Rep. Kelly Pease attended the Jan. 1 swearing-in with wife Serena Pease and son Riley, 12.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
WESTFIELD — Two days after being sworn in for his third term on Jan. 1, state Rep. Kelly Pease spoke about his priorities for his next term, which he said remain the same: education, roads, the elderly and clean water.
“I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican, if education, roads, the elderly and clean water aren’t your priorities, I don’t know,” the Westfield Republican said.
Pease has served on the Joint Committees on Education and Higher Education and on the House and the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. A 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army, he also sat on the Joint Committee on Veterans and Foreign Affairs.
This year, he put down that he would like to be on the Transportation Committee, which will have new leadership after the retirement of long-time representative William Straus, in order to push for more Chapter 90 money.
“I did put that down as one of the committees I might be interested in sitting on,” he said. “They’re going to change the rules — I don’t know if they’ll mix up any of the committees.”
Pease said over the next two weeks new bills will be submitted, some of which will come from him, including a few education bills to try to be equitable in education. “We’re making sure we’re taking care of the kids and doing what is right.”
Concerned about the cost of providing education, Pease said he will continue to push for the Student Opportunity Act “to make sure we are increasing money to help the schools. We’ve got to help out our schools, especially around special education. Some of those requirements are quite expensive.”
Pease said schools have to pay for special education for students for which they do receive federal reimbursement, but not for all of the costs. “We need to make sure students are getting all of the services they need, but not killing school budgets,” he said.
The 4th Hampden District serves most of Westfield and all of Southampton, a town in Hampshire County which is a part of the Hampshire Regional School District. Pease said regional schools were promised 100% reimbursement for transportation, but have not received it.
“It’s getting better, but we’ll keep working to get as much reimbursement as possible,” he shared.
He added Gateway and Hampshire in this area are cutting services just to provide transportation.
Another area Pease is looking into came from a request from Westfield Public Schools Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski, who told him it would be easier for the district to retain teachers if the state would eliminate the master’s degree requirement. Currently, teachers can be hired with a bachelor’s degree if they get their master’s degree within five years. Pease said he will be talking to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education about maybe getting rid of that requirement. “May or may not become a bill,” he said.
He went on to say that he is fully supportive of permanent universal free school meals implemented last school year in Massachusetts, which he called “a huge thing,” adding that the statistics are undeniable that kids who are eating well, do better in school.
On the transportation side, Pease will be advocating for more money for local roads, the reason he asked to be put on the Transportation Committee.
“Chapter 90 money for roads has not increased in 15 years,” he said.
He added the state gives $200 million in Chapter 90 funds to cities and towns, while it takes in $800 million for diesel tax, “giving back one-quarter to the cities and towns that make up 74% of the roads in the state that aren’t state highways.”
Pease said in the last few years since he was elected, the state has instituted five different grant programs that award over a couple hundred million dollars on top of Chapter 90, but it is not always easy for smaller cities and towns to apply for the grants.
Another priority is making sure that seniors are being taken care of through tax credits, such as property tax credits that are helping to keep seniors in their homes.
He mentioned in particular that he was looking for the Windfall Tax relief bill to be signed by President Joe Biden, that would pave the way for public workers and their spouses to see an increase in their Social Security benefits. Biden signed the relief bill on Jan. 5.
“In our city and town, if the Windfall Tax relief gets signed by President Biden, it will be a big help,” Pease said on Jan. 3. He said one woman he met while knocking on doors told him she had worked in the private sector for 27 years, but when her husband, a government worker, died and she received a piece of his pension, her social security was penalized.
Pease said the Windfall elimination provision will be a good thing for public workers in Massachusetts who receive non-covered pensions and also qualify for social security based on other covered earnings.
In his last term, Pease was also a part of the Inter-agency PFAS Task Force, which put out a report on PFAS contamination in the state. He said over this month he will be signing onto a lot of PFAS bills.
“We started to push them through the end of the last session. We got a couple, but not enough.” Pease said he is looking for a lot of new PFAS regulations, “so we can get those forever chemicals out of products that contaminate everything. Until I sat on the task force, I didn’t know how prevalent it was.”
Two more bills that Pease is considering were brought to him by constituents; one of them a veteran who approached him about establishing a Cold War veterans plate. He said the military recently established a Cold Ward medal or certificate for veterans who served from the end of World War II until the Berlin Wall came down. His constituent asked for a plate to recognize service in the 1970s and 1980s.
”We’re looking at doing something like that,” he said.
Another issue he will investigate came from the city clerks in the two communities he serves, who have asked to not have the secretary of state send out ballot requests because it confuses voters.
“They think they’re getting ballots in the mail, but they’re getting requests. I would rather see them send out an education flier,” he said.
Pease said there would still be a vote by mail ballot that could be requested from the city clerk. He said nobody is looking to get rid of any voting options, just the confusion surrounding the process.
“I don’t know if we can,” he said.
Pease will also be keeping an eye on the immigration issue which he said cost the state a lot of money.
“When you’re paying $1 billion toward the shelters and only budgeted a couple of hundred million, it’s got to come from somewhere. We’ve got to get that under control,” he said.
Pease said he is looking forward to President Donald Trump bringing the border under control, and he is also looking for Gov. Maura Healey to step back from her original stance of protecting Massachusetts from Trump.
“That’s not the right stance. We’ve got to work with the new administration no matter who they are,” Pease said, adding that the state needs to look out for the constitutional rights of the citizens of Massachusetts.
He said the governor and some mayors in the state need to change the rhetoric that they’re not going to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “unless they’re willing to deal with the consequences of some of these bad actors. Cooperate with ICE — get rid of bad actors.”
Pease said 90% of the people are probably just trying to support their families. If the border is shut down, the rest of the problem will get more manageable, as long as there is not continual influx. “It’s a problem for cities and states to afford and try to provide the services,” he said.
