This bill simply extends the protection of the F.D.C.P.A (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 USCS § 1692c), to protect Massachusetts consumers against aggressive telephone calls from creditors the same way they are currently protected against such phone calls from collection agencies. Consumers who are being harassed by creditors would be able to send a Cease and Desist letter to the creditor, just as they may to a collection agency. The creditor will still be free to send written offers of settlement, threats to file suit, and other promises or threats of remedies which that creditor usually seeks.

Under a recent change in the unemployment law, workers who have completed a work assignment for a temporary agency are assumed to have quit (and thus would not qualify for UI) unless they can prove they sought another assignment from the agency. This bill will repeal the change to the unemployment law, allowing workers to qualify for unemployment as long as they have not refused an offer for suitable work.

This legislation would require that psychiatric patients be provided with access to the outdoors by adding as a sixth right- the right to daily fresh air- to the Five Fundamental Rights for Psychiatric Inpatients which already exists in the law. Currently the 5 fundamental rights include: telephone access, access to mail, receiving visitors, a humane environment and access to an attorney. This would require that all patients receiving services from the Department of Mental Health or any facility licensed by the Department be afforded this additional right.

This bill would increase the base upon which a retiree’s COLA is calculated from $12,000 to $16,000, which would increase from $360 to $480 the maximum annual cost of living adjustment

Currently, teachers who were laid off through no fault of their own because of budget cuts cannot purchase time as credible service in the retirement system. This bill would allow them to purchase that time.

This bill allows part-time faculty who teach at one or more state higher education institutions to be eligible for membership in the state retirement system, provided s/he teaches at least two three-credit courses per semester or four three or more credit courses per calendar year.

Currently, part-time municipal workers are barred by state law from negotiating for health care benefits. This bill would remove that prohibition, but would not require cities or towns to negotiate or provide such benefits.

This legislation would make new state employees immediately eligible for health insurance and other benefits under the GIC. Currently new state employees must wait 60 days before receiving health insurance. This bill would eliminate this barrier to health care coverage in the spirit of Chapter 58.

People 65 years of age and older currently have the option to defer paying their property taxes until such a time when their home is sold or conveyed. Under existing law, this is a local option that is capped at the maximum allowance under the senior circuit breaker for a single person who is not head of household, which is $49,000 for the 2008 tax year. Unfortunately, many seniors are denied this opportunity because the qualifying income level is too low. This penalizes ‘house rich and cash poor’ seniors living on a fixed income who exceed the current $40,000 threshold. This legislation proposes increasing the local option cap to $65,000, the circuit breaker level for a couple.

This legislation would update existing law to call for the certification of floor finishers and updates existing statutes to bring them into compliance with the Governor’s executive reorganization and current practices within the industry. It was filed after fatal fires, including one in Somerville, revealed dangerous floor refinishing practices.

This bill would require private institutions, such as colleges and universities, that employ sworn Campus Police Officers with law enforcement authority to make the non-exempt portions of their crime reports accessible to any person requesting the information. This is already provided by other public institutions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts under the Public Records Law.

This bill would expand the threat of domestic violence in judicial findings by expanding the definition to include a threat of injury to an animal. In domestic violence cases, abuse of an animal is often a harbinger of violence against family members.

The program requires a sex offender to be subject to mandatory treatment, random drug tests, unscheduled visits and restrictions on where they can go. The Framingham program, which has been recognized by the Department of Justice as a national model, has supervised more than 84 sex offenders, with a zero recidivism rate. This bill would expand the Parole Board’s intensive parole program for sex offenders in Framingham.

Exposed by the Boston Globe Spotlight team, debt collectors use unscrupulous practices to harass and threaten consumers into paying down debt that collection agencies purchase from creditors. Many of these consumers are elderly, victims of identity theft, or victims of mistaken identity. Debt collectors are able to seize cars, harass consumers, and abuse the small claim courts. This bill seeks to reform debt collection practices, and increase the amount of property consumers can exempt from collection.

A legislative change was made several years ago to extend from ten to thirty days the time-frame for pre-trail detainees to report back to the court. While this change reduced the backlogs for the courts, it increased for pre-trial detainees the number of “bed days.” This legislation aims to strike a compromise between the ten and thirty day rules in order to help reduce the number of pre-trial detainees, and therefore the cost of their detention.

This legislation requires for victims, to be notified by the prosecutor, in a timely manner, of all court proceedings related to the offense committed against the victim, by certified mail sent to the last known address of the victim as well as by a telephone call. The victim or witness shall thereafter maintain with the prosecutor a current telephone number and address.

This legislation would require that every law enforcement agency develop and adopt written policies based on established best practices for using an eyewitness to identify a suspect. In addition, this legislation would require that the Executive Office of Public Safety be responsible for promulgating regulations to ensure that all full-time municipal police officers are trained in eyewitness identification best practices by certified instructors, under a set, uniform curriculum. Eyewitness misidentification accounts for the overwhelming majority of wrongful convictions. Various eyewitness identification procedures can contribute directly to the outcome of a line-up, show-up, or photo-array by either prejudicing or else enhancing the objectivity and reliability of eyewitness identifications. Due to such disconcerting misidentification and wrongful conviction statistics, then-Attorney General Janet Reno established a 1998/99 multidisciplinary national task force on eyewitness identification reforms, which set forth a recommended set of scientifically sound eyewitness identification procedures. While many Massachusetts law enforcement agencies took the opportunity to revise their eyewitness identification policies, a 2008 study in the Massachusetts Law Review found that large gaps and variations persist in the policies of law enforcement agencies, their implementation, and also the training of law enforcement officers as regards eyewitness identification procedures. This legislation would ensure clearer policies, better implementation, and standardized training.

Current law requires that each charter school submit an annual report that includes a progress statement on the goals of the charter and a financial statement and that the commissioner of education collect annual data on the racial, ethnic and socio-economic make-up of the student enrollment of all charter schools in Massachusetts. This bill would require that the charter report its total net assets, the amount of funds transferred to a management company and the percentage of the school's budget spent on administration. If a charter school ceases to exist, a detailed financial accounting of school assets and equipment and supplies must be submitted to the commissioner of education within six months after closing. This bill would also require additional information to be collected, including data on administrators, teachers, students who leave the school, numbers of students under the care of DYS and DSS or are homeless, numbers of students on IEPS, or who are ELL, details regarding waiting list process and comparison of actual and projected enrollment.

This legislation would allow students who transition into a district after October 1 to be factored into the student census for purposes of calculating the Foundation Budget and, consequently, state financial aid to the school district. State aid to Massachusetts cities and towns should more accurately reflect district demographics by creating provisions to fund expenses related to transitory student enrollment. The transient student population has been largely ignored in terms of resources and a recent comparison of MCAS scores demonstrates a correlation between the transient statistics and students' achievement: the higher the transience, the lower the stability and the lower the standardized test scores. This indicates that these students require additional support from the receiving district than their counterparts who are permanent residents.

Several years ago, people testified to this Committee about the poor communications skills of many individuals serving as educational interpreters and teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing. This legislation addresses this problem by requiring standards for providing quality education to deaf and hard of hearing students in the Commonwealth.

This legislation would base charter school tuition payments from districts on the previous year’s enrollment, just as district’s Chapter 70 payments are. If there were an increase in charter school enrollment, the state would pay for the increase directly, as it does now, based on a declining percentage of the tuition, starting with 100% in the first year of an increase. Currently, charter school tuition for the first quarter is based on the school’s enrollment as projected in April. Statewide, charter schools enrolled 798 fewer students in FY06 than had been projected- which amounts to $7.2 million reduction in Ch. 70 funds for public schools in the first quarter to pay charter schools for students they never enrolled. When- and if- adjustments are made in preceding quarters, the public school district has already formulated its budget, hired its teachers and set its class sizes – and the restored money goes to the general fund, rather than the school department. This proposed language would correct this inequity without disadvantaging charter schools.

This legislation aims to update the animal control laws, which are out-dated, not uniform, and largely based on the county system. Among other things, the bill would update fees and fines that create a new revenue stream to fund and require training for animal control officers and set up a low-income spay and neuter program with the goal of ameliorating abandoned animals in the Commonwealth. The bill would also improve the dangerous dog law.

This bill would establish a homelessness prevention/early intervention program within the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) to give DTA the tools to help families and individuals remain housed. DTA staff would conduct regular housing stability screenings to assess if the families and individuals in their cash and nutritional assistance programs are at risk for homelessness.

This bill will make employees eligible for 12 weeks of job-protected, paid leave to recover from serious illness or injury, to care for a seriously ill or injured family member, or to care for a newborn, newly adopted, or foster child. The employee will be eligible for temporary disability benefits equal to 66 percent of his or her salary, plus a $25 per week allowance. Benefits will be funded through employer contributions to the new fund. Costs are estimated at $2 a week per worker. A similar bill was passed in California.

Would require large insurers to devote at least ninety percent of their total annual Massachusetts-associated revenues on health services for its policyholders. Smaller companies would be held to an 85-15 care-share ratio.

This legislation would require insurers that have contracts with the Commonwealth under the GIC, MassHealth or Commonwealth Care to devote at least ninety percent of their total annual Massachusetts-associated revenues on health services for their policyholders.

The Open Meeting Law, in Chapter 75 section 4 of the Massachusetts General Laws, provides for all meetings of a governmental body to be open to the public. In all other public institutions, including community colleges and public schools, faculty have the right to attend any executive session at which they are being discussed, including discussions about tenure. Unfortunately, the University of Massachusetts Trustees do not believe that the protections of the Open Meeting Law apply to tenure votes and discussions. This legislation would explicitly guarantee that the protections for individuals who are being discussed in executive session would be extended to faculty members being considered for tenure.

Studies have shown that women are paid less than their male counterparts in comparable jobs. The purpose of this legislation is to further define the term “comparable” because of legal confusion resulting from a court case. This bill would delineate four objective characteristics to consider in defining “comparable work:” skill, effort, responsibility, and work conditions.

This bill will create more fairness for public employees in part-time and contingent jobs. Three key elements are: equal pay for part-time and contingent workers doing the same work as permanent employees regardless of employment status, requiring comparable benefits, and requiring the state to set standards for state service contractors employing workers in part-time and other contingent jobs.

Would void agreements that prospectively waive important employment protections. This bill prohibits employers from opting out of civil rights laws. This legislation is a reaction to the increasing practice or requiring employees, as a condition of employment, to waive their rights even before a dispute arises. This legislation is supported by the Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association.

This legislation would put Massachusetts alongside the increasing number of other states that restrict access to birth records. Only a handful of states (including Massachusetts) continue to have unrestricted access to birth and other vital records. In a time of increasing identity theft, this legislation would restrict the number of people who have access to birth records to the child seeking his or her own birth record; (2) the child’s parent(s), legal guardian, conservator, attorney, or physician; (3) a law enforcement or other investigatory official whose performance of his or her legal duties entitles him or her to the information contained in the birth certificate”, or upon judicial order. It would also restrict access to the examination of records and returns of marriage records, or of copies of such records in the department of public health, shall not be permitted except upon proper judicial order, or upon request of a person seeking his own birth or marriage record, or his attorney, physician, parent, guardian, or conservator.

Would require DPH to establish standards for medical diagnostic equipment. There is widespread evidence of disparities in health care experiences and outcomes among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. But there also is growing evidence that people with disabilities face serious disparity in care because of the inaccessibility of, among other things, diagnostic medical equipment. For example, women with major mobility problems are 40% less likely to get Pap smears and 30% less likely to have mammograms than other women.

Would require any health care facility, physician or health care provider, prior to ordering an HIV/AIDS test, to inform the patient that the test is planned, provide information about the test, inform the patient of the treatment options in the event the test returns positive, and advise the patient that he or she has the right to decline the test. The proposed amendment would also guarantee that no person shall be denied medical care because he or she elects not to be tested for HIV/AIDS. These proposed requirements are consistent with the CDC’s 2006 Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing. Current law requires written consent for an HIV/AIDS test.

This legislation would prohibit the sale and use of any floor finishing product with a flashpoint less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2006, a multi-stakeholder task force, comprising labor, industry, community and safety representatives, unanimously called for legislation that would prohibit the use and sale of floor finishing products with a flashpoint below 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This bill is universally supported by companies that distribute floor products. These companies agree that these products should be removed from the market but need for it to be done legislatively in order to level the playing field for all distributors.

An Act Relative to Floor Finishing Products prohibits the use of highly flammable wood floor finishing products that can ignite at temperatures of less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The measure was proposed by an industry-labor-community Floor Finishing Safety Task Force. The Task Force was established by MassCOSH with the leadership of Marcie Goldstein Gelb in response to the deaths of three floor sanders who were killed in a fire in Somerville. Since that time many more fires in the Commonwealth have been attributed to flammable floor finishing chemicals. The Metro Boston Arson Investigation Association, an association of state troopers and fire fighters, joined the Task Force in endorsing the bill.

This bill would protect against the tragedies that have occurred in my district and across the state. Rather than placing both workers and the public in danger while forcing firefighters to deal with the consequences of dangerous and unnecessary chemicals, we should act quickly to prevent such fires from occurring in the first place by prohibiting dangerous and unnecessary flammable products from being used.

This bill amends the existing seat belt statute to allow primary enforcement, which means law enforcement may stop motorists for the offense of not wearing a seat belt. This is the law in most states. In addition, this bill would double existing violation fines from $25 to $50.

Boston and its surrounding neighborhoods are a labyrinth to many- residents and tourists alike. This bill would require the posting of street signs to help demystify the streets of the Commonwealth and in so-doing, make them safer. Such posting could benefit public safety and make improve tourists’ experiences.

Nearly half of the private sector employees in the Commonwealth do not get a single paid sick day and among low-wage workers the percentage is much higher. Employees reporting to work while sick, or while a child or elderly parent is sick, cost employees, employers, and society. This legislation would provide 7 paid sick days per year for any illness, injury or health condition that requires staying home, or professional medical care, as well as attending routine medical appointments. This benefit would be available for an employee’s use, or for an employee to care for his/her child, spouse, parent, or parent of spouse.