Morning Briefs: Foster Parent Rights | Fed Revenue Study | Florio Placed on Leave

DCF Bill Features Foster Parents' Bill of Rights

Foster parents would have new supports and the Department of Children and Families would face new accountability and reporting requirements under a bill that sailed unanimously through the House on Thursday. The House approved the legislation (H 4841) 158-0 two days after it emerged from the Ways and Means Committee, sending to the Senate a proposal to impose new reporting mandates on DCF, to study protections in place for vulnerable children, and to improve the working relationship between the state and foster parents. Ways and Means Committee Vice Chair Rep. Denise Garlick, a Needham Democrat, said it addresses long-standing oversight and care priorities "amplified" by the COVID-19 pandemic. One component of the bill would call for an examination of how DCF provided services virtually during the outbreak. Several representatives touted the bill's "Foster Parents' Bill of Rights," which will require foster parents to be considered as the first choice for adoption when a non-relative is not involved, provide more training and resources, and ensure that foster parents receive as much information as possible ahead of time about children to be placed in their care. Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier (D-Pittsfield) also pointed to the COVID emergency, stressing that the bill's passage comes amid "extra demands on our foster care." - Chris Lisinski/SHNS

Fed Study Puts Numbers on State's Revenue Collapse

With the new fiscal year already underway, state budget managers still do not have a grasp on how much tax revenue the state will collect in fiscal 2021, and the uncertainty is contributing to an unusually delayed budget and a hesitation to take up economic relief proposals on Beacon Hill. Recognizing that states around the region are struggling to forecast fiscal 2021 state revenue, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston proposed a model that he said serves as "an objective, transparent, simple, and efficient method to forecast state tax revenue" in these uncertain times. The model from Bo Zhao at the New England Public Policy Center uses two inputs -- each New England state's unemployment rate and the number of years since fiscal 1994 -- under low, mid and high unemployment scenarios. In the model, fiscal 2020 tax collections in Massachusetts could be down between $2.5 billion and $4.3 billion from fiscal 2019 -- a decline of between 8 percent and 13.5 percent. The economist further estimates fiscal 2021 "real state tax revenue per capita" in Massachusetts could be down between 10.5 percent and 35.2 percent from the fiscal 2020 estimates. As of the end of May, Massachusetts had collected $24.78 billion of the $30.29 billion in taxes budgeted for fiscal 2020, a 6.5 percent decline from the same period in fiscal 2019 due in part to the extension in the tax filing deadline and the economic shutdowns ordered to slow the spread of COVID-19. Zhao's model relied upon the unemployment rate to predict state tax collection trends, and the economist found that, of the six New England states, "the sensitivity of tax revenue to changes in economic conditions is greatest in Massachusetts." "A 1 percentage point increase in the state unemployment rate, on average, is associated with a decrease of $160 in real adjusted state tax revenue per capita in the FY1995–FY2019 period for Massachusetts," he wrote. - Colin A. Young/SHNS

Florio Placed on Leave Amidst Internal Investigations

Steven Florio, the commissioner of the Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, has been placed on administrative leave while the Baker administration looks into reports that he dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes and made Nazi salutes while a member of a college fraternity. In a statement confirming a report from the Boston Globe on Thursday evening, Baker's Executive Office of Health and Human Services said it "takes these allegations seriously" and referred to "internal investigations" underway. Deputy Commissioner Patricia Ford was named acting commissioner, the office said. The Globe reported this week that Florio informed his staff of his racially insensitive behavior last month following Gallaudet University's suspension of the Kappa Gamma fraternity. Photos had surfaced of fraternity members wearing robes with pointed hoods that resembled those worn by the Ku Klux Klan and performing Nazi salutes. At least one photo overlapped with Florio's time at the university and the Globe reported that Florio told his staff he was not depicted in the photo, but had engaged in offensive behavior. "Obviously, there's no tolerance for intolerance, and I'll leave it at that. But I think it's important that this be investigated and that investigation is going on right now," Gov. Charlie Baker said this week. He added, "It was 30 years ago. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to follow up." - Colin A. Young/SHNS

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7/10/2020