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☀️ A warm day, possibly rain tonight, with highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 6:14 p.m. It’s day 7 of the federal government shutdown.
In Massachusetts, people with substance use issues who are involuntarily committed might be sent not to a hospital or rehab facility, but to a treatment unit overseen by the sheriff’s office. It’s the only state in the country where that happens, GBH’s Meghan Smith reports.
“Prison and jail can be traumatizing, especially for people who already carry trauma histories, which are closely linked to substance use conditions,” said the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health’s Kate Alicante,speaking at a hearing to ban the practice yesterday. “Adding more trauma undermines treatment. In addition, treatment in carceral settings is stigmatizing.”
John Curren, who was sent to the Stonybrook recovery facility run by the Hampden Sheriff’s Office in Ludlow, said the experience actually helped him.
“Stonybrook saved my life. I can 100% say I would not be here today had I not went through that program. I had a second chance at a clean bill and that was given to me through Stonybrook,” he said. The bill is now in state lawmakers’ hands.
Four Things to Know
1. Two weeks after the Trump administration requested information about crime on the MBTA and threatened to withhold funding, the agency responded with a 12-page letter saying crime across the system is down about 16% this year. General manager Philip Eng also said the agency is adding surveillance cameras and hiring more police officers, GBH’s Sarah Betancourt reports.
The letter also included information about system improvement and maintenance efforts. As GBH’s Jeremy Siegel reported last month, none of the MBTA’s regular operating budget comes from the federal government — though the T does get some federal money for big projects.
2. The state’s highest court has ruled that families whose loved ones donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School — only to have the morgue manager steal or sell body parts — can sue the university for failing to properly oversee the facility.
The families appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court after the lower court ruled that the university wasn’t liable for the actions of morgue manager Cedric Lodge. The SJC yesterday ruled that the families have enough of a case for the matter to go to court. You can read the full court decision here. Lodge pleaded guilty to federal charges earlier this year.
3. The president of the UMass system said he’s concerned that the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding and restrictions on immigration visas could lead to a brain drain, with researchers choosing to move to institutions in other countries. President Marty Meehan said the UMass system has already stopped research of pediatric brain cancer because of the Trump administration’s actions.
“They’re being recruited and that’s our biggest fear,” Meehan told GBH’s Boston Public Radio. “We are going to lose faculty to other countries and the United States is going to lose a competitive advantage.”
4. Call it a whale watching companion: companies on the Cape have started offering sharkspotting tours, in which tourists and locals can get on a boat and get a bit closer (but not too close) to great white sharks. “Rule number one: Don’t fall in,” Captain Alexandre Carrier said at the start of a recent trip. “Rule number two: If you fall in, don’t pet the sharks.”
A seat on an Atlantic White Shark Conservancy boat ride will run you $500, in part because it also includes a helicopter that hovers overhead to spot sharks and direct the boat’s captain toward them.
Behind the bill: A Fair Share Amendment for big corporations
By Katie Lannan, GBH State House reporter
New federal policies could blow a hole hundreds of millions of dollars deep in the state budget, and the group that led the push for the state’s millionaires’ tax, also called the Fair Share Amendment, is now championing another tax change they say could help plug that gap.
This is a policy change that proponents say would affect a small number of major global companies like Apple, Amazon, McDonalds and Walmart, and how much they pay in state taxes. At a hearing last week, the bill’s sponsors said the focus is on the profits that those multinational corporations move offshore to dodge taxes. Essentially, they want to increase the portion of those profits that’s subject to Massachusetts taxes.
Bill supporters say Massachusetts is taxing those offshore profits at a much lower level than the federal government and other states in the region. The main group that’s backing the bill, the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, estimates that Massachusetts could collect another $400 million a year in tax revenues by passing this bill. They also describe this as a policy that would be friendly to local businesses that can’t or don’t shift their profits overseas, by putting them on more even footing with the big guys.
But there are definitely groups that see this as an anti-business move that could make companies wary of bringing jobs, or otherwise investing, here. That’s in the context that many states don’t tax this overseas money at all. A group that represents corporations warned that if Massachusetts does pass this into law, it would likely be subject to legal challenges and years of litigation.
It’s worth noting, too, that earlier this year, the state House speaker said that one thing that’s kept him from pulling this lever before is a concern about how it would affect one big name in Massachusetts commerce — Stop & Shop, which is now under the umbrella of a European holding company.
On Beacon Hill, a lot of the testimony in support of this bill focused on what Massachusetts could do with the money collected from more corporate taxes, highlighting the needs of people living here. Health care workers talked about maintaining access to services and keeping costs from ballooning. Union leaders blasted corporate greed. And representatives from teachers unions talked about the threat of federal funding cuts hitting schools where resources are already stretched thin.
Dig deeper:
-Millionaires tax revenue reaches $1.8 billion, on pace to double estimates
-Amid fed funds squeeze, millionaire’s tax money gives Mass. a chance to invest in new programs
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