Five Questions With State Rep. Brad Jones

In our continuing effort to bring you comprehensive local coverage, Reading Patch, in cooperation with Lynnfield Patch and North Reading Patch, has created a new feature where we bring your questions to State Rep. Brad Jones.

Below follow Jones' responses to five questions taken from, or inspired by, those asked by our readers.

If you have a question you would like to appear in a future eddition of "Ask Your Official," write it in the comments or email the editor for your Patch.

Patch: In Lynnfield, a $1.5 million budget deficit must be closed or more than 50 municipal employees could find themselves out of work. Outside of increased local aid, what can the state do to help cities and towns that have been slammed by falling revenues and rising costs?

Jones: Outside of more revenues, the biggest help is more tools by which a town can address its expense side. Clearly the biggest of these is changing the current paradigm relative to municipal health care.

P: As the state's House Republican Leader, do you have any new initiatives planned that could help make the state's government smaller and more efficient?

J: MassHealth’s budget has been a challenge for this state for years. MassHealth and other programs that support  health care for the state’s low and moderate-income residents accounts for over 35% of the states’ budget. A necessary step that we need to take to get this budget under control and promote efficiency is to transition all MassHealth fee for service and Primary Care Clinician plan members into a Managed Care Organization (MCO). The MassHealth MCO plans that are currently in place have proven to be effective in controlling costs while maintaining high quality. The savings that would result are estimated to be $100 million annually. Given MassHealth’s growing enrollment, state government needs to take this vital step towards managed care organizations to contain what is such a significant piece of the budget. 

P: Do you have a sense of how your district will change based on the recent census? If the district shrinks, which town will you likely cover less of?

J: It's still early in the redistricting process to know how the numbers will play out.  Currently, cities and towns are redrawing their precinct lines to create more equitably sized precincts. Once this process is completed in June, we will start redrawing state lines. That being said, the 2010 redistricting numbers show that the 20th Middlesex district needs to lose at least 409 people to be within the upper portion of the ideal range. While we can speculate about what the District will look like at the end of this process, the difficult part is in addressing the gains and losses in surrounding communities. 

P: Reading, Wakefield and Melrose recently got a planning grant to decide how to improve the transportation corridor from Downtown Reading to Oak Grove. How might this program ultimately change Reading? How has this program changed other communities?

J: The transit grant received by Reading, Melrose, and Wakefield is for $25,000 in improvements to the Main Street Corridor, linking the Reading Depot with the Oak Grove MBTA station. These improvements will improve the mobility of our citizens in Reading by better facilitating access to the MBTA and Boston. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council awarded this grant in the hope of identifying opportunities for bike paths, Zipcars, and shuttles, and I believe this will bring greatly benefit our citizens that rely on public transportation options. 

P: What do you think of model schools and how they're used across the region?

J: The Model School Program gives school districts the option to improve and optimize current spaces using new green, sustainable construction designs, and allows cities and towns to save millions in construction costs through state reimbursements.  It seems like a great program that has already been used successfully in over 10 schools across the state.