Hinds Focuses on Climate Change, Schools in New Legislative Term
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — State Sen Ada.m Hinds on Thursday outlined his budget priorities and goals for the new legislative term to the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission.
Some 6,498 bills were filed this year and 82 were from Hinds.
In this session, he is focusing largely on climate change and improving the commonwealth's schools as well as transportation both for schools and the general public.
"We just hit the year mark of being in COVID and I've been asked to do a lot of kind of thick thought pieces around what it's meant," Hinds said to the commission. "I'm now chairing a second committee in the Senate, it's called Reimagining Massachusetts Post-COVID Resiliency, and so it's a real effort to try to take stock of what's changing, and what do we learned through this past year, and what are the new tools we might want to put on the table. I'd love to hear from all of you maybe not tonight but at some point."
The senator began by reflecting on some of the implications for state policy that have occurred over the past year, an important one being the collective pivot to hybrid or remote work. Two weeks ago, Gov. Charlie Baker announced that 20,000 state jobs are going to be shifted to a hybrid remote work posture.
This shift will likely have a ripple effect on many different avenues that will be more clear at the end of the calendar year, Hinds explained, such as commercial real estate development, transportation, housing, and child-care needs.
Climate change is a large priority for the senator in this term.
"We just literally today, maybe two hours ago, sent back to the governor our version of the climate bill that we passed, he vetoed a version at the end of last year, and then we immediately sent it back, he sent back amendments, we sent a pack, and we're doing a bit of a tug of war here. Sounds like he might sign this one," Hinds explained.
"But even though we make a big leap forward in a bill like this there are still sectors that need attention, and I'm thinking in particular, transportation, which is 40 percent of our carbon emissions and not a big area of focus in this bill. We instead focus again on energy production and kind of buildings, efficiencies and the like, a lot of offshore wind commitment, big environmental justice pieces, and a whole range of other things that I can get into if you want, but it feels like we need to do more in transportation."
The bill also addresses carbon sequestration, a process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is one method of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the goal of reducing global climate change.
Hinds wants locals to be aware of the natural solutions for trapping carbon dioxide in Central and Western Massachusetts, which boast some of the biggest concentrations of forest canopy in New England.
The $1.5 billion Student Opportunity Act passed in 2019 will reportedly make a huge impact on Pittsfield schools more than any other schools in the Berkshires as rural schools will be left out of the equation.
The rural school budget line item did go up to $3 million this fiscal year and Central Berkshire Regional School District was awarded around $300,000, but Hinds now chairs the Rural School Commission to address the issue further.
"We tried to make that a part of the student Opportunity Act, and they said, 'no you can't because that's the result of a blue-ribbon panel that really dug into the foundation budget,' " he said. "And so instead they agreed to continue with the rural school item line item for now while we stand up a rural school commission. I keep saying rural really we're switching to low and declining enrollment because it's not always rural schools at this, there's some that in the commonwealth that just has declining enrollment, and it applies to them."
A School Transportation Commission was also completed and the findings were outlined in a bill that addresses the disparity between different regional school's transportation funding.
"We only fund our school transportation at best, 80 percent these days for regional schools, so saying 'what are we doing to make sure that the schools that need it, are getting it' because there are plenty of regional schools that are better off than others," Hinds said.
"We can really use more than that 80 percent and also saying, 'look, there are municipal schools that could also use the school transportation reimbursement and so what are we doing to look at that?' and so this commission did just that."
Hinds has helped secure a bond authorization to better public transit, one with "on demand" to support the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority and another for the Transportation Management Association that explores existing transportation assets and how to utilize them.
To support rural economic development, Hinds was able to expand a Small Town Development Fund to $20 million in the Economic Development bill.
Members of BRPC brought up concerns with the "housing crisis" in Berkshire County, high-speed internet accessibility, and communities embracing affordable housing.
In the middle of a pandemic, Massachusetts home sales have reached a 17-year high with median home prices being more than $400,000 and locals are reportedly being outbid by "out of towners" for homes in the place they grew up.
"We also have problems in other parts of the county where your firemen and policemen can't even afford a house in town, that's a problem," Hinds said. "And so the affordable elements are a piece and renewing the stock is another piece and so it's a weird dynamic in the county right now with kind of the exodus, maybe of, you know, out-ofs-taters, and it feels like you can't build houses fast enough in some parts, particularly in the south, and, and there's a demand."
BRPC Executive Director Thomas Matuszko notified Hinds that they have formed a working group related to the housing crisis in Berkshire County and are trying to circle in with him and other legislators.
Hinds said the issue of locals being priced out of their hometowns is another reason for communities to embrace affordable housing when asked how small towns can address the "not in my back yard" mindset.
"It's been a heck of a year, and horrible in so many respects, and at the same time, if we get a few things right it feels like we're poised to come out pretty strong as well in certain industries and in certain long term kind of modeling," he concluded. "And so, maybe we are turning around population decline, we are finding that more local residents can have access to more jobs if this culture of remote work continues and so there are some silver linings there and I hope that we can all kind of make sure that we maximize what those are. So, looking forward to doing that with all of you."
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