*****STEWARD***** — “Gov. Healey welcomes new owners at Saint Anne's Hospital; Steward gone 'once and for all',” by Dan Medeiros, The Herald News. excerpt: The finances of the Brown University Health dealRhode Island-based Brown University Health, then known as Lifespan, agreed in August to buy Saint Anne’s and Morton Hospital in Taunton for $175 million. The hospitals had been part of Steward Health Care, the for-profit health care provider which abruptly announced bankruptcy in May, leaving in the lurch hospitals nationwide including eight in Massachusetts. In its bankruptcy filing, Steward revealed it owed money to more than 100,000 creditors in an amount ranging in the billions. The Healey administration moved to help new companies take over the bankrupt hospitals, with over half a billion dollars of state money going to support operations over the next three years. When asked about the finances involved, Executive Office of Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh would not give specifics. “The finances are, we put the buying power of the state of Massachusetts behind the hospitals that needed to be in those communities,” Walsh said. What happened to the other former Steward hospitals in Mass.?Of the eight former Steward hospitals, the state has helped six change hands: besides Saint Anne’s and Morton, Good Samaritan in Brockton was sold to Boston Medical Center; Holy Family hospitals in Haverhill and Methuen were sold to Lawrence General Hospital; and Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton was seized via eminent domain to be transferred to Boston Medical Center. Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer have both closed. Healey said saving Saint Anne’s, and other former Steward hospitals statewide, was a group effort involving advocacy from local and state officials and legislators, and nonprofit buyers. “There were Steward facilities in states around the country, but only in Massachusetts were we able to do what we did, which was to save hospitals, to protect jobs and to protect the stability of the health care market and access to critically needed care," Healey said. “That includes 1,500 jobs right here.” — “‘Bursting at the seams’: Free community college straining resources,” by Juliet Schulman-Hall, MassLive. excerpt: At the end of July, Gov. Maura Healey signed into law universal free community college for Massachusetts residents regardless of income or age. The initiative, also known as MassEducate, was part of bucking a decade-long trend of declining enrollment in community colleges. The MassEducate program follows another initiative by the Healey-Driscoll administration called MassReconnect, which launched in August 2023. MassReconnect allows residents 25 years and older to obtain a degree or certificate through any public community college tuition-free. Since universal free community college went into effect, enrollment at community colleges has grown by 14% compared to fall 2023 and first-time college students or new transfer students student enrollment increased by close to 26%, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. Free community college has allowed Giana Sosa, a 20-year-old Cape Cod Community College student, to focus on school instead of having to work eight-hour shifts four days a week at Trader Joe’s. She has become a peer mentor and founded the Phi Beta Kappa society. While free community college has helped her personally, she said it has also brought a liveliness to Cape Cod Community College that wasn’t there before. “It feels like there’s so many more students on campus and student life is just through the roof,” Sosa said. While classes have become larger, she said it has been a good thing with more students from a range of backgrounds and ages. At the same time, as enrollment spiked from free community college, two problems emerged: retention and pay issues. Workloads have increased and there has not been enough funding for student support and student stipends. “Compensation’s been a challenge for some years now in terms of what we pay faculty. But when your enrollment’s been declining, it hasn’t been on the forefront,” said Nate Mackinnon, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges. “Now that enrollment is jumping up thanks to our fantastic new program it highlights this other challenge because we need to grow to meet that demand,” Mackinnon said. The strains of universal community college is something that state Senate President Karen E. Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, told MassLive in October that she is aware of. The work to support higher education isn’t ending at free community college, Spilka said. “We realize that there are other consequences of such an incredible growth and enrollment,” Spilka said. Salary and staffingWhen Hargis first joined Middlesex Community College in 2013, she was making $48,000 with a master’s degree living in Lowell. On top of teaching five classes, she waited tables at night. “It was rough on my body — it’s tough to work a night shift and then come in and work during the day,” Hargis said. She eventually switched to picking up more classes, adding two to five extra classes at Middlesex or other institutions like Clark University on top of her five-class course load. After over a decade at Middlesex Community College, Hargis’ base pay professor salary has increased to around $70,000 but she is still teaching additional classes or has stipend work or other projects as a second job. With her other work, she has earned around $127,000 thus far in 2024. Hargis isn’t alone in teaching over her required course load. “This semester alone, I’m teaching an equivalent of 8 classes at 3 different colleges, and I’m a tenured professor. If something doesn’t change soon, I will need to leave the Massachusetts Community College system,” said Dr. Laurie Ann Carlson, faculty member at North Shore Community College. — “Farmers markets could add beer sales under economic development bill,” by Saraya Wintersmith, GBH News: “Shoppers could soon be able to purchase craft beer and craft spirits at farmers markets, along with the already offered wine and hard cider, as part of a provision in the $4 billion economic development bill recently approved by the Legislature. Gov. Maura Healey is currently reviewing the bill for final approval. Beer makers with the Massachusetts Brewers Guild had spent years pushing for the measure.” — “Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey advocates for more offshore wind despite Trump threat,” by Lane Reynolds, Boston Herald: “Southern New England labor unions and elected officials are going full speed ahead with trying to develop offshore wind energy despite the looming threat of a crackdown from the incoming Trump administration. Gov. Maura Healey is backing a union-led push for the Bay State, Rhode Island and Connecticut to merge forces and set a target of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2040, more than triple the current goal of 9 gigawatts by 2030.” — “Mass. bill would make it harder for people to resell tickets to live events. Consumer groups are up in arms,” by Sean P. Murphy, The Boston Globe: “A coalition of consumer advocacy groups is taking issue with a provision in a state bill passed last week that would allow commercial ticket sellers such as Ticketmaster to restrict the transferability of the tickets they sell. In a letter to Governor Maura Healey sent Tuesday, the consumer groups call that provision of the bill ‘anti-consumer’ and say it would likely ‘further entrench’ Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster, as a ‘monopoly in the live event industry’ in Massachusetts.” — “Mass. emergency shelter commission wraps up work with report that offers few specifics,” by Chris Van Buskirk, Boston Herald: “A commission tasked with studying changes to the Massachusetts emergency shelter system wrapped up its work Tuesday by approving a final report that offers few specifics but instead outlines broad themes to guide future reforms. As Massachusetts faces a $1 billion tab in each of the next few fiscal years to house thousands of migrant and local homeless families in state-run shelters, the group of lawmakers and shelter experts voted to issue a report that calls on officials to make family homeless rare, brief, and non-recurring.” — “Beacon Hill seeks to block trucker license revocations,” by Christian M. Wade, The Eagle-Tribune: “Gov. Maura Healey and state lawmakers are scrambling to ease restrictions for commercial drivers licenses to help prevent hundreds of truckers from losing their livelihoods. Legislation filed by Healey would prevent some motor vehicle offenses committed before Sept. 30, 2005 — including felony charges and drug and alcohol-related driving offenses — from counting toward commercial license ineligibility. Healey said the move, if approved, would put the state's regulations in line with federal license disqualification rules. She said truck drivers who meet the federal safety requirements ‘should not be disqualified from driving due solely to passenger vehicle offenses that occurred 19 or more years ago.’”
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