House FY 2025 Budget Action Alert

Last year, Massachusetts passed critical legislation to guarantee free communication in prisons and jails, the most comprehensive such legislation passed in the country so far. With No Cost Calls in effect, the number of calls made from MA’s prisons rose by more than 60% in January relative to just a few months prior, and the number of electronic messages sent nearly tripled, meaning that people who are incarcerated are better able to stay connected with their loved ones back home.

But the larger work of keeping families connected is not done. We need to make sure that there is robust reporting to ensure full and effective implementation by the Department of Correction and county jails, and we need to build on the win of No Cost Calls by improving access to in-person visitation as well.

Please contact your state representative by next Tuesday (4/23) to urge them to co-sponsor the following amendments to the FY 2025 budget:

  • #975 and #986, amendments to No Cost Calls (These amendments make technical fixes and improvements to reporting requirements with the aim of maximizing effective implementation of free communication in prison and jail)
  • #1263, “Strengthening Community Connections”  (This amendment mirrors legislation to improve access to in-person visits)

Email your state rep

Other amendments worth highlighting for your state rep:

#788, “Lift Kids out of Deep Poverty” (This amendment would provide 10% grant increases for very low-income families with children, elders, and people with disabilities.)

#1479, “Access to Counsel” (This amendment would clarify that the Access to Counsel pilot would be statewide, that it would be for full legal representation, and that the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, the fiscal administrator, would in consultation with an advisory committee, determine how to implement the program)

788, “Lift Kids out of Deep Poverty” (This amendment would provide 10% grant increases for very low-income families with children, elders, and people with disabilities.)

1479, “Access to Counsel” (This amendment would clarify that the Access to Counsel pilot would be statewide, that it would be for full legal representation, and that the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, the fiscal administrator, would in consultation with an advisory committee, determine how to implement the program)

A Recent Win + An Urgent Need for Action

A recent win: Earlier this month, one of our priority bills — No Cost Calls — became law after Governor Healey signed legislation to guarantee free access to phone calls to individuals behind bars, which will take effect on December 1 (this Friday).

We are delighted to see the Legislature listened to impacted communities and recognized the importance of ending the predatory practice of charging incarcerated individuals and their loved ones exorbitant fees to stay connected. No family should have to choose between affording basic needs like rent or food and staying connected with loved ones.The No Cost Calls victory is a win for families and a win for all people fighting for a more just commonwealth.
 
 Your Voice Needed: Take Action in Support of Families Experiencing Homelessness
That was the good news — and it’s really good news. But here’s some less good news. Last month, Governor Healey announced that the state would cap the number of placements in the Emergency Assistance (EA) family shelter program and related state-funded family shelter sites due to financial, space, and staffing constraints.After hitting the cap earlier this month, the Administration began implementing a waiting list for families approved for EA shelter, without providing families with alternative safe places to stay.

On November 15, the Legislature ended formal sessions for the calendar year without approving a supplemental budget that would provide critical funding to serve families experiencing homelessness.

With winter rapidly approaching, it is vital for the Legislature to take action.Can you write to your legislators today to underscore the importance of passing such funding and requiring that some of it be earmarked for overflow shelters? Email your legislators

House, Senate Send No Cost Calls to Governor’s Desk

Right now, families are charged exorbitant fees to maintain vital connections with incarcerated loved ones. The DOC charges 12 cents per minute, and most County Sheriffs charge 14 cents per minute: $2.40 and $2.80 for a 20-minute call, plus fees for putting money on an account. This is a regressive tax on the most marginalized families that also harms public safety by limiting communication and weakening community bonds. Families currently spend more than $14 million per year on service the State could get for around $3 million by negotiating a better contract.

As communities already struggle with the high cost of housing and health care, no one should be forced to choose between basic needs and maintaining contact with loved ones.

The campaign for No Cost Calls, which almost saw victory last session before last-minute legislative shenanigans, had a great week, as both the House and Senate took the final enactment votes needed to send an amended version of No Cost Calls to the Governor’s Desk.

Both the House and Senate had previously passed No Cost Calls language in their budget, but Governor Healey requested a change in the effective date to December 1, which advocates agreed to as long as there was a clear guarantee of no loss in access (i.e., preventing DOC from taking the extended runway as an opportunity to create a lower baseline of access to phone calls).

The House voted 132 to 26 on Wednesday to formally enact the amended language, and the Senate did so by voice vote on Thursday.

You can find the House vote below:

The Legislature Needs to Finish the Job on No Cost Calls

Right now, families are charged exorbitant fees to maintain vital connections with incarcerated loved ones. This is a regressive tax on the most marginalized families that also harms public safety by limiting communication and weakening community bonds.

As communities already struggle with the high cost of housing and health care, no one should be forced to choose between basic needs and maintaining contact with loved ones.

Earlier this year, the Legislature passed important legislation via the budget to end this predatory practice and to make such phone calls free (“No Cost Calls”).

So why are we emailing you about it?

Governor Healey sent back technical changes, deemed acceptable by the No Cost Calls / Keep Families Coalition. Two weeks ago, both House and Senate passed amended language, but to get to the Governor’s Desk, they need to vote one last time, to formally “enact” the bill.

Can you email or call your state legislators to ask them to enact H.4052 and finish the win on No Cost Calls?

📣Good News in the State Budget — and Next Steps

On Monday (a month past the deadline), the MA House and Senate came to an agreement on the budget for the next fiscal year.

We wanted to highlight some of the important victories in it:

  • Tuition equity for all students regardless of immigration status
  • Permanent funding for universal school meals
  • No Cost Calls, keeping incarcerated individuals and their families connected
FY 2024 budget victories from the surrounding text (Graduation cap, school meal, mother with child on phone)

These victories came because of people like you reaching out to your legislators (and then reaching out to friends to do so too) and keeping the momentum going.

The budget also contained transformative new investments because of the Fair Share amendment, which you voted for and organized for last year.

Raise Up MA @RaiseUpMA · Jul 31 With the state budget released last night, voters can now see exactly how the first billion dollars from the #FairShare Amendment will be spent. Legislators are delivering on the promise of the Fair Share Amendment by making new investments in transportation & public education. Raise Up MA @RaiseUpMA This year, Fair Share funding will help: 🚃Upgrade the MBTA 👩‍🎓Make public college more affordable 🌉Repair bridges 🍱Provide free school meals for all students 🏫Build green schools 🚍Expand local bus service 🚸Increase access to early education ⛴️Support new ferry service

But the fight is not over yet…..

Call Gov. Healey to urge her to sign the budget

The budget doesn’t become law until Gov. Healey signs it.

Can you call her office at (617) 725-4005 to urge her to support Tuition Equity, Permanent Universal School Meals, and No Cost Calls without changes?

The call can be short and sweet: it just needs that simple message.

Urge Your State Legislators to Reject Tax Cuts for the Ultra-Rich and Large Corporations

Although the Legislature came to an agreement on the budget, they are still in negotiations about a tax reform package.

Massachusetts needs to prioritize spending on what will make our state truly affordable, equitable, and competitive: programs that support working people and ensure a labor force adequate to our economy’s needs. That, in turn, requires that families have affordable housing, childcare, educational opportunities, and reliable transportation to make it possible for them to work, gain skills, and earn a good living.

We need to act NOW to protect the Fair Share Amendment from tax avoidance, and ensure that Massachusetts can invest more in our schools, colleges, roads, bridges, and public transit systems. At the same time, we need to make sure our legislators don’t give away billions of dollars to the ultra-rich.

Can you write to your state legislators to thank them for the budget victories and urge them to protect Fair Share revenue?

Email Your Legislators

Let’s finish the wins for No Cost Calls and the Prison Moratorium.

Prison

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Chair Eldridge, Chair Day, and Members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.1795: An Act establishing a jail and prison construction moratorium and H.1796: An Act relative to telephone service for inmates in all correctional and other penal institutions in the Commonwealth.

We were very grateful last session when the Legislature passed the Prison Moratorium and No Cost Calls. Unfortunately, due to vetoes from Governor Baker, they did not become law. It is just as urgent to finish the job this session, and we urge you to advance these bills as swiftly as possible and to strengthen the No Cost Calls language in the FY 2024 budget currently under negotiation.

H1795: The Prison Moratorium

If you have not yet watched the testimony from women at MCI-Framingham during the State Administration & Regulatory Oversight hearing on the Prison Moratorium, please do. The Committee had the opportunity to hear from the most directly impacted individuals, and their testimony was powerful.

We find it deeply misguided that Massachusetts is considering spending $50 million on a new women’s prison. As of January 1, 2022, the population in MCI-Framingham stood at 179, with more than 20% held in pre-trial detention. In part as a result of sentencing reforms, Massachusetts’s incarceration rate has been falling, and the population at MCI-Framingham could be reduced further through tools such as medical parole.  

Studies have repeatedly shown that society cannot incarcerate its way to safety, and the family separation of incarceration and the well-documented inhumane conditions in Massachusetts’s prisons and jails fuel the community instability that is detrimental to public safety. Think of how much we could do for expanding economic stability and opportunity with that $50 million, rather than creating a new prison. The five-year moratorium in this bill recognizes that such alternative visions of public safety exist on the ground, and they merit investment and experimentation and scaling.

H1796: No Cost Calls

Choosing between paying rent or buying groceries and being able to connect with loved ones is a decision no one should be forced to make, but Massachusetts is currently forcing this dilemma on thousands of families across the Commonwealth. Families are being charged exorbitant fees to maintain vital connections with incarcerated loved ones — a regressive tax on the most vulnerable populations of the Commonwealth.

While only 21 percent of the state’s population is Black or Latinx, more than 54 percent of the people imprisoned by the Department of Corrections  are. Black and Latinx children are, respectively, nine and three times more likely than White children to have a parent in prison. As communities already struggle with the high cost of housing, health care, and transportation, no one should be forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries and maintaining contact with loved ones. 

Moreover, punitive policies targeted at the families of incarcerated individuals leave us all worse off: numerous studies have shown that contact with loved ones promotes lower recidivism rates and successful reentry. 

Additional Bills

We would further like to go on the record in support of the following bills:

  • H.1401/S.997: An Act relative to Massachusetts state sovereignty
  • H.1688/S.959: An Act to Prevent the Imposition of Mandatory Minimum Sentences Based on Juvenile Adjudications
  • H.1821/S.1045: An Act to reduce mass incarceration
  • H.3956: An Act creating an independent correctional oversight office to facilitate the recommendations of the Special Legislative Commission on Structural Racism in Correctional Facilities of the Commonwealth
  • H.1461: An Act relative to juvenile fees, fines, and restitution

Thank you for all your work in organizing this hearing.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

📣Take Action in Support of No Cost Calls & the Prison Moratorium

Last year, after impressive organizing work from impacted communities, the MA Legislature passed No Cost Calls and the Prison Moratorium.

But neither became law because of our former Republican governor, Charlie Baker, who vetoed them at the end of the session.

We now have a new session, a new governor, and a new opportunity to complete these wins.

Earlier today, the Judiciary Committee on Beacon Hill held testimony on both of these and other bills. The case for both is still clear.

We know that we cannot incarcerate our way to public safety, and that investing in communities, not new prisons, helps communities to thrive.

And we know that keeping families connected, by ending the practice of charging predatory fees for phone calls to loved ones behind bars, is good for public safety and economic security.

And Beacon Hill knew both of these last year when they passed such legislation. Both chambers also recognized the importance of No Cost Calls when they included similar language in their FY 2024 budgets, still stuck in negotiations.

We shouldn’t have to wait until July of next year to finish these victories.

Can you email the State Legislature in support of No Cost Calls and the Prison Moratorium?

Take Action: How to Support a Progressive Budget

In the FY 2024 budget, both the House and the Senate embraced the opportunity to include forward-thinking proposals that strengthen our commitment to equity, but, with differences between them, the work is not done.

In the coming weeks, a Conference Committee of three senators and three representatives will be finalizing the details for next year’s budget, and they need to hear from you in support of key provisions:

  • Tuition equity language, which would ensure that all MA high school graduates have access to in-state tuition at our Commonwealth’s public colleges and universities, regardless of immigration status, as 23 other states and DC provide
  • Permanent School Meals for All, which would ensure healthy nutrition for all students, increase educational performance, and support working families
  • No Cost Calls language, as outlined in the Keeping Families Connected/No Cost Calls Coalition’s letter, namely, making all communication services free in 2023, including a strong guarantee of access to calls, and laying out clear language to ensure successful implementation

Can you write to your senator and representative to ask them to fight for the inclusion of all three in the final FY2024 budget?

Mark Your Calendars🗓

State House Hearings This Week

If you are interested in testifying (written, in-person, or virtual) and have questions, just reach out!

Thursday, 6/22: Gun Violence Awareness Month Action at the Massachusetts State House @ 10am in front of the State House

The Mass Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence will be gathering on the steps of the State house with local and national partners including Stop Handgun Violence, Moms Demand Action, Giffords, and Brady, to honor June as Gun Violence Awareness month and to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision. Join for a press conference featuring survivors, violence prevention workers, and others impacted by gun violence to address the impact of gun violence in the Commonwealth and call for continued action.

Sunday, 6/25: Progressive Mass Activist Afternoons Continues @ 3:30 PM

Join Progressive Mass for an Activist Afternoons series! We’ll be reaching out to members across the state to reach out to their legislators about key issues at the State House. On 6/25, we’ll be focusing on the Transfer Fee bill. RSVP here!

Tuesday, 6/27: Hearing at the State House for the Prison Moratorium Bill @ 11 am, Rally @ 10 am

Massachusetts does not need new prisons and jails: we need to be investing in communities, not in expanding the carceral system. So make sure that the Legislature hears loud and clear by showing up to support the Prison Moratorium in Gardner Auditorium on the State House and a rally before, RSVP here.

Thursday, 7/13: Common Start Rally at the State House

Please join the Common Start Coalition for a family-friendly rally at the State House on July 13 at 11:00 AM! As we head into the summer months, this is an incredible opportunity to keep up the momentum for high-quality, affordable, and accessible early education and care in Massachusetts.

Following a brief speaking program, children and their families will lead a march through the State House to demonstrate the power of our coalition and to highlight solutions to the child care crisis. Art and other activities for children will be a part of the event.

Common Start Family-Friendly Rally for Child Care

Time: Thursday, July 13 at 11:00 AM
Location: Grand Staircase, Massachusetts State House, Boston
Travel: There will be buses from across the state. More info to come.
Interpretation: There will be Spanish interpretation for the event.
Make sure to RSVP here: https://bit.ly/csrally7-13

Take Action: The MA Senate is Voting on a Budget This Week

The MA Senate will be voting on a budget this week. Though there are clear reasons to celebrate (such as the inclusion of in-state tuition for all Massachusetts high school graduates and robust funding for regional transit authorities, including funding for fare-free bus pilots), there are ways to make it better.

Take a moment to contact your state senator in support of Amendments #819, #856, and #941 to the Senate budget this week.

These amendments would protect the Fair Share victory, build on past progress on juvenile justice reform, and strengthen No Cost Calls language.

Want to be quick? Call their office and just say “Please co-sponsor Amendments #819, #856, and #941 to the Senate budget this week. These amendments would protect the Fair Share victory, build on past progress on juvenile justice reform, and strengthen No Cost Calls language.”

Prefer to email?



Amendment 819 (Sen. Jason Lewis): Reducing high income tax avoidance

Amendment #819 would require that couples who file jointly at the federal level also file jointly at the state level, as other states do. Right now, Massachusetts is the only state that has a separate income tax rate for high-income filers without either designating lower tax rate thresholds for single filers than married filers or requiring federal joint filers to file jointly on their state taxes. As a result, under current law, some high-income couples who file jointly at the federal level may be able to avoid up to $40,000/year in Fair Share tax by filing singly at the state level. This loophole creates an incentive for illegal misattribution of income between the two members of the couple, necessitating additional tax audits and causing a loss in vital state revenue.

Amendment #856 (Sen. Adam Gomez): Youth Bail Fees
This amendment eliminates the $40 administrative bail fee imposed on justice-involved youth, paying the bail magistrate fee from state indigency funds. The Senate already passed this last session, so this is an opportune moment to do so again.

Amendment #941 (Sen. Liz Miranda): No Cost Calls

I was grateful to see that the MA Senate’s budget proposal includes “No Cost Calls” language that would end the practice of private corporations charging incarcerated people and their families huge fees to make phone calls to and from jail and prison.

This amendment strengthens the language to guarantee access to voice communications for people and ensures that technology like tablets, if they’re already equipped for phone call, can be used under the new law.