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Date: 4/11/2023
HATFIELD — State Sen. Jo Comerford (D-Northampton) paid a visit to the Hatfield Select Board on April 4 to offer some legislative updates for the 2023-24 session and answer questions pertaining to smaller towns such as Hatfield.
Comerford has entered her fifth year as a state senator and currently serves on several different statewide commissions. Aside from recently being appointed as the Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, Comerford was also recently chosen as assistant vice chair of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means and the vice chair of the newly created Joint Committee on Agriculture.
“It’s early days for senate leadership, but what I hope this affords me to talk about rural Western Massachusetts and the reality that ‘one size fits all’ policy doesn’t work for us out here,” Comerford said.
Comerford began the conversation by commending the Healey-Driscoll administration for establishing a director of rural affairs, which aims to promote economic development in rural areas of the commonwealth while meeting the unique needs of rural communities such as Hatfield. The hope is to improve access to grant programs for things like housing in rural communities that normally are not as prioritized.
“I feel like that will be a very important position,” Comerford said. “I believe Gov. [Maura] Healey and Lt. Gov. [Kim] Driscoll have heard the call for a rural agenda.”
The position, which is under the Executive Office of Economic Development, will aim to improve programs to allow for more rural-specific grants that affect housing and other aspects of these communities. Comerford said the state is currently looking for people to fill this position.
During the Hatfield meeting, Comerford also spoke of government aid and how the state needs to reassess Unrestricted General Government Aid and Chapter 90 aid for local transportation. She called UGGA a “key piece of government spending” for a place like Hatfield and is calling on the state to allocate funds more fairly.
Comerford also said that a discussion is currently underway to see ways in which Chapter 70 funding for schools can be more equitable since many wealthier communities have the ability to spend more per student than places like Hatfield can or places that have declining enrollment.
“I have filed a rural schools bill with Rep. [Natalie] Blais, and that I think will be useful in opening up the conversation about really what it means to have a rural school or a declining enrollment school,” Comerford said. “We’ve asked for more money for rural schools that would benefit Hatfield, and we can do so much more.”
Hatfield Select Board Chair Diana Syznal also brought up how Hatfield would also like the opportunity to pay for a higher percentage of health insurance for their employees, which the town believes would help with retention rates.
The town has tried to sit down with the state’s Group Insurance Commission — which provides and administers high-quality, affordable health insurance and other benefits to the commonwealth’s employees, retirees and their dependents and survivors — but Syznal said they have not been able to find a financial benefit with them.
“It’s a great program,” Syznal said, of GIC. “But, it just can’t seem to work.”
In response, Comerford said she will reach out to them and see what the problem is. She added that the current list of GIC communities seem to be on the wealthier side, which is not okay.
“Good insurance where we can get a good rate would be terrific,” Syznal said.
Readers can watch the clip of Comerford’s conversation with Select Board by visiting the HatfieldCommunityTV Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqIiqfFOUak.