Hello APA Members!  

Thanks to the efforts of our APA Executive Board and APA members across the state, our state representatives heard our requests, pleas, demands for the APA and MSCA contracts to be added to the closeout budget bill.  The APA and MSCA contracts were both added to an amendment to House Bill 4167 (https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/H4167/Amendments/House?pageNumber=3&direction=&sortColumn=&keyword=). Our friends in MTA Government Relations have said that the Senate is expected to take up the bill Tuesday and pass it, and it should hit Governor Healey’s desk on November 15th.  It should be noted that many other higher education contracts are on this supplemental budget bill, including AFSCME.

On behalf of the rest of the APA Executive Board, I sincerely thank all of you for your actions and efforts in calling attention to this bill – had APA, MSCA, and AFSCME members across the state not emailed, called, and wrote letters to our legislators to the extent we did, our contract funding would have been delayed.  This is a terrific example of how when all of us act, it has a real impact, or in the words of the MTA, “When we fight, we win!”

I hope to see many of you next week at our Annual Meeting at Bridgewater State University, and online via Zoom.  While we can take a brief moment to celebrate this victory, we will be at the negotiating table very soon and our work continues.

In solidarity,

-Seth Bean

President, Association of Professional Administrators