rape kits has made the most progress by being attached to an on-campus sexual assault bill that passed the Senate and passed separately in the House of Representatives.
"We have a bill that passed the house right after session ended which would require rape kits be retained for the statute of limitations. Right now some rape kits are only retained for six months, which doesn't make that much sense. That bill around rape kit retention was attached to the campus sexual assault bill that passed the senate. It passed the senate in one version and passed the house in another. So we are going to work together to get it to the governor's desk," Farley-Bouvier said.
Not all of her bills have made it that far along in the process - most notably being her bill to start a pilot program which would examine if a tax on the miles a vehicle travels would be better than the gas tax currently imposed. That program was approved but was the vetoed by the governor.
Also related to driving, Farley-Bouvier is still pushing a bill that will allow undocumented citizens to obtain driver’s licenses. The main focus on that, she said, is to improve the roadways. She wants those undocumented workers to be licensed and insured because otherwise, they are often driving on the roads. And if a collision happens, it will be the insured driver who has to pay even if it isn't their fault.
Another bill she has proposed has been focused on concussions in high school sports. She said a version of the bill is making its way through the legislative process to create a commission to development proposals to reduce the number of concussions.
"We want to have a commission, a task force, to study the rules of varsity sports in order to reduce concussions. Right now we spend a lot of time tracking concussions and I think we could make some changes in varsity sports, some simple things, that will make a significant impact on them," Farley-Bouvier said. "For example, this is something being touted by people in youth sports, and it is do we need to have kickoffs in football games? There tend to be an awful lot of concussions and they don't have a significant impact on the game."
Another bill she filed calls to eliminate the "sub-minimum wage" for tipped jobs.
"We want people to be able to have a livable wage and if they are professional waitstaff, they should be able to do that. We're not asking for them to live high on the hog but they should be able to make a living wage. I think that is particularly important for the Berkshires because I hear from the hospitality industry that professional waitstaff is not something you see here like you see in other areas. It is not something people can say 'I'm making hospitality my career.' We can do that by having a fair wage when it comes to tips," Farley-Bouvier said.
The bill not only would allow hospitality to become a career option but also would tackle issues of gender inequality. She says waitstaff tends to be predominately women and the men in the profession tend to work at higher paying restaurants.
"It is rare to see men working the morning diner shift. The sub-minimum wage disproportional impacts women and is something we see no need for," Farley-Bouvier said. "In states that have the one fair wage, they see a significant lower rate of sexual harassment among waitstaff."
She also filed bills to change the definition of disabilities to include acquired brain injuries when it comes to fishing licenses, giving those with acquired brain injuries access to free licenses. She also proposed a bill that would allow for people to return unused prescription medicines to the pharmacy in which they got them.
"We should be able to return them to the place we bought them, to the local pharmacy. And I believe big pharma should have to pay for it," Farley-Bouvier said.
She also is narrowing her focus on a provision in a proposed on-campus sexual assault bill to require campus climate surveys. She hopes to require collects to collect information from the students on the safety of the campuses and have those published for prospective families to review.
"We just want to make sure all colleges in Massachusetts are protecting their students more than they are protecting their brand. We require a lot of things of our public colleges, but we have an awful lot of private colleges in Massachusetts, and that's where some of the more high profile cases of not just sexual assault, which is terrible, but the response from the colleges," Farley-Bouvier said.
The session ended on a flurry at the end of July with the Legislature taking aim at a number of vetoes from Gov. Charlie Baker.
"Certainly at the end of the session we spent a lot of time overriding the governor's vetoes. The governor made what I think is an unprecedented number of vetoes, 300 in total. Many of those had significant impacts on the Berkshires," Farley-Bouvier said.
Of local interest, she said she was "proud to stand with my colleagues in overriding" a 5 percent cut to the Massachusetts Cultural Council's budget. She also worked to override cuts to the travel and tourism budget.
"We would not be able to advertise in the New York City region and those tourists coming up to spend their dollars in the Berkshires is really key to keeping this cultural economy going in the summer months," Farley-Bouvier said.
Money for early education was also overturned, she said, with a particular aim at the salaries for those workers.
"We decided this year to focus particularly on the salaries of early educators. What flies under the radar of the general public is the very, very low salaries that early educators make. If you are working at a place like Kids Zone in Pittsfield or the Boys and Girls Club in their early childhood centers, you could be making somewhere around $12 an hour. These are predominately women who have been required and encouraged to continue to pursue their education. Many of them are now reaching bachelor degree levels and we are paying them at this very low rate," Farley-Bouvier said.
Despite all of the overrides, she says the final budget was still $400,000 less than the governor proposed in February. The state's revenue numbers also started to lag in the early parts of this year, leading to a number of changes.
"The final budget that the Legislature voted on was $400,000 less than the governor proposed in February. This was a very responsible balanced budget that we put out. For the governor to in one swoop say, ‘No, these spending priorities are not important,' I think was wholly inappropriate. When we put together a budget, we put together a budget with input from the entire commonwealth," Farley-Bouvier said.
"The numbers coming in over the last several weeks have been much better. Our worst news was in mid-June and things are looking up. Obviously we keep a very, very close eye on those numbers. We get reports of those at the end of every month so we know where we stand. Massachusetts has a double A bond rating at this point because the Legislature has taken the lead for years now in putting out a responsible and balanced budget. I feel confident with those numbers. I feel confident with our overrides."
The Legislature continues to operate in informal session, but major bills will have to wait until the next session.
Farley-Bouvier is being contested for her seat by Democrat Michael Bloomberg and independent Christopher Connell.
Tags: election 2016, Pittsfield, state representative,
