Onr thing the City of Boston has done, which was actually adapted from the Dukakis era Office of Federal State Relations, was to develop a “Funding Update” publication, which at first went to city department heads, then was expanded to include non-profits, and evolved into a distribution list of over 1,000.
The Patrick Administration should revive this concept at the state level, not only making available information on federal, state and other monies, but also set up a blog for people to ask questions about the grants, seek collaborators (Boston put together 4 neighborhood groups in one case for a successful federal funding application — 4 separate apps may have failed) and technical assistance. One could even have live blogs to discuss certain funding opportunities. I participated in one recently sponsored by a national foundation — which saved me a lot of effort in figuring out what they wanted.
Sending out or making available good information about external resources is what state government should be about — giving groups across the state equal and easy access to the tools needed to deliver services in their communities.
Any feedback is welcome. To David and Charley, it was great to meet you, thanks for what you do and Reuben, get your own watch next time!
With legislation, it’s not a question of access. The entire MGL is online as are all senate bills and house bills and bill histories.
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The real issue is understandability. Most people want overviews, not three paragraphs of legalese. So should all bills be put online with plain-english summaries? Would that be feasible with all bills? I think one thing that could be done are keywords or tags that make searching for bills easier.
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There are three sites for the budget:
Governor’s
House
Senate
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The sites are relatively straightforward, although the actual budget is a daunting thing to casually browse through.
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Beyond those things, I feel like much of the rest of what is being discussed should actually fall under the jurisdiction of the Secretary’s office, no? When it comes to dissemination of general state info, isn’t that Galvin’s department? (Not that he couldn’t use a kick in the pants from the new Governor…)
I don’t want a bill history; I want a bill future. I want email or phone alerts when a hearing is about to happen. I want to know at least a week ahead of time when a bill will be debated and voted upon.
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It’s not just so that the great propaganda machines and phone call/email generators can start ginning up; it’s so that legislators have time to read and understand the bills they’re voting on.
THAT is the $50 question. The Minority Office regularly puts out Issue Briefs, explaining history, ramifications, etc., for its membership. THE DEMS WERE ALWAYS ASKING FOR COPIES. Because they are just issued marching orders, not given info.
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I remember when I was involved with the Minority Mentoring program, where a freshman GOP was given a mentor, to help with the technicalities. I was up in the Bullpen one day distributing emails with schedules of hearings, etc., and one Dem asked me why I wasn’t helping him too. I suggested he contact Billy Nagle to find out when HIS mentor program began…..
The Legislature’s site may be “relatively straighforward,” but it does not provide the information it should provide. For example, as far as I can tell, there isn’t even an easy way to determine how a particular legislator voted during the past year or what bills he or she sponsored. Now that would be useful. The real issue is not understandability, although clearly that is important, the real issue is access to information.
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Check out the sites for the Virginia or California legislatures to see how much better Massachusetts could be in providing information that is helpful to voters. For example, on the Virginia site a person can sign up for free with Lobbyist-in-a-Box to track 5 bills.
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I just do not get why some people here in Massachusetts are so willing to settle for mediocrity from our elected officials when we should be demanding the best. The elected officials do, after all, work for us and we should never let them forget that.
Sure does appear that excellent resources of this sort are already up and running in other states. Why re-invent the wheel? Maybe we (would that fall to the SOS?) could simply use the template for the Virginia site and, presto! Lobbyist in a Box here I come!!