Massachusetts
‘With this passing, I plan to run.’ Mass. lawmakers to allow parents to spend campaign funds on child care. – The Boston Globe
“With this passing, I plan to run in this upcoming election,” said Nicole Coakley, a 43-year-old mother of five and a full-time therapist. Coakley has run twice for Springfield City Council but said she was unsure if she’d try again for a seat on the panel, until now.
During her earlier campaigns, Coakley often took her youngest daughter, now 6, with her to campaign events. She’d then rely on her campaign manager to watch her as Coakley spoke with voters. “For somebody like me, a single parent, we can’t afford that additional financial cost to help cover child care,” she said. With this proposal, “Massachusetts is moving to level the political playing field.”
State rules already allow candidates to spend their campaign cash on tuxedos, body armor, or expensive parties, as long as it’s for the “enhancement of [their] political future” and is not “primarily for personal use.”
They have not been allowed, however, to use political donations to pay a baby sitter while they campaign door to door or attend an evening fund-raising event.
Massachusetts already boasts some of the highest child care costs in the country, if not the highest, according to one measure. A child care center in Massachusetts costs an average of $19,961 annually for a toddler, and family- or home-based care costs $13,344, according to a 2023 report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Both were the highest of any state in the US.
“Even if you raise the money, you can’t spend it on something you need. And it’s much more valuable to campaign door to door than it is to pay for a mailing,” said state Senator Patricia D. Jehlen, a Somerville Democrat who has pushed the campaign finance proposal in the Massachusetts Senate.
“If you don’t have relatives or friends to take care of your kids while you’re campaigning, it’s almost impossible to do it,” she said. “This is just one more barrier.”
At least 30 states already allow candidates to use campaign funds for child care, as does the federal election system, according to Vote Mama Foundation, which supports mothers running for public office.
Many have used it, too. Since 2018, at least 68 federal candidates have tapped their campaign for child care funds, spending nearly $718,000 collectively, according to data Vote Mama Foundation published earlier this year. A little more than half of those candidates were women, and 46 percent of those who spent campaign money on child care were people of color.
Still, Massachusetts has long lagged in making the change. A legislative effort in 2017 to allow candidates to expense child care to their campaigns failed. In 2020, a legislative commission recommended the change, arguing it should be allowed when it’s the “direct result of the candidate’s campaign activities.” The state Senate then twice approved language last session, but it never reached then-governor Charlie Baker’s desk.
Supporters saw an opening this session at a time when State House leaders were roundly committed to trying to ease the state’s child care woes.
The proposal included in the economic development bill would allow candidates to spend campaign money on “baby-sitting services,” either by an individual baby sitter or a center, that “occur as a result of campaign activities.” It would bar candidates from paying their family members for child care, unless those relatives run or are employed by a professional child care service.
“We know that moms take the brunt of house work, the child care work. Even if they’re working moms, even if they’re career politicians, they still have to be moms,” said Shaitia Spruell, executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. “This will absolutely increase the number of women running for office — and hopefully the women in office.”
By some measures, Massachusetts has made notable gains on that front. Five of the state’s six statewide constitutional officers are women, including Governor Maura Healey, the first woman to be elected to that office in state history. She and Kim Driscoll are also one of the country’s first female governor-lieutenant governor duos.
Elsewhere in the State House, however, representation is lacking. Women currently make up 30 percent of the Legislature, but 51 percent of the state’s population. The House and Senate are slated to begin their next two-year session in January with fewer women (61) than it started this session with, according to the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators.
“If you want a diverse legislative body, then you have to be intentional about creating opportunities and removing barriers. And that’s what we did here,” said state Representative Joan Meschino, a Hull Democrat who has cosponsored bills with Representative Mike Connolly of Cambridge to allow candidates to expense child care to their campaigns.
“The bill helps break down those economic barriers,” she said. “That’s going to help open the door.”
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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