Legislature eases into 2012 session

BOSTON (State House News Service) - With efforts to control health care costs still looming large over Legislature, House and Senate members held their first formal sessions of 2012 Wednesday after a seven-week layoff, using the occasion to ceremonially inform Gov. Deval Patrick that lawmakers were back and ready to dig into business.

Just not this week.

The 2012 session opener in the House served primarily as an opportunity for members to get together informally and catch up, while in the Senate lawmakers announced plans to take up a bill next week providing additional oversight of education collaboratives, and broadly laid out an agenda for the coming months.

“We have an economic imperative to act on overall health care costs. I expect Massachusetts to lead the country in payment reform,” Senate President Therese Murray told the body, ticking off a list of accomplishments from last year and suggesting some priorities for the new one.

During a session dotted with ceremonial activities, Speaker Robert DeLeo thanked Rev. Charles Bourke of Winthrop for his prayer and special blessing of House members, adding wryly, "With this group I need it." 

House members learned that new Boston City Council President Stephen Murphy is, like DeLeo, a Boston Latin School graduate.  Murphy earned a raucous round of applause upon his introduction.

Both branches adjourned in under an hour with plans for light informal sessions Thursday. While the House gave no indication yet of when the branch might hold its first substantive formal of the new year, the Senate set an amendment deadline of Friday on the education collaborative reform bill. 

Senators have been advised to expect roughly one formal session per week over the first three months of the new year. House members have received no indication of session plans, which DeLeo’s office usually announces on Friday for only the week ahead.

Following the session, Murray was joined by Ways and Means Chairman Sen. Stephen Brewer, Education Committee Co-chairwoman Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, and Minority Leader Bruce Tarr in calling for passage of education collaborative oversight legislation.

“This was a story that made the blood boil of every lawmaker in this building,” said Chang-Diaz, who helped draft the bill aimed at avoid a repeat of the abuse exposed over the summer at the Merrimack Special Education Collaborative.

The bill includes increased financial reporting requirements, among other provisions, and increased oversight role for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education expected to cost an additional $600,000 a year.

The collaborative’s director John Barranco has been accused of using his control of the agency and the related nonprofit Merrimack Education Center to divert $11.5 million in public funding to the center to boost his pay and that of a handful of top executives with inflated salaries and bonuses, and using the center's credit card to charge more than $50,000 in personal expenses.

“This legislation provides the additional oversight and accountability educational collaboratives have sought while also recognizing collaboratives as a vital part of the fabric of public education in Massachusetts,” said Stephen Theall, executive director, Massachusetts Organization of Educational Collaboratives.

Education Committee Co-chair Rep. Alice Peisch (D-Wellesley) told the News Service she expects the House to take up the education collaborative accountability bill “very shortly after” it arrives from the Senate.
 
“I think everyone in the Legislature is committed to addressing this problem as quickly as possible,” Peisch said.

The Senate this month plans to hold four formal sessions, according to a tentative calendar circulated Tuesday to senators and their staff by Clerk William Welch. The final day of the formal session will be Tuesday, July 31 before lawmakers again peel away from the capitol to focus on their reelection campaigns.

Murray, during remarks to the Senate, laid out mostly well-known topics of legislative interest this year - health care payment reform, energy costs and the perennial priority that is the state budget.  Like other Hill leaders, Murray warned of spending cuts ahead, despite some anticipated growth in tax revenues. 

After proclaiming two years ago during a similar session opener that health care payment reform “should be at the top of everyone’s agenda,” Murray on Tuesday disputed the notion that inertia had taken hold on the issue.

“I don’t want to give a timeline because things are moving. As you can see, providers and insurers are already taking steps on their own because they know something is happening and the federal government giving us five different hospital plans to go into (accountable care organizations) is a big step for us in the right direction, but not everyone fits into that round hole. There are still square pegs that we have to figure out how they get to play,” Murray said.

Murray said her staff, along with