Barrett: 'Now the Hard Part Starts' on State's COVID-19 Response
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A fast-tracked law that waives the waiting period for unemployment benefits to workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic is a step in the right direction, but more work needs to be done, state Rep. John Barrett III said on Thursday.
"Now the hard part starts," Barrett said. "It doesn't move that quickly. I talked to the governor's office and said: It's great that you're going to do this. Now you have to make sure you're not going to have a system that's going to crash."
Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday signed into law legislation that he introduced to waive the waiting period and offer extensions on tax collections to those who really need them.
Barrett said the commonwealth received more than 19,000 unemployment claims on Wednesday, and he fears more will be coming as the economic impact of the pandemic ripples through the economy.
"They're trying to bring on additional personnel [to handle the claims], which I stressed to them," Barrett said. "I said that maybe they should be going back to phone centers for people who don't have a computer. Our libraries are closed, senior centers are closed — all the places where people normally could get access to a public computer.
"They eliminated the call center because no one ever thought you'd have a pandemic that would close those places down."
Barrett said the novel coronavirus had been discussed in Boston since the end of February but state government was galvanized by the issue the last couple of weeks.
Last week, he and Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli filed a fill to establish a "COVID-19 Quarantine Assistance Fund" to help workers and small-business owners impacted by the pandemic.
He said this week's expedited passage of the unemployment waiting period waiver does not mean he will stop pushing for the provisions in the bill he and Pignatelli proposed.
"We knew our bill wouldn't be the only bill, but we'll go back at it if the governor's bill doesn't do what we want it to do," Barrett said. "We've got to do more for the small businesses.
"If we can find $50 billion to help the airlines … we've got to make sure the small businesses are taken care of."
Their bill, HD4926, has been referred to the House Committee on Rules, a procedural step in a time when procedures on Beacon Hill look a lot different than usual.
"We've been put into a spot where teleconferencing is available so committees can meet," Barrett said. "It was made available as of yesterday. You're going to see more and more of that."
Barrett said the virtual committee meetings are one more complication in what already promised to be a difficult budget cycle in Boston, and he predicted there is no way the House will meet its April deadline for moving a budget bill to the Senate.
"Nothing is at a standstill," he said. "Believe it or not, it's continuing to go on. But it's being done remotely.
"People advocating for different budget items used to visit our offices. They can't do that anymore. They're reaching out in other ways. And we're looking at ways they can address the committees in a conference call."
In the meantime, Barrett is spending "99 percent" of his time in the 1st Berkshire District and much of that time on one issue with multiple dimensions.
"You've got the health issue and making sure everyone is going to get what they need from the hospitals," he said. "I've had long and, let's say, passionate discussions with Sen. [Edward] Markey's office. The federal government finally OK'd Berkshire Medical Center and Baystate so they could begin testing.
"Then there's the economic issue. People are hurting out there, and they're going to hurt even more. These are people who had jobs a month ago. … The end result hopefully is there will be a small business program, a bridge loan, and I don't expect them to charge any interest.
"Everybody is working together on this."
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