Monday marks another small move toward reopening in Massachusetts. Live theater is permitted indoors again — though social distancing is a must.
As the curtain rises on indoor staged performances, fight scenes are discouraged since they can involve prolonged contact.
We've recently seen COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state continue to fall as the number of vaccinated Bay Staters rises.
Matt Murphy of the State House News Service joins us to talk about the week ahead, and what other industries are included in the latest reopening phase.
Matt Murphy, State House News Service: Monday marks the first step in a series of steps that the governor has laid out toward that August 1 full reopening.
With COVID cases continuing to go down, Monday we're seeing large arenas, ballparks, stadiums, places like Fenway Park have their permitted capacity increased from 12% to 25%.
Some youth sports are coming back. We're seeing outdoor road races permitted again with staggered start times, and other public safety plans put in place, and submitted to local departments of public health.
Also singing is back in restaurants, and amusement parks and other outdoor entertainment venues are also reopening at 50% capacity.
In Boston, we're going to have to wait a little longer for some of these. The city is on a June 1 schedule for these reopening steps. But across most of the state, it's another step forward.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: Unemployment claims in Massachusetts have drained the funds of the unemployment system during the pandemic. Governor Baker has authorized $7 billion in borrowing to study the fund, and he created a commission to chart a path forward. As this commission meets for the first time this week, what are members likely to hear?
This commission was created in that law that lawmakers had hoped would solve the problem of rising bills for unemployment insurance on employers. But that bill, as it turned out, only solved about half the problem.
There's another fee that is scheduled to spike on employers. The administration has delayed these payments as they wait to see whether or not they can use federal stimulus dollars to shore up the solvency fund for the unemployment system.
This commission was created by that law to look at the long-term solvency of this fund. But more immediately, they're going to be looking at the short-term solvency, and how much money is needed in this fund, as they wait for an answer from the feds on whether or not they can use American Rescue Act funding to avoid another big spike in employers' contributions.
We learned late Friday that the newly-hired boss at the Holyoke Soldiers' Home is not going to take the job. This comes as the future of the bill to pay for a new soldiers' home is still in limbo, with some $260 million in federal government funding on the line. The House and Senate passed different versions and a conference committee has to iron out the differences. What do they still need to work out?
This conference committee appointed last week — I think people will be watching to see if they can strike a deal rather quickly. Because they also face an August 1 deadline to get the design phase of the new Holyoke Soldiers' Home in place, to get that project designed, so they can submit it to the feds to qualify for this federal funding.
The major difference — not in the construction of the Holyoke Soldiers' Home itself, but additional funds that the Senate put in to look at veterans' care, and the need for other services and facilities in other parts of the state that don't have easy access to Holyoke or the Chelsea soldiers' home.
They're also looking at whether or not to include a project labor agreement in this bill for the construction of the home, and what a project labor agreement would look like, in an effort to both use union labor, but also encourage diversity of firms — minority-owned firms, women-owned firms — to allow them to compete for contracts on this very big $400 million project.
This week, the Massachusetts Senate will release its version of a budget for the fiscal year that begins in July. Any big differences expected between this budget and the one already passed by the House?
Two things we'll be watching for: One, given the size of the revenues that the state collected in April, what does the bottom line look like on the Senate plan? Do they feel more comfortable spending more money than the House and the governor?
And it'll be also interesting to see how the Senate handles the controversial film tax credit. This is something the new House speaker Ron Mariano has protected throughout his career on Beacon Hill, but Senate Ways and Means Chairman Mike Rodrigues is not a big fan of the film tax credit, and the Senate has voted to limit it in the past.
