TV interview re Managing Public Sector Projects
I was interviewed recently on Danvers cable access TV about my new book, Managing Public Sector Projects: A Strategic Framework for Success in an Era of Downsized Government. The book has been moving...
View ArticleOur circular state policy game
The foundations warned that we mustn't falter in this reform effort, according to the Globe, because that would be a sign of “bureaucratic inertia, union resistance, or political malaise.” It's...
View ArticleThe politicized presidency
The question the authors leave unanswered is how far the Obama administration intends to go, or has gone, to de-politicize the office of the presidency. They point out that Barack Obama made an early...
View ArticleGuardians’ rights upheld…in other states
Both court decisions reject anti-institutional biases of groups and organizations ranging from state vendors to the U.S. Department of Justice. In the Tennesse case (People First of Tennessee vs....
View ArticleConference Oct. 16 of interest to BMG-ers (and others) concerned about public...
CITIZENS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ISSUES CONFERENCE: “Taking Back Our Schools: Promoting Equity and Excellence in Public Education.” Rep. Carl Sciortino, Melissa Colon, (Gaston Institute), Jose Lopez...
View ArticleOn Social Security Investment, Or, What About Chile?
“Of what avail are any laws, where money rules alone, Where Poverty can never win its cases? Detractors of the times, who bear the Cynic’s scrip, are known To often sell the truth, and...
View ArticleCredibility on the cost of DDS care — an update
The administration’s cost analysis in shutting the Monson, Templeton, and Glavin developmental centers was submitted in July to the House and Senate Ways and Means Committees and to the Joint Committee...
View ArticleThe value of our public employees
Obama, Cooper says, is a talented politician and leader who came to office with major policy ideas and a plan to improve government performance by using technology, in particular. All of these things...
View ArticleWhere is our money going?
Why might this be a problem? Because the state Operational Services Division (OSD) depends on the information in the UFRs to determine how much in state funds to apply to that compensation. By...
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Seeking a chance to speak truth to power
(Cross-posted from the COFAR blog) No doubt, State Rep. Brian Dempsey, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has never talked with Joan Douty, the mother of a resident of the Glavin Regional...
View ArticleAdministration admits to discrepancies in vendor salary info
(Cross-posted from the COFAR blog) Patrick administration officials appear to be admitting we may be on to something when we pointed out the state may be getting different information than the federal...
View ArticleIdentifying the missing costs
(Cross-posted from the COFAR blog) The Patrick administration claims that the average per-person cost of Department of Developmental Services vendor-run group homes is less than the average per-person...
View ArticleOnce again, we’re waiting for the administration’s cost records
(Cross-posted from the COFAR blog) It has been more than a month since we asked Secretary of Health and Human Services JudyAnn Bigby for public records detailing the costs of specified services in a...
View ArticleUpdate on our requests for cost records
(Cross-posted from the COFAR blog) After a month and a half, it’s troubling that the Patrick administration is apparently still unable to locate cost records we requested pertaining to a single...
View ArticleWhere’s the beef in Community First?
(Cross-posted from the COFAR blog) We’ve long maintained that the Patrick administration’s agenda of phasing down and closing state developmental centers would ultimately fail to free up additional...
View ArticleCoalition Urges Massachusetts Education Officials to Reconsider Controversial...
Yesterday, the Mass. PTA, the American Civil Liberties Union of Mass., the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and Citizens for Public Schools wrote to education officials and Governor Patrick...
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State-funded provider execs paid more than $80m a year
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) More than 550 executives working for some 250 state-funded corporate providers of services to people with developmental disabilities in Massachusetts received a total...
View ArticleDoes the administration have a double standard in the care of the disabled?
[Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog] As The Boston Globe reported last week, Governor Patrick has “unveiled an ambitious and potentially costly plan” to reform the way the state’s criminal justice system...
View ArticleWhy the Fernald land deal should include a plan for the developmentally disabled
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) The history of what is now known as the Fernald Developmental Center hasn’t been free of some serious blemishes or controversy. But from 1889 to the present time,...
View ArticleNational Charter School group supporting Neil Kinnon for State Rep
Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Malden includes the choice between two candidates to replace Chris Fallon as our MA state-house rep: Steve Ultrino, a true democrat/Democrat; and Neil Kinnon, a...
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Compensation of provider executives in MA reaches $100 million
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) More than 600 executives employed by corporate human service providers in Massachusetts received some $100 million per year in salaries and other compensation,...
View ArticleThe federal government’s cruel pursuit of deinstitutionalization
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) When is the federal government — particularly the Department of Justice — going to recognize or admit that deinstitutionalization of the developmentally disabled...
View ArticleThe Pioneer Institute does acrobatic logical twists re the Pacheco Law
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) In what has been widely viewed as a setback for state employee unions in Massachusetts, state legislators last week approved a state budget for Fiscal Year 2016 that...
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MBTA commuter rail contracts rose by a greater percentage than in-house bus...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) While proponents of privatizing the MBTA point to the rising cost of in-house operations there, the cost to the agency of contracting out appears to have risen even...
View ArticleGovernor’s MBTA panel provided virtually no support for its recommendation to...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) The Governor’s Special Panel to Review the MBTA earlier this year made some reasonable proposals to better manage the MBTA. But the Panel report’s recommendation to...
View ArticleVirtually no one waiting for DDS care getting into state-run DDS homes
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) Despite the fact that an unknown number of intellectually disabled people are waiting for residential services in Massachusetts, new data provided by the state appear...
View ArticleI’ll be defending the Pacheco Law at a Boston Bar Assn. forum next month
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) Based on our blog posts earlier this year defending the scrutiny of the privatization of state services that is provided under the Pacheco Law, I’ve been asked to...
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Baker administration interpreting Pacheco Law to potentially benefit private...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) In what may be one of the first tests of the Pacheco Law in the privatization of human services, the Baker administration is seeking to contract out existing...
View ArticleMost of the mainstream media skipped class last week on privatization and the...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) It’s amazing how little real understanding the mainstream media has of the issue of privatization and of legislative responses to it such as the Pacheco Law. You only...
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Gov. Baker’s FY ’17 budget continues race to the bottom in care of the...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) In his proposed Fiscal 2017 budget, which he filed last week, Governor Baker is continuing to boost funding for privatized care for the developmentally disabled...
View ArticleLimited federal IG probe faults state’s reporting on group home abuse in MA
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) In one of the few investigations of the community-based system of care for the developmentally disabled, the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health...
View ArticleBaker administration concedes some congregate care for the developmentally...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) In responses to comments made to a federally required plan for community-based care of the developmentally disabled, the Baker administration is conceding that...
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DDS providers pushing Gov. Baker to phase out state-run care
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) The major lobbying organizations for corporate providers to the Department of Developmental Services appear to be pushing the Baker administration and the...
View ArticleTrump is using the ‘shock doctrine’ to become a corporate dictator, but it’s...
[Note: I tried to insert an image here of the cover of Naomi Klein’s book, “The Shock Doctrine,” but nothing seems to show up.] From the continuous barrage of propaganda emanating from President Trump...
View ArticleMassHealth audit casts doubt on claimed savings in privatizing state services
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) Last year, State Auditor Suzanne Bump approved a proposal to privatize mental health services in southeastern Massachusetts after the for-profit Massachusetts...
View ArticleState law that boosted human services funding has helped provider CEOs more...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) A 2008 state law, which substantially raised funding to corporate agencies running group homes for people with disabilities, has resulted in only minimal...
View ArticleLiving wage in Massachusetts suffers a setback
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) In an apparently little-noticed setback to the effort to raise the minimum wage in Massachusetts, the legislative conference committee on the state budget...
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Developmentally disabled man nearly dies after group home fails to respond to...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) Yianni Baglaneas, who has Down syndrome, had a great time at a Special Olympics bowling tournament in Peabody on April 9, the day after his 29th birthday. But...
View ArticleState auditor has proposed regs that could weaken the Pacheco Law
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) The Pacheco Law has over the years been one of the more effective available checks on the runaway privatization of state services. But the law, which has been the...
View ArticleDDS report faults provider and charges cover-up in near-fatal, group home...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) (Update: The Essex County District Attorney’s Office confirmed this morning (October 26) that they have opened a criminal investigation into this matter.) As The...
View ArticleIt’s time for the Legislature to investigate the privatized DDS system
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blog) Although seven employees of a corporate provider have been found to be at fault in a case in which a developmentally disabled client nearly died in a group home after...
View ArticleCommittee to schedule one or more oversight hearings on DDS system
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) In the wake of findings by the state of negligence by the staff of a human services provider that almost resulted in the death of a developmentally disabled man,...
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Parents continually frustrated by DDS and group-home provider in advocating...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) Ryan Tilly, who has Down Syndrome, had been living in his provider-operated group home in Haverhill for only four months in March of 2016 when he was allegedly...
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Children and Families Committee needs to show it’s serious about...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) At the start of a legislative hearing last week on the Department of Developmental Services, state Representative Kay Khan made what seemed to be a major...
View ArticleAlleged union bashing by CEO of DDS provider confirms the plan is keep...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) We hope a federal investigation of Triangle, Inc., a corporate provider to the Department of Developmental Services for alleged anti-union activity brings public...
View ArticleChannel 5 uncovers tip of the DDS system iceberg
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) A Channel 5 investigative report earlier this week disclosed that group homes and other providers of services to the developmentally disabled are often not...
View ArticleDDS appears to look the other way as provider illegally bans guardian from...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) Despite a broadly worded state regulation that gives residents of state-funded facilities the right to be visited, a human services provider agency is upholding a...
View ArticleHas the Globe just shown a newfound, if inadvertent, support for the Pacheco...
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) Although we are an advocacy organization that focuses on human services, we have at times waded into the ongoing controversy over the operation of the MBTA in...
View ArticleConnecticut has moved ahead of Massachusetts on direct-care worker wages
(Cross-posted from The COFAR Blogsite) It apparently took the threat of a major strike, but the Connecticut Legislature passed a bill and the Connecticut governor signed it earlier this year to raise...
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