Healey signs $1.66 trillion IT bill into law – Sentinel and Enterprise

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey signed an information technology bonding bill into law Monday, while state officials pledged $1.66 billion in digital infrastructure investments to make it easier for people to interact with government services, including applying for unemployment insurance, filling out college financial aid forms, seeking child care financial assistance and accessing health records.

Healey said the bill, dubbed the FutureTech Act, will help solidify the state’s push to be a leader in applied artificial intelligence. The bill provides $25 million for AI projects, which Healey said would be augmented by the Legislature’s pending economic development bill, which is being negotiated in the Legislature, which is set to pump $100 million into an applied AI center.

“We’ve talked a lot about this administration’s desire to lean into applied AI in ways that benefit not only how the state delivers services to residents and businesses, but how our businesses and economic sector can thrive,” Healey said during a bill signing ceremony Monday afternoon. “And we think making applied AI a cornerstone of our economic development bill is really important. It’s further supported by this FutureTech Act.”

The state has already deployed AI to streamline complicated processes, including reviewing and speeding up how MassDOT’s Highway Division administers grant programs, said Chief Information Officer and Technology Services Secretary Jason Snyder.

The IT bonding package was approved by the House and Senate for a final amount of about $1.2 billion, but was raised slightly during conference negotiations. It authorizes $1.23 billion in borrowing over the next five years and uses about $400 million in federal funds intended to boost health and human services-related projects, according to Healey’s office.

The bill also provides for “enhancements to the technological capabilities” of the House and Senate chambers, which the House’s lead negotiator, Rep. Michael Finn, said are aimed at “improving voting technology in both chambers.” Each branch is allocated $5 million of its own, and joint House-Senate operations are also funded with $5 million.

When introducing his IT bonding bill in January, Healey said the state’s existing IT bonding authorization was set to expire in fiscal year 2025 and that renewing the commitment was essential as the state sits at “the crossroads of multiple large, transformational projects that will harden our cybersecurity posture, support IT capital efficiencies at the secretariat and agency levels, greatly improve the digital user experience to bring state government information and services to our residents, and look to the future of AI-augmented service delivery.”

In outlining the bill’s key provisions, Snyder highlighted the “employment transformation and modernization project,” which will create a new portal for employers and Massachusetts residents applying for unemployment insurance. Snyder also mentioned a new app for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, which he said will support “the most vulnerable residents of local housing authorities, improving their ability to house all Massachusetts residents.”

“When it comes to improving the delivery of government services to our residents and to our state and municipal workers, information technology opens that digital door to reach people where they are,” Snyder said. “The impact of IT on the services the state provides cannot be understated. To that end, we are already hard at work on many of the investments in this legislation.”

The IT bond bill establishes $30 million for a competitive matching grant program to be administered by the Executive Office of Management and Finance to assist municipalities and tribal governments with fiber broadband infrastructure construction and related projects, and $25 million for the Department of Revenue’s Local Services Division to issue grants to carry out the Community Compact Information Technology Grant Program established under an executive order by Healey.

The new law also includes a number of local items: $750,000 to be split between Canton, Stoughton and Avon for IT upgrades; $300,000 for IT upgrades at Gloucester City Hall; $100,000 for the Worcester Inspectional Services Department to run its online fire safety, health code and rental registration programs; $250,000 for Worcester to modernize traffic signal systems to improve traffic flow and increase safety for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists; $150,000 for Worcester to incorporate artificial intelligence into the city’s business processes; $200,000 for municipal fiber and communications upgrades at city buildings in West Boylston; $500,000 for IT upgrades for Braintree; $250,000 for technology upgrades and digitization of records at the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth; $15,000 for municipal technology upgrades to enable remote work at Blackstone; and $375,000 for Bridgewater State University’s security operations center.