Parenting Journey’s legislative agenda is guided by our Parents’ Bill of Rights – principles developed by our Parent Advisory Council. The Council is comprised of parents and caregivers who participated in at least one Parenting Journey group, are committed to creating a more equitable society in which all families thrive, and reflect the diversity of the parents with whom we partner.  The Parent Advisory Council resolves to lead efforts among our parents, staff, board, and supporters to fight for policies that tear down systems of oppression.

Priority Bills

• SD 1744 / HD 1879: An Act Relative to Affordable and Accessible High Quality Early Education and Care
• SD 1709 / HD 3300: Fair Share Amendment
• SD 1881: An Act Relative to the Scheduling of Employees
• SD 334 / HD 414: An Act supporting affordable housing with a local option for a fee to be applied to certain real estate transactions
• SD 1143 / HD 1719: Work and Family Mobility Act

Full Legislative Agenda

CHILDCARE

• SD 1744 / HD 1879: An Act Relative to Affordable and Accessible High Quality Early Education and Care cosponsored by Sen. Cindy Friedman and Rep. Ken Gordon
• SD 304: An Act Supporting Parents Running for Public Office sponsored by Sen. Patricia Jehlen

HOUSING

• SD 334 / HD 414: An Act supporting affordable housing with a local option for a fee to be applied to certain real estate transactions cosponsored by Sen. Joseph Boncore and Rep. Mike Connolly
• SD 1433: An Act Providing for Coordinated Data and Assistance to Address Family Homelessness sponsored by Sen. Joanne Comerford

ECONOMIC MOBILITY & EMPLOYMENT

• SD 1881: An Act Relative to the Scheduling of Employees sponsored by Sen. Marc Pacheco
• SD 1452 / HD 3043: An Act Relative to Well-Being and Care of a Child cosponsored by Sen. Sal DiDomenico and Rep. Marjorie Decker
• SD 1328 / HD 2367: An Act to Lift Kids Out of Deep Poverty cosponsored by Sen. Sal DiDomenico and Rep. Marjorie Decker
• SD 910 / HD 2519: An Act Relative to Economic Mobility for Families with Low-Income cosponsored by Sen. Jason Lewis and Rep. Aaron Vega
• SD 1325 / HD 662: Loan Repayment Program benefitting Social Workers cosponsored by Sen. Eric Lesser, Reps. Jeff Roy & Smitty Pignatelli

IMMIGRATION

• SD 1143 / HD 1719: Work and Family Mobility Act cosponsored by Sen. Brendan Crighton and Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier
• SD 926 / HD 1520: Safe Communities Act cosponsored by Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Reps. Ruth Balser and Liz Miranda

REVENUE, EDUCATION & TRANSPORTATION

• SD 1709 / HD 3300: Fair Share Amendment cosponsored by Sen. Jason Lewis and Rep. Jim O’Day

Bill Details

CHILDCARE

An Act Relative to Affordable and Accessible High Quality Early Education and Care (SD 1744 / HD 1879)

Cosponsors: Sen. Cindy Friedman, Rep. Ken Gordon

In order to meet the needs of the 21st century workforce and strengthen our economy in a way that also reduces racial, gender, and income inequality in our state, Massachusetts families need affordable, accessible, high-quality early education and child care. While Massachusetts is a nationwide leader on early education and care and we’ve made progress in recent years, the current system is still unaffordable and/or inaccessible for many families.

Massachusetts is the least affordable state for child care for infants ($20,125 annually) and toddlers ($18,586 annually), and among the least affordable states for four-year-old care ($14,256).^[1]  All socio-economic groups struggle to find child care. The state offers subsidized child care for low-income families, but not enough funding to serve all eligible children. The subsidy waitlist is currently 17,939 children, including infants, toddlers, preschool-age and school-age, though it has decreased in recent years thanks to increased public investments.[2] Many families earn just above the subsidy eligibility limit, but still cannot afford the high cost of care. There are child care “deserts” in many parts of the state where the supply of licensed care is much lower than demand.[3]

In Massachusetts and nationally, there is growing awareness of the lack of accessible, affordable, high-quality child care, and new interest in examining and reforming child care policy. Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly support making child care more affordable for families.

Advocates are developing a proposal to make high-quality early education and child care affordable and accessible to all Massachusetts families, using a progressive sliding-scale fee structure. A new coalition has formed, with 30+ members led by the Coalition for Social Justice, to explore options for meaningful change. Placeholder legislation, “An Act Relative to Affordable and Accessible High Quality Early Education and Care,” was filed on January 18, 2019.

An Act Supporting Parents Running for Public Office (SD 304)

Sponsor: Sen. Patricia Jehlen

A study in 2016 found that Massachusetts has the second-highest costs in the nation for child care, at over $17,000 per year. That means a minimum wage earner in Massachusetts would have to work full time from January to October to afford day care for one child. Over 70 percent of the families we partner with at Parenting Journey live at or below the federal poverty level, and many of them struggle to find affordable child care.

Child care is a universal concern and when our society places the burden of paying for child care on individual families, we leave critical voices out of our workplaces, boardrooms and government. Some parents decide that it’s financially more feasible not to work, which not only stifles diversity, it perpetuates the cycle of parenting in poverty. As a society, we should champion equitable family policies that provide parents with the tools and support they need to build strong families. A strong family unit is the foundation of a vibrant healthy community.

Parenting Journey supports the exploration of all creative policy solutions that seek to alleviate the burden of child care costs for all families, because we believe in promoting equity and increased representation for women and people of color in the workforce, and yes, that includes running for political office too.

HOUSING

An Act supporting affordable housing with a local option for a fee to be applied to certain real estate transactions (SD 334 / HD 414)

Cosponsors: Sen. Joseph Boncore and Rep. Mike Connolly

Massachusetts has an affordable housing crisis and municipalities need new tools to address this crisis. Throughout the Commonwealth, more and more cities and towns are identifying the costs of housing and displacement of long-term residents as one of their most critical problems. Ongoing population shifts and economic trends have put more and more upward pressure on rents and home prices. Skyrocketing housing prices contributed to Massachusetts experiencing the second largest increase in homeless population in the nation between 2017-2018.

A local option transfer fee could help municipalities build a new supply of affordable housing. These bills authorize cities and towns to enact legislation to assess a fee of between 0.5 and 2 percent of the purchase price on residential and commercial real estate transactions. Each city and town would set the actual rate and determine the type of transactions that would be included or exempted (e.g. residential vs. commercial, transactions involving owner occupants vs. investors, transactions involving low income seniors or persons with disabilities), and whether the fee was paid by the buyer or seller. This fee would be paid to the jurisdiction’s properly constituted Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and funds could only be used to address housing affordability in accordance with the rules and guidelines governing the Trust Fund.

An Act Providing for Coordinated Data and Assistance to Address Family Homelessness (SD.1433)

Sponsor: Sen. Joanne Comerford

This bill increases data transparency and system coordination by directing state agencies to report on certain homelessness related measures and their current system coordination efforts to improve access to support services to families. The bill also makes benefit program information more accessible to families through an agency telephone hotline and website.

ECONOMIC MOBILITY & EMPLOYMENT

An Act Relative to the Scheduling of Employees (SD 1881)

Sponsor: Sen. Marc Pacheco

Across our state, approximately hundreds of thousands of hourly workers have little to no input in their schedules. Employers increasingly schedule workers on-call with no guarantee of work, cancel shifts at the last minute, or send workers home early without compensation. These abusive scheduling practices disproportionately impact working women and people of color.

Although the schedule challenges facing our hourly workforce are vast, there is a very simple step we can take now to address some of the most egregious scheduling practices that undermine existing law. As more employers use on-call scheduling to avoid the existing reporting pay requirements, we can expand these protections to all workers and to on-call shifts and provide working families with basic protections from retaliation and overwork.

Some of the important protections included in this bill include:

• Requiring a nonbinding but fact-based estimate of average weekly hours, days and times of shifts, and whether an employee will have on-call shifts.
• Requiring employers to provide employees with 14 days’ notice of their work schedules and post the schedule in the workplace. The schedule must be updated within 24 hours of any changes.
• Requiring employers to pay half of the scheduled but unworked hours when a shift is cancelled or reduced, and one hour of predictability pay for other employer-initiated changes to the posted work schedule. Exceptions for employee-initiated changes, natural disasters, utility failures and similar emergencies.
• Guaranteeing employees adequate rest by allowing workers to decline to work with less than 11 hours’ rest between shifts, and earn overtime for hours worked with less than 11 hours’ rest.
• Allowing employees to decline any hours not included in their original posted schedule, without retaliation. Employees can accept additional hours by consenting in writing.
• Allowing employees to request specific scheduling accommodations, such as limiting their availability. Employers do not have to grant the requests, but they cannot retaliate against workers for seeking input into their work hours.

An Act Relative to Well-Being and Care of a Child (SD 1452 / HD 3043)

Cosponsors: Sen. Sal DiDomenico and Rep. Marjorie Decker

The cap on kids – also called the Family cap – denies TAFDC (Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children) to children conceived while – or soon after – the family received benefits. Welfare benefits go up by about $100 a month as family size increases unless the child is excluded by the Cap on Kids.

The Legislature included Lift the Cap on Kids in the FY 19 budget. The Governor returned it with an amendment conditioning family cap repeal on cutting off benefits to children with a disabled parent. The Legislature rejected the amendment and reenacted family cap repeal, but the Governor vetoed it after the formal session ended.

An Act to Lift Kids Out of Deep Poverty (SD 1328 / HD 2367)

Cosponsors: Sen. Sal DiDomenico and Rep. Marjorie Decker

“Deep poverty” is income below half the federal poverty level – $889 a month for a family of three. TAFDC is intended to meet families’ basic needs. But the maximum grant for a family of three is only $593 a month.

The bill increases TAFDC by 10% a year until grants reach 50% of the federal poverty level. The estimated cost of the first TAFDC increase is $15 million. The bill also increases EAEDC (Emergency Aid to Elders, Disabled and Children) benefits at an estimated first year cost of $7 million.

An Act Relative to Economic Mobility for Families with Low-Income (SD 910 / HD 2519)

Cosponsors: Sen. Jason Lewis and Rep. Aaron Vega

This bill directs the Secretariats to study the impacts of minimum wage increases on cliff effects and accordingly make changes in assistance programs to avoid the cliffs. The bill also makes data and information around economic mobility and assistance programs more accessible to families so that they are better informed and can benefit from the available resources.

Loan Repayment Program benefitting Social Workers (SD1325 / HD662)

Cosponsors: Sen. Eric Lesser, Rep. Jeffrey Roy, Rep. Smitty Pignatelli

This bill would create an education loan repayment program for human service workers. To be eligible, workers must be working a minimum of 35 hours per week, must have an individual income of no more than $50,000 per year and must have maintained 12 consecutive months of employment in the sector. The program would allow workers to receive up to $150/month – or up to $1,800 per year – for a period not to exceed 48 months – or four years – to repay a qualified education loan that was used to attend an institution of higher learning.

Many human services workers’ salaries start between $12 and $13 an hour. According to The Institute for College Access and Success, 65 percent of seniors graduating from public and nonprofit colleges in 2017 had student loan debt with an average of $28,650 per borrower. Massachusetts is 12 percent higher than the national average, with an average of $32,065 per borrower. The lack of affordable higher education for human services workers and the burden of student debt greatly contribute to the sector’s recruitment and retention difficulties.

This legislation will provide much needed financial relief to individuals who provide services for the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable residents – and who barely earn enough to support their own families – and support human service providers’ efforts to recruit and retain these talented caregivers.

IMMIGRATION

Work and Family Mobility Act (SD 1143 / HD 1719)

Cosponsors: Sen. Brendan Crighton and Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier

Currently, longtime Massachusetts residents who live, work, and raise families in our state are unable to drive to their jobs, drive their kids to school or doctors’ appointments, or participate fully in our communities.

Giving access to driver’s licenses for all Massachusetts residents regardless of lawful residence is good public policy, allowing more drivers to be insured and making our roads safer for everyone.  When states require all residents to go through a standard licensure process, it ensures that all drivers are operating with the same knowledge about the rules of the road. Denying access to driver’s licenses limits immigrants’ ability to meet their basic needs and also puts immigrants who drive without a license at risk of detention and deportation.

The Work and Family Mobility Act amends Section 8 of Chapter 90 of the Massachusetts General Laws (MGL) to allow all qualified driver’s in the Commonwealth, whether or not they are able to provide proof of lawful residence, to apply for a Massachusetts license. Like any other applicant, those without lawful residence would need to meet all other qualifications for licensure, providing satisfactory proof to the registrar of identity, date of birth, and proof of Massachusetts residency.  Additionally, the bill amends the MGL to allow persons who are unable to provide proof of lawful residence the ability to apply for a Massachusetts identification card, if they can provide proof to the registrar of identity, date of birth, and Massachusetts residency.

There are currently 12 other states, including neighboring Connecticut and Vermont, that offer driver’s licenses to all eligible drivers regardless of whether they are able to provide proof of lawful residence.  Similar legislation is advancing throughout the country, including in New York and New Jersey.

Safe Communities Act (SD 926 / HD 1520)

Cosponsors: Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Reps. Ruth Balser and Liz Miranda

A new Safe Communities Act is before the Legislature – streamlined but with the same core provisions to restore community trust in police by avoiding entanglement in immigration matters, and protect due process for all:

1. No questions about immigration status: Bars law enforcement and court personnel from asking people about their status unless required by law. The State Police already have a similar policy. Many immigrants fear that calling 911 r speaking to police will lead to separation from family members–especially children–making them more vulnerable to domestic abuse, wage theft and other crimes. This provision would send a strong message that in our Commonwealth, police protect us all.
2. Protects due process: Before Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) questions someone in local custody, requires police to obtain their consent using a form that explains their right to decline an interview or have their own attorney present. Without these protections, people often make statements or sign documents jeopardizing their immigration cases. Non-citizens often unaware of these rights, because “Miranda” warnings are not required in the civil immigration context.
3. Limits notifications to ICE: Bars police, court officers and jail officials from notifying ICE that someone is about to be released. Sometimes aw enforcement will call ICE to try to keep an immigrant from going free when they can no longer hold them, even though a citizen would go free. The bill would still allow notifications to ICE if a person is being released after serving a criminal sentence.
4. No more 287(g) agreements: Ends contracts with ICE that allow state and county personnel to act as federal immigration agents, at state taxpayers’ expense. Such contracts are the most extreme form of entanglement with ICE, and when they shift people into ICE custody before they can go to court, they undermine due process. Massachusetts is the only state in New England to have such agreements, and we have our: with Bristol, Barnstable Plymouth counties, and the Department of Corrections.
5. Provides crucial training and accountability: Requires law enforcement agencies to train their personnel about this law, and if there is an alleged violation, people can file a complaint with the relevant agency or the Attorney General. These provisions would help ensure transparency and tackle problems as they arise

REVENUE, EDUCATION, & TRANSPORTATION

Fair Share Amendment (SD 1709 / HD 3300)

Cosponsors: Sen. Jason Lewis, Rep. James O’Day

The best way to help working families and build a stronger economy for us all is to make sure that we have quality public schools for our children, affordable public higher education, and a transportation system that works. Without investment in these common goals, working families fall behind and our communities suffer. New revenue is necessary to rebuild crumbling roads, bridges, and paths, improve our public schools, invest in fast and reliable public transportation, make public higher education affordable, expand opportunities for healthy walking and bicycling, and give every child access to high-quality early childhood ed and preK programs.

Right now, the highest-income households in Massachusetts – those in the top 1 percent – pay a smaller share of their income in state and local taxes than does any other income group. Our wealthiest residents can clearly afford to pay a little more to fund the investments we all need.

The best way to help working families and build a stronger economy for us all is to make sure that we have quality public schools for our children, affordable public higher education, and a transportation system that works. Without investment in these common goals, working families fall behind and our communities suffer. New revenue is necessary to rebuild crumbling roads, bridges, and paths, improve our public schools, invest in fast and reliable public transportation, make public higher education affordable, expand opportunities for healthy walking and bicycling, and give every child access to high-quality early childhood ed and preK programs.

Right now, the highest-income households in Massachusetts – those in the top 1 percent – pay a smaller share of their income in state and local taxes than does any other income group. Our wealthiest residents can clearly afford to pay a little more to fund the investments we all need.

[1] Child Care Aware of America. (2017). Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2017 Report., as reported in Haywoode, A. (2018, January 3). Facing the High Cost of Child Care. Eye on Early Education. https://eyeonearlyeducation.com/2018/01/03/facing-the-high-cost-of-child-care/ . See also Sherman, E. (2018, July 2.) Child headed to preschool this fall? Better start saving now. Wicked Local. http://marshfield.wickedlocal.com/news/20180702/child-headed-to-preschool-this-fall-better-start-saving-now

[2] Department of Early Education and Care, Waitlist in January, 2019, as reported at the Board of Early Education and Care meeting, January 8, 2019.

[3] Haywoode, A. (2017, October 26). Tracking Massachusetts’ Child Care Deserts. Eye on Early Education. https://eyeonearlyeducation.com/2017/10/26/tracking-massachusetts-child-care-deserts/