BOSTON – Last week, Senator Sal DiDomenico was honored by the Equal Justice Coalition and the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC) for his commitment to civil legal aid and increasing access to justice. He accepted the 2019 Beacon of Justice Award during their annual event at the State House. DiDomenico has been a longtime champion of legal aid funding in the state budget throughout his tenure in the Massachusetts Senate, and most recently helped to secure $24M in the Fiscal Year 2020 budget. 

“Thank you to the Equal Justice Coalition and MLAC for this honor. Civil legal aid funding is always one of my top budget priorities each fiscal year, primarily because I know how much this funding means to my constituents” said Senator Sal DiDomenico. “Year after year, their stories and advocacy serves as an important reminder as to why this funding is so critical to the residents of our Commonwealth, which is why I am so proud to support the incredible work of MLAC and the Equal Justice Coalition.”

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BOSTON – Last week, Senator Sal DiDomenico and his colleagues in the Massachusetts State Senate unanimously passed An Act Relative to Children’s Health and Wellness. This comprehensive bill includes two pieces of legislation filed by Senator DiDomenico this session:  An Act ensuring continuous healthcare coverage for youth who have aged-out of the department of children and families (S.35) and An Act relative to children with medical complexity (S.680). 

“The wellbeing of children has been a longtime priority of mine, and I am thrilled that our chamber has passed this comprehensive piece of legislation,” said Assistant Majority Leader Senator Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett). “There are many critical components of this bill, but I would especially like to highlight the provision that authorizes MassHealth to provide benefits to youth who have aged out of the state foster care system. By ensuring continuous healthcare coverage until age 26 for these young people, we guarantee they have the same access to basic healthcare that their peers are afforded and give more at-risk youth a better chance to lead healthy and successful lives.” 

Under the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicaid became available to former foster children up to age twenty-six, provided they were in foster care at the age of 18. However, when the ACA went into effect in January 2014, many foster youth who had aged out of the Department of Children and Families (DCF)— but were under the age of 26— were unaware of their eligibility for health insurance through MassHealth.  Consequently, many who were in foster care on their 18th birthday lost MassHealth coverage after aging-out of the system.  The provision from Senator DiDomenico’s legislation addresses this inequity by codifying the policy that allows youth who have aged out of DCF to receive MassHealth benefits until they turn 26, and requires that these youth be automatically enrolled until they are no longer eligible.

An Act Relative to Children’s Health and Wellness also includes DiDomenico’s bill (S.680) that would authorize a comprehensive statewide study of children with medical complexity (CMC) and provide valuable data on this special population. Children with medical complexity are a relatively small, yet growing group. With advancements in medical technology and care, the amount of child-fatalities as a result of medical complexity is decreasing, but the population of CMCs has increased steadily. With the growing number of children with medical complexity comes a growing need to understand this population to make sure the Commonwealth’s laws and medical systems continue to adapt and meet their needs.

The comprehensive bill passed by the Senate also: 

• addresses issues effecting the Department of Children and Families (DCF) by establishing a new data working group to help streamline the agency’s reporting process;

• calls for an examination of the barriers to mental and behavioral health supports for children;

• establishes a commission to study mandated reporting laws and calls for increased education around child sex abuse and exploitation;

• directs insurance provider directories to have the most up-to-date and consumer-friendly information available to avoid so-called ‘ghost networks’; and

• calls for the formation of a task force to study and recommend further improvements to provider directories — particularly information about behavioral health providers.

An Act Relative to Children’s Health and Wellness now moves to the House for further consideration.

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BOSTON – Last week, Senator Sal DiDomenico and his colleagues in the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed the Student Opportunity Act, an unprecedented $1.5 billion new investment in Massachusetts K-12 public education. This legislation ensures public schools have adequate resources to provide high-quality education to students across the state, regardless of zip code or income level. Assuming inflation, over time the bill could provide an estimated $2.2 billion.

The Student Opportunity Act significantly helps school districts that serve high concentrations of low-income students. At the same time, school districts across the Commonwealth will benefit from updates to the existing funding formula, along with increased state investment in other vital education aid programs such as transportation, school construction and renovation and special education. The bill passed 39-0.

“I can truly say that this was the proudest vote I have taken during my nine years serving in the Massachusetts Senate,” said Senator Sal DiDomenico, Assistant Majority Leader of the Massachusetts Senate. “Children and families across the state have been waiting for this bill for a long time, and with the tireless work of legislators and advocates alike, we now have a piece of legislation that will change the lives of our students for generations to come. This is an issue that has been deeply personal for me, as my district has been hit hard by our current inequitable education funding formula and the detrimental change to the way our state counts economically disadvantaged students. This piece of legislation is a game-changer for our communities and our schools.”

Taking into account these new investments, policy updates and the needs of all types of districts, the Student Opportunity Act creates new ways to monitor and measure progress, support effective approaches to closing opportunity gaps, and deliver results for all students.

The Student Opportunity Act fully implements the recommendations of the 2015 Foundation Budget Review Commission (FBRC) ensuring that the school funding formula provides adequate and equitable funding to all districts across the state. The bill provides an estimated $1.4 billion in new Chapter 70 aid over and above inflation when fully implemented over the next seven years. The bill modernizes the K-12 education funding and policy landscape in four areas:

• Estimates school districts’ employee and retiree health care costs using up to date health insurance trend data collected by the state’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC).

• Increases special education enrollment and cost assumptions to more accurately reflect district enrollment.

• Increases funding for English learners (EL) that is differentiated by grade level to reflect the greater resources required to educate our older EL students.

• Addresses the needs of districts educating high concentrations of students from low-income households by:

  • Providing additional funding based on the share of low-income students in each district; districts educating the largest percentage of low-income students will receive an additional increment equal to 100% of the base foundation;

  • Returning the definition of low-income to 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, as opposed to the 133% level that has been used in recent years.

In addition to implementing the FBRC’s recommended formula changes, the Student Opportunity Act provides additional state financial support in several categories to help public schools and communities deliver a high-quality education to every student. Those fiscal supports include:

• Increasing foundation rates for guidance and psychological services in recognition of the growing need for expanded social-emotional support and mental health services.

• A commitment to fully funding charter school tuition reimbursement, which provide transitional aid to help districts when students leave to attend charter schools, within a three-year timetable.

• Expanding over four years the special education circuit breaker, which reimburses districts for extraordinary special education costs, to include transportation costs in addition to instructional cost.

• Raising, as the result of a further amendment, the annual cap on Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA)spending, for construction and renovation by $200 million (from $600 million to 800 million) , enabling more projects across the state to be accepted into the MSBA funding pipeline, which reimburses towns and cities for a portion of school building costs. 

In addition to new funding and other support, the Student Opportunity Act establishes the 21st Century Education Trust Fund to provide districts and school’s access to flexible funding to pursuing creative approaches to student learning and district improvement.

In order to track and reproduce successful school and district-level innovations and policies, the legislation calls on school districts to develop and make publicly available plans for closing opportunity gaps. These plans will include specific goals and metrics to track success. In addition, the Secretary of Education will collect and publish data on student preparedness in each district for post-graduate success in college and the workforce.  

Moreover, the Student Opportunity Act establishes a Data Advisory Commission to help improve the use of data at the state, district, and school levels to inform strategies that strengthen teaching, learning and resource allocation.

Following robust debate on the floor, the Senate also adopted several amendments to the Student Opportunity Act related to recovery high schools, Massachusetts School Building Authority and municipal fiscal challenges related to Ch70. 

To ensure that education-funding levels remain adequate, effective and equitable, the legislation also includes forward looking provisions to address additional funding challenges and policy areas. The Student Opportunity Act:

• Directs the Department of Revenue (DOR) and DESE to analyze the method of determining required local contributions in the Chapter 70 school funding formula for the purpose of improving equity, predictability and accuracy; and

• Establishes a Rural Schools Commission to investigate the unique challenges facing rural and regional school districts with low and declining enrollment. The Commission will make recommendations for further updates to help impacted districts and communities.

The legislation now moves to the Massachusetts House of Representatives for their consideration.

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