Massachusetts

These 9 new laws go into effect in Mass. in 2025. Here's what they all are

Published

1 year ago

January 3, 2025

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These 9 new laws go into effect in Mass. in 2025. Here's what they all are

With the new year comes new laws that are set to take effect in Massachusetts in 2025.

Five bills were signed into law with set dates for when the new laws, signed by Gov. Maura Healey, go into effect.

Four other new laws were part of a large economic development bill Healey signed in November, covering a wide range of issues from clean energy to education. The text of this law contained an emergency preamble, which gives the governor authority to determine whether a new law should go into effect immediately.

Here are the latest changes made to Massachusetts state law.

Employers must show salary ranges in job postings

Beginning Oct. 29, 2025, Massachusetts employers with 25 or more employees must disclose salary ranges and protect an employee’s right to ask for salary ranges. This received Healey’s approval on July 31 when Healey signed the Francis Perkins Workplace Equity Act, named after the first woman to be Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Roosevelt.

The new law also prohibits employers from firing or retaliating against any employee or applicant who asks for salary ranges when applying for a job or promotion, according to state law.

Employers’ demographic wage data

Along with salary ranges, Massachusetts employers with at least 100 state-based employees must file an annual report to the state, according to the legal firm Cooley. This annual report includes workforce demographic and pay data categorized by race, ethnicity, sex, and position.

This goes into effect on Feb. 1, 2025, with the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development then publishing aggregated data in a report on its website on July 1 of each year.

Massachusetts joins 11 other states in enacting this law: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island and Washington.

Sealing eviction records

Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act on Aug. 6. Going into effect on May 5, 2025, this law allows tenants to petition the courts to seal certain eviction records that can make it difficult for renters to secure housing, according to the state’s website.

The law will also make it illegal for a consumer reporting agency to include a sealed eviction record in its reports.

Parentage equality expansions

In August, Healey signed into law an act that updates the state’s parentage laws for the first time in 40 years, according to the Governor’s Office. The Massachusetts Parentage Act provides protections for parents who use surrogacy, in-vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction, as well as for LGBTQ+ parents.

The bill also modernizes the law’s language to be more inclusive, replacing words like “paternity” for “parentage” and “child born out of wedlock” for “nonmarital child,” Healey’s office said.

“Our laws need to reflect the realities of modern families and the loving environments where children grow and flourish,” Healey said in an Aug. 9 statement. “This moment is a victory for all families in Massachusetts who deserve to be treated with dignity and to have their rights recognized and protected under the law.”

This law goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

Updates to paid family and medical leave

On Oct. 1, the Department of Family and Medical Leave announced it would update weekly benefits for paid family and medical leave in Massachusetts. The maximum weekly benefits that employees can receive are set to increase from $1,149.90 to $1,170.64 per week, according to the legal firm Fisher Phillips.

The overall paid family and medical leave contribution rate will stay at 0.88% for eligible employees working at a business with 25 employees or more, the legal firm Seyfarth said in a statement. The contribution rate for smaller employers will remain at 0.46%.

Changes go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

Economic development for climate tech, AI and natural gas

Healey signed an economic development bill called the Mass Leads Act on Nov. 20. Its goal is to promote the development and use of clean energy across the state, with improvements to energy affordability, expand access to electric vehicles, and “facilitate the application of artificial intelligence across the state’s ecosystem‚“ Healey’s office said in a statement.

“This legislation will create new jobs, strengthen our efforts to recruit and retain the best talent, support all of our communities, and grow our arts, culture and tourism sectors,” the administration said in its statement.

The new law supports initiatives that aim to make Massachusetts a hub for climate technology, Healey’s office said. This includes $400 million in capital resources going to the offshore wind industry and establishing a new climate tech incentive program to bring and keep climate tech companies in Massachusetts. It will also update the existing Offshore Wind Tax Incentive Program.

The sweeping bill also includes provisions to overhaul the state’s permitting process for Massachusetts to build more renewable energy infrastructure to meet its climate goals. WBUR reported that these changes are intended to go into effect by March 2026.

The law also authorizes $100 million to be used to create the Massachusetts AI Hub “to facilitate the application of artificial intelligence across the state’s ecosystem,” the statement read. Healey’s office added that this hub is expected to boost innovation and “attract AI talent” to the state.

Additionally (but not lastly), the law establishes new provisions for natural gas. More networked geothermal projects, like Eversource in Framingham, will be built in order to bring cleaner forms of heating and cooling, WBUR reported.

The law also changes how gas utilities are incentivized to replace leaky underground pipes, with the state now prioritizing short-term repairs or retiring segments of a pipeline.

Due to the emergency preamble written into the Mass Leads Act, the law immediately went into effect with Healey’s signature.

More funding for electric vehicle incentives

The Mass Leads Act also introduced new provisions for electric vehicles, including an extension of state funding for its electric vehicle incentive program until 2027, WBUR wrote.

The Massachusetts Offers Rebates for Electric Vehicles, or MOR-EV, program is intended to cut down on air pollution and greenhouse gases.

The program offers rebates for buying or leasing eligible battery electric vehicles and fuel-cell electric vehicles.

Another provision includes directing the Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to review laws that ban the sale of new gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles after 2035, WBUR reported.

As part of the Mass Leads Act, these parts of the law also immediately went into effect upon the bill’s signing.

Nurses can work across state lines

The passage of the Mass Leads Act also addressed the nursing shortage in Massachusetts. The bill included a measure to join the Nurse Licensure Compact, which allows nurses operating in other states affiliated with the compact to practice out of state via in-person or telehealth, GBH reported in November.

Massachusetts became the last New England state to join the compact.

“Compact membership will also enhance the ability of the Massachusetts health care system to prepare for pandemics, emergencies and other staffing needs and to facilitate telehealth and other care delivery transformations in the future,” Mickey O’Neill, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, told GBH.

This also went into effect immediately after Healey signed the Mass Leads Act.

Educator diversity

Another facet of the economic development bill that Healey signed focused on education. The new law incorporated a bill known as the Massachusetts Teachers Association-supported Educator Diversity Act.

This change will see the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education develop an alternative certification process for teachers who may have challenges with the educator certification exam, but can still demonstrate their capabilities as teachers, Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka said in a statement in November.

Because educator diversity was part of the Mass Leads Act, it immediately went into effect with Healey’s signature on Nov. 20.

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Massachusetts

Could we quit complaining and be Massachusetts boosters … just this once?

Published

53 minutes ago

January 13, 2026

Press Room

Could we quit complaining and be Massachusetts boosters … just this once?

Can I hear just a few positive things in 2026? Amanda Gutierres of the new women’s soccer team, Boston Legacy FC, at Gillette Stadium. Boston Legacy

For one year — just one year! — What if we all tried to be Mass. boosters, rather than Mass. criticizers, Mass. fault-finders or plain old Massholes?

What if we made that a New Year’s Resolution that we actually stick with until December?

If you’re a resident of Massachusetts, you can undoubtedly add to this list of problems that our state has: high taxes, pricey housing, unreliable public transit, bad traffic, cold weather, elected officials emitting hot air and residents voting with their feet by moving.

But if there was ever a year to look at the Dunkin’ cup as half full, I’d argue that 2026 is it.

A partial list of good stuff we could be bragging about would include:

• An NFL team that won its first playoff game with a quarterback who could be the season’s MVP, and an NBA team that surprisingly has a solid chance of making it to the playoffs.

• Boston is continuing to get better at enjoying winter, with Frostival and Winteractive. A Ferris wheel on the Greenway? A “street snowboarding” contest on City Hall Plaza? I’ll be there!

• The inaugural season of Boston Legacy FC, our new National Women’s Soccer League team, opens in March.

• Seven FIFA World Cup games will be held in Foxborough in June.

• Marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July and other Revolutionary happenings throughout the year.

• Later in July, a fleet of tall ships from around the world arrives in Boston Harbor for Sail Boston.

• Worcester and Auburn are getting ready to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the birth of modern rocketry, with Robert Goddard’s early tests in 1926. In other nerdy news, the MIT Museum has plans to mark the 50^th birthday of the biotech industry in Cambridge. Just two of many major industries born in Massachusetts.

Most residents of other states would view two or three of those things as opportunities to boast or back-pat.

They’d invite friends and relatives from all over to come for a visit, and see it as an opportunity to show off their state’s positives — or at least to appreciate the work it took to bring these things together in a single year.

Maybe we should, too.

Traffic will be bad at times. Hotel and Airbnb prices will skyrocket.

And you could live up to the stereotype by bemoaning that. Or you could see 2026 as a pretty great year to live in Massachusetts.

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Massachusetts

Massachusetts woman denied a license to carry firearms wins her appeal

Published

13 hours ago

January 12, 2026

Press Room

Massachusetts woman denied a license to carry firearms wins her appeal

A local woman who was denied a license to carry firearms because of her husband’s “violent and aggressive behavior” has won her appeal in state court.

Barbara Guinane applied to the Manchester-by-the-Sea police chief for an LTC more than three years ago.

The police chief ended up ruling that Guinane was unsuitable and denied the LTC application due to her husband. The chief noted her husband’s violent disputes with neighbors, resulting in police responses to the couple’s home, criminal charges, restraining orders against him, and his LTC being suspended.

Ultimately, the chief argued that issuing an LTC to Guinane would allow her husband to have access to weapons.

After Guinane lost her appeal multiple times in court, she brought her case to Massachusetts Appeals Court.

“We agree with Guinane that her husband’s conduct did not, in these circumstances, furnish adequate statutory grounds for the chief to find her unsuitable,” the Appeals Court ruled. “Therefore, without reaching any Second Amendment issue, we reverse.”

The Appeals Court ordered the police chief to grant Guinane’s LTC application.

She had applied for her LTC in October of 2022. Earlier that year, a neighbor had called 911 to report that Guinane’s husband “came to (the neighbor’s) property yelling about trash cans and was carrying a baseball bat and then smashed a light pole in a fit of rage.”

When police responded, they found the Guinanes sitting on their front porch, where the husband told them, “I know I smashed a light.” He explained that he believed someone had broken into his shed, and he had lost his temper.

The husband was criminally charged with vandalizing property, and the neighbors obtained a harassment prevention order against him. The chief also suspended the husband’s LTC.

Then, the husband and a second neighbor had a verbal altercation, leading to the husband being charged with threatening to commit a crime, and with assault with intent to intimidate based on the victim’s race, religion, color and/or disability. The second neighbor also obtained a restraining order against him.

When Guinane applied for her own LTC, the chief found her unsuitable because of his concern that her husband would have access to the weapons. The chief acknowledged that Guinane herself had no criminal record.

The chief agreed that if Guinane were not married to her husband, “she would be a suitable person.” The chief nevertheless ruled that “it may be a threat to public safety” to issue an LTC to Guinane.

On the other side, Guinane testified that she had taken a gun safety course and had learned “how to use guns safely and to keep them at home also safely.” She had obtained a biometric gun safe and a biometric trigger lock, operable only with her fingerprints, so that “nobody else can use it.”

She further testified that she was a licensed manicurist who operated a nail salon out of their house. Customers sometimes paid her in cash.

In this most recent appeal, the Appeals Court ruled that the chief had no reasonable ground for denying Guinane’s application.

“Although the chief was understandably concerned about public safety, there was no reliable information about behavior by the applicant suggesting that, if issued a license, she would create a risk to public safety or a risk of danger to herself or others,” the court wrote.

“There is no evidence that she engaged in violent or aggressive behavior, or that she assisted or contributed to her husband’s past violent and aggressive behavior, or that she engaged in behavior suggesting that she might be negligent in securing her firearms as required by law,” the court added. “Nor was there reliable evidence that she intended to or might be forced to make firearms available to her husband or any other prohibited or unsuitable person.”

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Massachusetts

See top 50 highest-paid state workers in Massachusetts in 2025

Published

1 day ago

January 12, 2026

Press Room

See top 50 highest-paid state workers in Massachusetts in 2025

In 2025, University of Massachusetts employees earned some of the largest salaries among state workers.

For example, Francisco Martin, head basketball coach at UMass Amherst, made $2.18 million last year, according to the Office of the Comptroller’s statewide payroll database. Dr. Michael Collins, chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School, made $1.57 million.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts paid a total of $10.89 billion to state employees in 2025, including $1.82 billion to UMass employees, $955.4 million to MBTA employees, $680.68 million to trial court employees and $486.19 million to Department of Developmental Services employees.

The public payroll also lists the 2025 salaries for Gov. Maura Healey, Attorney General Andrea Campbell and other public officials. They didn’t make the top 50, but their pay is listed below.

Check out the 50 highest-paid Massachusetts state workers in 2025.

50 highest-paid state workers in MA in 2025

Here were the 50 highest-paid Massachusetts state workers in 2025, according to the statewide payroll:

Francisco Martin – UMass Head Basketball Coach ($2.18 million)
Michael Collins – UMass Chan Medical School Chancellor, Senior Vice President of Health Sciences ($1.57 million)
Joseph Harasymiak – UMass Head Football Coach ($1.41 million)
Terence Flotte – UMass Chan Medical School Executive Deputy Chancellor & Provost, T.H. Chan School of Medicine Dean ($1.18 million)
Partha Chakrabarti – UMass Chan Medical School Executive Vice Chancellor for Innovation & Business Development ($1.01 million)
Ryan Bamford – UMass Athletic Director ($912,226)
Martin Meehan – UMass President ($879,454)
Lisa Colombo – UMass Chan Medical School Executive Vice Chancellor of ForHealth Consulting ($821,872)
Javier Reyes – UMass Amherst Chancellor ($731,684)
Donald Brown – Former UMass Head Football Coach ($705,440)
Gregory Carvel – UMass Hockey Coach ($701,048)
Marcelo Suarez-Orozco – UMass Boston Chancellor ($699,908)
John Lindstedt – UMass Chan Medical School Executive Vice Chancellor for Administration & Finance ($699,175)
Kenneth Rock – UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Biomedical Research ($692,780)
Katherine Fitzgerald – UMass Chan Medical School Department of Medicine Vice Chair ($676,959)
Gregory Volturo – UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Emergency Medicine ($644,380)
Mark Fuller – UMass Dartmouth Chancellor ($626,750)
Anne Massey – UMass Isenberg School of Management Dean ($599,242)
Peter Reinhart – UMass Institute for Applied Life Sciences Founding Director ($574,265)
Julie Chen – UMass Lowell Chancellor ($549,614)
Andrew McCallum – UMass Center for Data Science & Artificial Intelligence Director ($544,451)
David Flanagan – UMass Chan Medical School Deputy Executive Vice Chancellor for Facilities Management ($533,562)
Donald Towsley – UMass Quantum Information Systems Institute Director ($528,922)
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick – UMass Provost, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs ($515,870)
Lisa Calise – UMass Senior Vice President for Administration & Finance, Treasurer ($511,275)
Phillip Eng – MBTA General Manager ($509,114)
James Healy – UMass Chan Deputy Vice Chancellor for Management ($496,647)
Adam Wise – UMass Boston Vice Chancellor for University Advancement ($491,793)
Mindy Hull – Massachusetts Chief Medical Examiner ($491,017)
Roger Davis – UMass Chan Medical School Program in Molecular Medicine Chair ($486,238)
Celia Schiffer – UMass Institute for Applied Life Sciences Chair of Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology ($478,484)
Jeroan Allison – UMass Chan Medical School Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences Chair ($477,782)
Craig Mello – UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Molecular Medicine ($476,992)
Mary Ahn – UMass Chan Medical School Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs ($475,597)
James Watkins – UMass Associate Vice Chancellor for Research & Engagement, Strategic Research Initiatives ($474,133)
David McManus – UMass Chan Professor and Chair of Medicine ($471,586)
Richard Gregory – UMass Chan Medical School Department of Molecular, Cell & Cancer Biology Chair ($469,918)
Maxwell Mayer – UMass Chan Medical School Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences ($469,843)
Sanjay Raman – UMass Dean of Engineering ($468,972)
Nefertiti Walker – UMass Senior Vice President for Academic & Student Affairs & Equity ($462,152)
Fousseni Chabi-Yo – UMass Isenberg School of Management Finance Department Chair ($461,411)
Murugappan Muthukumar – UMass Wilmer D. Barrett Professor ($460,783)
Mark Johnson – UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Neurosurgery ($458,421)
Hong Yu – UMass Lowell Center of Biomedical and Health Research in Data Sciences Director ($458,025)
Sheldon Zhang – UMass Lowell School of Criminology and Justice Studies Professor ($453,950)
Albertha Walhout – UMass Chan Medical School Department of Systems Biology Chair, Chair in Biomedical Research ($450,591)
Zhiping Weng – UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Biomedical Research ($450,591)
Beth McCormick – UMass Chan Medical School Department of Microbiology Chair ($450,591)
Shlomo Zilberstein – UMass Amherst Professor of Computer Science ($450,108)
Abdallah Georges Assaf – UMass Isenberg School of Management Professor ($447,486)

How much did Gov. Maura Healey make in 2025?

Gov. Maura Healey did not break the top 50, making $242,509 as a state employee in 2025, according to the payroll.

Her salary increased from $222,185 in 2024 and $220,288 in 2023.

How much did Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll make in 2025?

Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll made $216,292 in 2025, according to the state payroll.

Her salary increased from $198,165 in 2024 and $187,952 in 2023.

How much did Attorney General Andrea Campbell make in 2025?

Attorney General Andrea Campbell made $223,495 as a state employee in 2025, according to the official payroll.

This salary is up from $222,639 in 2024 and $203,401 in 2023.

How much did Massachusetts State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble make in 2025?

Massachusetts State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble made $292,711 in 2025, according to the state payroll. Noble was named colonel in October 2024.

How much did Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin make in 2025?

Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin made $202,427 as a state employee in 2025, according to the payroll.

In 2024, he made $201,850, and in 2023, he made $187,433.

How much did State Treasurer and Receiver General Deborah B. Goldberg make in 2025?

State Treasurer and Receiver General Deborah B. Goldberg made $260,637 in 2025, according to the state payroll.

Goldberg made $238,794 in 2024 and $236,901 in 2023.

How much did State Auditor Diana DiZoglio make in 2025?

State Auditor Diana DiZoglio made $253,494 in 2025, according to the state payroll.

Her salary increased from $229,377 in 2024 and $213,224 in 2023.

How much did former State Police Trooper Michael Proctor make in 2025?

Now-former State Police Trooper Michael Proctor made $3,617 in 2025, according to the state payroll.

Proctor, who served as the lead investigator in the Karen Read case, was put on unpaid leave in July 2024 and then fired in March, accused of violating four department policies.

In 2024, Proctor was paid $79,266, and in 2023, he was paid $146,053.

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