Lawmakers say they’re not just ‘puppets’
Want more say on where federal funds go
Lawmakers said they are done being “puppets” and are ready to take on a greater oversight role in how the Baker administration is spending federal stimulus dollars with another $40 billion expected to flow into the state.
“Speaker (Ronald) Mariano wants to make sure that we as a collective — as a government both the Senate, House and the administration — come together to make sure we use this once-in-a-generation funding appropriately,” Rep. Dan Hunt, D-Boston, said as he opened Thursday’s hearing of the House Committee on Federal Stimulus and Census Oversight,
which he chairs. Secretary of Administration and
Finance Michael Heffernan provided a detailed breakdown of the more than $40 billion in one-time funds coming through President Biden’s American Rescue Plan and the nearly $71 billion in aid that has already flooded the state since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
Hunt raised questions over the administration’s spending of federal dollars so far, which some lawmakers have criticized as being “too slow.”
State Rep. John Barrett, D-North Adams, referenced an October press release where the Baker administration claimed to be working in “close coordination with federal, state, and local part
ners … and Legislative colleagues” in doling out stimulus dollars. Barrett said lawmakers were not consulted.
“We’ve had no idea, in many cases, what was coming out,” Barrett told Heffernan. “Maybe you can take that message back to somebody and basically say, you know, we’re not down here to be his puppets. And I don’t intend to be.”
Barrett says Berkshire County feels like the “redheaded stepchild” when it comes to federal stimulus dollars. “There has to be a reconciliation here of how this future money is going to be spent — and oversight.”
Barrett says there hasn’t been “any money of any magnitude on job training programs coming into Berkshire Co. — not one penny that has any worth — yet the two major cities here have unemployment rates of 9.8% and 9.2%.
“I believe that not all the money is being used as intended,” Barrett continued. He referenced one community that spent $11,000 on planters for its Main Street. “It wasn’t used to block traffic to make more space.”
The Legislature has in recent months shown a renewed interest in playing an oversight role when it comes to the vaccine rollout and the distribution of federal funds.