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FITCHBURG — With the start of a new year, state Sen. John Cronin, D-Fitchburg, is looking at getting things done in several areas, and chief among them is increasing the local aid to cities and towns.
“That’s absolutely a priority,” Cronin said this week … “a boost in local aid.”
“The economy is everything,” Cronin said, reminding that the state budget must be balanced every year, at stipulated by law so, “state money to the cities and towns is contingent on the state and national economy.”
State Chapter 70 education aid was up the last couple of years for Fitchburg and Leominster, Cronin said, but particularly for the rural towns in this area including Ashby, Townsend and Groton, “state aid has not kept up with the rising cost of health care and declining student population.”
Cronin said Fitchburg saw a more than $8 million increase in Chapter 70 funding, which provides state dollars for schools’ operating costs, bringing its total allotment to over $86.2 million for the current school year. The city also received $10.7 million in unrestricted aide to help fund a variety of services.
One goal for this year would be to try to increase the minimum per-pupil aid amount.
That might help battle “the pressures that school departments are facing and cities and towns are facing in getting control over rising health care costs,” Cronin said. “Year over year we’ve seen double-digit increases … the rising rate of health care is unsustainable.”
Heath care
Another priority for Cronin this year will be trying to address that rising cost in health care.
He said the state can play a role in making sure more people have access to health care and in supporting the greater use of preventative medicine, to help limit more-expensive costs once people fall victim to various maladies.
He said it’s very difficult for a state to offset the type of changes that the federal government seems to be implementing in the Affordable Care Act plans, and the expiration of subsidies that kept it “affordable.”
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to extend the health care subsidies, but the bill now goes to the U.S. Senate, where it is expected to fail. Cronin said he’s hoping ongoing talks in the U.S. Senate will restore the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
And beyond that, he said, “a negative aspect of the Big, Beautiful Bill that passed, is that there will be a lot of people that will not have access to Medicaid. With the loss of insurance, more people will be showing up in emergency departments, and it will be more expensive in the end.”
Fitchburg housing boost
Cronin said one area where there has been recent progress is in housing.
“Over the past three or four years, we’ve brought back millions of dollars to revitalize Main Street in Fitchburg, converting two blighted properties in the downtown to housing. … It’s bearing real fruit, we’ve taken a number of properties that were historic, but were vacant and blighted, and turned them into (viable) housing.”
Cronin, along with state Rep. Michale Kushmerek, D-Fitchburg, also on Thursday highlighted $1 million in new aid to Fitchburg, which will be used to support housing production projects already underway. The funds, which were included in the Fiscal Year 2026 state budget, will be distributed between the city and the Fitchburg Redevelopment Authority, the city’s independent economic development agency tasked with facilitating infrastructure investments and development projects. Included in the final budget is $750,000 for the FRA, as well as an additional $304,000 direct funding to the city to further expand housing opportunities downtown.
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John Vincent
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