Testify today, send testimony and contact your legislators to help UMB

6/11/2019

Dear Colleague,

The Joint Higher Education on Higher Education Committee is meeting today in room A-1 from 10:30 until around 1 pm.

• Contact your legislators to ask them to contact the co-Chairs of the Higher Ed committee to urge the Committee pass the Cherish Act out of committee with a do-pass recommendation.  To find your legislators, click here.  For more information on the Cherish Act, which will give $43 million/year to UMB and over half a billion to the UMass System per year, click here.
• Senator Patricia Jehlen's Bill, S 749, will be heard, which asks for a commission to study the original construction of UMB and to make recommendations, possibly for debt relief for our campus.  Please attend and testify for this bill if you can; if you cannot testify, please submit written testimony to this committee or to the FSU@umb.edu.  Below is an excerpt of her bill:

Resolved, there shall be a special joint legislative commission to evaluate the original infrastructure debt associated with all repair and maintenance and capital construction-improvement projects completed at UMass Boston.

Data collected, studies, and reports prepared by or for UMass Boston, the University of Massachusetts President’s Office, UMass Building Authority, UMass Board of Trustees, and other related offices will be reviewed to assess the impact of the original infrastructure debt on the day-to-day operations of the UMass Boston campus. Upon completion of its review and evaluation, the commission will issue a report of its findings and recommendations, including but not limited to amounts of the debt that should either be reimbursed, paid off, and/or assumed by the Commonwealth instead of UMass Boston per a recommended schedule.

The full text is here: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/S749

• For more information on this hearing today, and to see all the bills being considered, go to: https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/3155

Sincerely,

Marlene Kim

FSU President

Professor, Economics

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