Flashback Friday: Municipal Meltdown

 

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New from CommonWealth Beacon **MUST READ!*** NO GAS ALLOWANCES: As part of Massachusetts’s push to meet its climate targets, the state’s utilities regulator says new gas customers may soon need to pay the full hookup cost – no more spreading the expense to existing customers. Bhaamati Borkhetaria has more.  excerpt:  The new policy, if enacted, would start after the DPU issues final decisions on the gas companies’ climate compliance plans, the timeline of which is not clear as the agency doesn’t have a statutory deadline. DPU proposed an earlier version of this change in February that included more circumstances in which a utility could claim an “exception” to continue offering line extension allowances. The updated proposal narrows those circumstances, permitting allowances only when no “technically feasible” alternative exists. Across the US, states are reassessing gas utility line extension policies amid climate and energy affordability concerns. California and Colorado have started to eliminate the practice. New York passed a bill this summer aiming to phase out line extension allowances. Overall, 12 states plus Washington, D.C. have either removed these policies or are actively reviewing them for reform, according to the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a national group that works on promoting fossil-fuel free buildings. The DPU made this decision after stakeholders like the Department of Energy Resources, the attorney general, the Sierra Club Environmental Law Program, and Conservation Law Foundation shared public comment letters and testimony to the agency that eliminating line extension allowances would change the equation for developers when considering whether to add gas or electrification and decarbonized energy in new buildings.  DPU also considered a 2022 study by Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a nonprofit advancing clean energy solutions, which concluded that electrification of new buildings is the cheaper option for customers and developers. According to RMI, the line extension allowances distort the true costs of the system by making it easier for developers to hook up to the gas system. Eversource and National Grid, the two biggest gas utility companies in the state, said that they are both “reviewing” the new DPU order on line extension allowances.  “There is no legal authority for the DPU to prevent customers from taking gas service, where it is economic for the gas utilities to serve those customers, and as a result, we need to closely evaluate the issues that this could raise,” said William Hinkle, a spokesperson for Eversource, in an emailed statement. “Access to safe, reliable energy service is imperative to the health, well-being, and economic success of people and businesses alike, and customer choice is paramount to realizing an affordable energy transition.” Opinion: In a state renowned for its world-class universities and at a time when programs that provide access for underrepresented students are under federal assault, it’s troubling that many Massachusetts colleges cling to legacy admissions preferences — preferential treatment for applicants whose family previously attended the college, write state Sen. Lydia Edwards and Raul Fernandez, a senior lecturer in educational leadership and policy studies at Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

Note: The Download will be on a short hiatus next week and will resume Monday Aug. 25. Illustration by Tim Bower Flashback Friday: Municipal Meltdown August 15, 2025 By Gabrielle Gurley

A majestic grove of evergreen trees overlooks the town swimming pools in West Boylston’s Goodale Park. For Dennis Mulryan, it’s a sentimental spot. The longtime resident of the Worcester suburb worked there as a lifeguard, met his wife poolside, and saw his son take up his old job of keeping an eye on swimmers. But on a muggy afternoon this past summer, there were no youngsters splashing around in the water; instead there were pine cones and needles covering the floor of the kiddie pool and a heap of concrete chunks sitting at one end of the main swimming area. After more than five years of budget cuts, the parks department doesn’t have the $1 million needed to refurbish the 1950s-era facility.

The pool has been closed for two years now. Not that residents didn’t knock themselves out trying to keep it open with volunteers and donations, including a $6,000 bequest from a former town moderator. And Mulryan, the chairman of the town’s Board of Parks Commissioners, surely went beyond the call of duty. A scuba diving enthusiast, he learned how to plug leaks with putty while underwater, and did his best to keep things patched up. But the discovery of more extensive structural defects sealed the pool’s fate.

A volunteer parks commissioner in scuba gear armed with a tube of putty? Is this what it has come to for Massachusetts cities and towns? Increasingly, yes.

The West Boylston pool story stands out because it was an attempt to hold things together almost literally with chewing gum, but other Massachusetts communities have their own examples of retreat from services that had long been taken for granted as worthy, if not essential, roles of local government. In Saugus, the complete shutdown of the town library made headlines earlier this year. In Stoneham, residents faced a possible elimination of all high school sports. And the town of Randolph stopped providing school bus service to all except special education students and others with extraordinary needs.

Local governments on the ropes aren’t exactly new to the Bay State. Chelsea and Springfield have both served as poster children in recent years for fiscal dysfunction. The difference now is that the problems are not just hitting struggling older cities, but are increasingly finding their way to middle-class suburbs. Today’s communities on the edge are the West Boylstons, Stonehams, and Sauguses—places where libraries and pools were never regarded as perks, but as time-honored touchstones of community life.

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For more and more Massachusetts cities and towns, the financial equation isn’t adding up. The costs of local government are simply rising at a rate far faster than the revenues used to pay for services. Though homeowners have been howling over steadily rising bills, overall property tax collections are held in check by Proposition 2 1/2, the state’s landmark tax cap measure. State aid to cities and towns, which has become an increasingly important source of funding for local governments because of the property tax cap, has risen only modestly in recent years—after deep cuts during the state budget crisis several years ago. Add soaring health care and pension costs, and you have a recipe for municipal disaster. One result has been a creeping government-by-subscription, with residents now asked to pay out of pocket for everything from trash pick-up to joining the high school football team, while local officials cast about for creative fixes to keep core departments running.

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More from CommonWealth Beacon BALLOT QUESTION: Secretary of State Bill Galvin is pursuing a ballot question to allow same-day voter registration after the policy has stalled multiple times in the Legislature over the years. Michael Jonas reports.  OPINION: A production technician at Holbrook Community Access and Media, Caleb Tobin, argues in favor of legislation that would require streaming platforms to pay to support public access television as more households transition away from cable.

Can Mass. turn the health care crisis around? This week on the monthly Health or Consequences episode of The Codcast, Eric Dickson, president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, lays out a grim picture of health care in Massachusetts if the state and federal trajectory does not change. He discusses the primary care crisis and the troubling federal landscape with John McDonough of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute. LISTEN NOW

What We're Reading FOOD SECURITY: Massachusetts officials have announced they are bolstering the Healthy Incentives Program, which puts money back on SNAP recipients' EBT cards to buy food from certain farms. Starting Sept. 1, households with three to five people can receive up to $60 back while those with six or more people can receive up to $80. (WBUR)  POLITICS: Since 2011, the current city councilors in New Bedford have received more than $700,000 in political donations. The two biggest donors are the New Bedford Firefighters Local 841, which donated more than $13,000 over that time period, and the Construction & General Laborers’ Local Union 385, which donated roughly $11,500. (The New Bedford Light)  HIGHER ED: Dr. Michael Collins will step down as chancellor of the UMass Chan Medical School next July. Collins was officially appointed to the position in 2008 after serving as the interim chancellor. The longest serving chancellor in UMass history, Collins oversaw the medical school’s enrollment and endowment expansion. (The Worcester Guardian)  LABOR DISPUTE: The Harvard Academic Workers Union and Graduate Students Union are accusing Harvard University of refusing to include non-discrimination clauses in their new contracts. The university maintains that its Non-Discrimination, Anti-Bullying, and Title IX policies are sufficient to address these concerns. (The Boston Globe -- paywall)  IMMIGRATION: The Trump administration is being sued for ending the CBP One app, a program that both helped people set up appointments and seek parole so they can go through a legal immigration process. The suit was filed by Democracy Forward and the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.

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