Sara Gagne-Holmes, current deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, will serve as acting commissioner until Gov. Janet Mills announces a formal nominee. (Maine DHHS photo)
Deputy Commissioner Sara Gagné-Holmes will serve as the acting commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services starting June 1, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
The appointment by Gov. Janet Mills comes after outgoing Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew announced her resignation from the post to serve as the director of health care reform for the Century Foundation, a think tank in Washington, D.C., and to teach at Harvard University.
“I look forward to the opportunity to build on Commissioner Lambrew’s transformative leadership of the Department and to advancing our vital work during this transition,” Gagné-Holmes said.
Gagné-Holmes, a Sanford native, has been in her current role with the department’s senior leadership team since 2019. She went to Bowdoin College for her undergraduate degree and graduated from the University of Maine School of Law. Gagné-Holmes practiced health care law before serving as a health policy and legal advisor under former Gov. John Baldacci.
“Having served as Deputy Commissioner for more than five years, she deeply understands the operations of the Department and will ensure that it remains in capable hands as I continue to consider candidates to succeed Commissioner Lambrew and carry forward the important work of advancing the health and welfare of Maine people,” Mills said.
The governor is expected to name an official nominee to replace Lambrew in the coming weeks. That person will go before the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee for a hearing and receive final confirmation by the Maine Senate.
AnnMarie Hilton grew up in a suburb of Chicago and studied journalism at Northwestern University. Before coming to Maine, she covered education for newspapers in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Elena’s Way is a shelter operated by Preble Street for individuals experiencing homelessness as well as complex physical and behavioral health needs who cannot access any other shelter. (AnnMarie Hilton/ Maine Morning Star)
This past winter, the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter in Waterville served twice as many individuals in their warming shelter than the year before. The shelter is one of four low-barrier options across the state, all of which have been increasingly stretched with the ongoing, overlapping challenges of drug use and the high cost of housing, among others.
The shelter’s chief executive officer Katie Spencer White joined with her counterparts to warn lawmakers in December about the urgent need for additional support.
The supplemental budget that passed in April included $2.5 million per year for the next three years to support privately operated low-barrier shelters. The staff and volunteers who are normally left to host bake sales and rely on private philanthropy to provide a bed at night for people who would otherwise sleep outside say that additional funding is critical.
“That kind of relief is going to be incredibly helpful,” said Mark Swann, executive director of Preble Street in Portland.
For some of the facilities, that money could truly be a lifeline. As Swann, Spencer White and the other low-barrier shelter representatives told the Legislature’s Housing Committee, they were at risk of closing because of a combined $4 million deficit.
Low-barrier shelters accept guests regardless of substance use, criminal involvement, mental illness or other ongoing needs. This service is much needed, but it can be costly to provide because they often need more robust staff and resources such as overdose reversal medications
Preble Street runs two low-barrier shelters in Portland with a total deficit of about $2.5 million, Swann said. While it is not yet determined how much of the money will go to each shelter, Swann said the funding has the potential to cut the deficit in half.
Additionally, Preble Street has been working on a plan to take over Hope House, the low-barrier shelter in Bangor that announced it would be forced to close if it couldn’t secure a financial partner. The plan isn’t final yet, but Swann said the additional funding is a “game-changer” for the potential partnership.
“It gives us hope that we can keep our shelters open and possibly take over the Hope House shelter in Bangor,” Swann said.
Penobscot Community Health Care, which currently runs Hope House, said the money will allow the shelter to stay open while it continues the process of transferring operations to a new partner.
Spencer White of the mid-Maine shelter agreed the additional funding is helpful, although it won’t solve all of the challenges the low-barrier shelters face.
“What we received through the supplemental budget stabilizes us for today,” said Spencer White.
Shelters aren’t immune to growing costs from inflation, or from the increased need that Spencer White said they’ve seen in Somerset and Kennebec counties.
For example, the warming center is currently funded for 20 beds, Spencer White said, but on many nights there were closer to 30 people sleeping there. Spencer White said the shelter isn’t turning people away — especially in the winter when it is more unsafe to sleep outside at night — but that means the cost of those 10 additional beds aren’t accounted for.
Attempts with legislation
In January, the Housing Committee took up two bills that sought to increase the ongoing funding for homeless shelters, one of which specified $2.5 million for low-barrier facilities. The bills were combined, with some funding still earmarked specifically for low-barrier shelters.
The committee also added a study component to the bill to look into the root causes of homelessness.
The final bill (LD 2136) ultimately received bipartisan support from the Housing Committee and passed both chambers of the Legislature. The bill itself officially died because it was not explicitly funded by the budget committee. However, Rep. Drew Gattine (D-Westbrook) introduced an eleventh-hour addition to the final budget that included the three-year funding for low-barrier shelters, as well as money to start a subsidy for homeless students and an eviction prevention pilot program.
Though Spencer White found the proposed study interesting, she said it didn’t ask the right question. The root cause of homelessness is the state’s shortage of affordable housing, she said. Rather, she argued that lawmakers and other people working to solve the problem should learn more about who shelters are serving, what services they need and how to afford it.
AnnMarie Hilton grew up in a suburb of Chicago and studied journalism at Northwestern University. Before coming to Maine, she covered education for newspapers in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Richard Compagnon, the shelter manager at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter at 19 Colby St. in Waterville, points to items the organization provides for those who need them, even if they do not stay at the shelter. Maine’s homeless crisis has left many of the state’s shelters in financial straits. Without more funding, some, including the shelter in Waterville, could be forced to close this year. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel
With the state’s homeless shelters struggling, legislators have what might be their final opportunity Friday to prevent some shelters from closing for good.
WATERVILLE — Homelessness in Maine surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and has not stopped since. While some of the state’s shelters have expanded to meet growing demand, heavy workloads and subsequent financial strain have forced others to close. Those still operating say they might soon follow suit.
Particularly at risk are two of the state’s five low-barrier shelters, which admit individuals regardless of their sobriety, mental health status or criminal history with the goal of providing immediate refuge and necessities to those experiencing homelessness.
Low-barrier shelters make up the bottom of the safety net, providing not only a place to stay but an array of services. Without additional funding, however, shelters in Waterville and Bangor could be forced to close this year, leaving Maine without any low-barrier shelters outside of Portland.
The Maine Legislature and Mills administration have made historic investments in recent years in services and programs for the unhoused, and in housing in general. It has not been enough, however, to abate the crisis of affordable housing that has left a record number of Mainers without stable shelter.
Lawmakers are set to return Friday to the State House in Augusta for what might be the final opportunity to save a number of the state’s homeless shelters, including those in Waterville and Bangor.
If those shelters close, advocates say, people who would otherwise sleep at a shelter would likely have nowhere to go, except back onto the streets. They would also lose access to the array of services each organization provides, leaving many unhoused people without rent assistance, warm meals, drug rehabilitation programs and more.
Mark Swann, the executive director of Preble Street, which runs two low-barrier shelters in Portland and provides other services to the unhoused, says the opioid epidemic, COVID-19 pandemic and housing crisis have changed the nature of homelessness in recent years. “It’s been a perfect storm, sadly, in creating more of a need than we’ve ever had before,” he says. Sun Journal file
“A PROBLEM BIGGER THAN WE CAN SOLVE”
Advocates say homelessness is the result of a combination of personal circumstances and broader societal crises that have worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think a combination of the opioid epidemic and the COVID crisis has changed the work we do and the need for the services,” said Mark Swann, executive director of Preble Street, an organization that runs two low-barrier shelters in Portland and provides other services to the unhoused. “I think the combination of those two things, and then housing costs and gentrification — it’s been a perfect storm, sadly, in creating more of a need than we’ve ever had before.”
The median price of a home in Maine is higher than ever, increasing more than 200% over the past decade to about $360,000 in 2023. Meanwhile, Maine’s median income has risen much more slowly, reaching $70,000 last year.
The state is also facing a severe housing shortage, with a study last year finding Maine needs to build 84,000 homes over the next six years to accommodate a growing population.
Those factors have combined to create a housing market that is pricing out vulnerable, low-income residents, said Katie Spencer White, CEO of the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter & Services in Waterville, one of the shelters struggling to stay open.
“Maine is at an inflection point where we have more and more people who are not able to afford rent anywhere in the state,” she said. “I totally understand when you can’t find an affordable apartment in Camden or Portland, but when we get to where you can’t find an affordable apartment in Augusta, or Waterville, or Skowhegan, that’s a problem.”
As a result, Maine’s shelters have become the net catching people struggling with all sorts of problems, according to Spencer White.
The Waterville organization provides service for more than 300 people a year and operates about 60 beds each night. Each of the people it serves, Spencer White says, is there for a different reason and requires unique attention.
Linda Owens, who stays at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter at 19 Colby St. in Waterville, wipes cabinets Wednesday in the shelter’s kitchen. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel
“It’s a lot of seniors on fixed incomes and a lot of folks with disabilities,” she said. “It’s people with substance abuse disorder, mental illness and criminal histories. It’s a lot of different people who all have their own reasons for coming into our shelters.”
Shelters are doing what they can to serve the unhoused people who come through their doors. But it is the lack of affordable housing that is forcing so many people to seek out their help, and pushing their budgets into the red.
“That’s a problem that’s bigger than we can solve,” Spencer White said. “It’s not just about shelter funding. We’ve got more clients than we can ever possibly serve. We need to address the reasons why.”
“WE SIMPLY CANNOT DO IT ANYMORE”
The biggest hurdle all homeless shelters face is they do not make money.
Unlike hospitals, ambulances and other frontline service providers, shelters do not charge their clients for services, and they do not receive reimbursement from insurance companies. Many rely on private fundraising and philanthropy to stay afloat.
That hurdle is even higher for low-barrier shelters, which are much more expensive to run because of the significant challenges faced by their clients, Swann said.
“I think all shelters in Maine — domestic violence shelters, family shelters — struggle, for sure,” he said. “I think the difference with low-barrier shelters is that the costs are higher to run a low-barrier shelter than to run a general shelter, and that’s because the population we serve has higher needs.”
Shelter employees must be trained in first aid, including CPR and use of an automated external defibrillator, or AED. They are also trained to build rapport with residents, de-escalate conflicts and administer Narcan to reverse overdoses, often doing so several times a week.
And like other businesses across Maine, the state’s shelters have been battered by the rising costs of labor, gasoline, rent and more, Spencer White said.
Katie Spencer White: via KJ
“What a lot of folks don’t realize is that we’re a business, and so we have the same costs to operate that any business does,” she said. “Costs have gone up post-pandemic, and there’s no one to pass that cost on to. Revenues have stayed flat, but the costs have gone up significantly, like every other business. You can’t pay people $11 an hour. They need a livable wage.”
As a result of these issues, Maine’s five low-barrier shelters operate at a significant deficit each year.
The Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter has an annual budget of about $2 million, Spencer White said. The shelter at 19 Colby St. in Waterville receives less than $300,000 annually in federal funding and relies of philanthropy, grants and fundraising to make up the difference. Spencer White said 77% of its budget is raised through private, often small-dollar donations.
While Kennebec County and the city of Waterville each gave the shelter $200,000 in one-time funding in February, Spencer White says the money will only sustain the shelter for a few months, and the facility will close before year’s end without immediate assistance.
At Hope House, a low-barrier shelter in Bangor, the situation is even more dire. The 56-bed shelter is the state’s second largest and operates a deficit of about $800,000 each year. It will close in October without sustained funding from the state, according to Lori Dwyer, president and CEO of Penobscot Community Health Care, which owns the shelter.
In written testimony before the Maine Legislature, Dwyer said that years of stagnant funding and increasing demand have prompted Hope House and many other shelters to consider closing for good. Each year, she said, Maine’s shelters operate at a cumulative deficit of nearly $4 million.
“The cumulative impact of years of flat funding has led to this point,” Dwyer said. “Hope House is a high-functioning, professional shelter with a long history of innovation and commitment to the community. Without a designated, ongoing revenue stream, we simply cannot do it anymore.”
LEGISLATURE’S LAST CHANCE?
The Legislature this year considered a number of bills related to homeless shelter funding. Ultimately, the Democrat-led appropriations committee allocated $2.5 million annually for shelters in the supplemental budget, which also includes funding for affordable housing development and rent relief meant to make homelessness less likely.
The money provides a small lifeline, but shelter providers around the state say it is simply not enough.
In testimony before the Legislature, Dwyer of Bangor’s Hope House said the funding will not keep the shelter’s doors open, and will cover only 60% of the annual $4 million deficit racked up by low-barrier shelters statewide each year.
When lawmakers return to the State House on Friday to consider vetoes from Gov. Janet Mills, they could also decide to fund additional bills, including L.D. 2136, which would provide significant ongoing funding to low-barrier shelters, though that appears a long shot.
Greg Payne, Maine’s senior housing policy adviser, says the state has heard their concerns and is working to increase funding for low-barrier and other homeless shelters.
Greg Payne, the senior adviser on housing policy for Gov. Janet Mills, says the state plans to use funds from the opioid settlement to help pay for the operation of homeless shelters. Portland Press Herald file
In addition to the $2.5 million for low-barrier shelters, Payne said the state plans to provide millions more in additional funding from the money Maine will receive as part of the nationwide opioid settlement. Maine is to receive about $235 million over the next 20 years or so.
Some of that money should go to shelters because of how involved they are with the state’s opioid epidemic, Payne said. He said he is optimistic the funds could close the funding gap for low-barrier shelters, in conjunction with the $2.5 million that low-barrier shelters now receive annually.
He said the state also hopes to reduce the burden on all shelters by developing housing units as quickly as possible through revamped zoning laws, new developments and additional funding for communities.
“While we’re kind of focusing on increasing housing supply,” Payne said, “the most painful consequence of not having enough homes in the meantime is that homelessness is a virtual inevitability. And if we’re not making sure people are inside and getting support, things are a whole lot worse than they otherwise would be.”
In the meantime, shelter operators are waiting to see if help will arrive in time.
Spencer White says the funding approved so faris a good first step, but it is far from what is needed to really help her shelter and many others. She said it will sustain them for only a few months at best.
If nothing more comes through soon, she said, several shelters will be forced to close in the next few months.
“Without funding for Maine’s shelters,” Spencer White wrote in a Morning Sentinel op-ed this week, “far too many Mainers will literally be left out in the cold.”
(Editor’s note: The annual budget deficit of the Hope House is $800,000. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect amount. It was a reporting error.)
Dylan Tusinski is a general assignment reporter at the Morning Sentinel covering Winslow, Vassalboro, Belgrade, and other communities in northern Kennebec County. He graduated from Colorado State University in 2023, double majoring in political science and journalism & media communications. While in college, Dylan wrote about news, politics, art, entertainment and more for The Rocky Mountain Collegian, one of the oldest student-run newspapers in the country.
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, released her $71 million spending addition to last year’s biennial budget earlier this month. (Jim Neuger/Maine Morning Star)
The Mills administration defended its proposal as striking the balance ‘between making timely investments to address urgent needs…and saving money to ensure that our state continues to stand on strong financial fiscal footing.’
Advocates and some lawmakers on Monday sharply criticized aspects of Gov. Janet Mills’ supplemental budget plan that would delay or cut health expansion initiatives, child care subsidies and social service programs.
Mills, a Democrat, released her $71 million spending addition to last year’s biennial budget earlier this month. The plan includes investments in public safety, health care, housing, and child welfare, but also proposes stashing $107 million in a new reserve for the next biennium — a provision both progressives and conservatives have criticized.
The budget is now in the hands of the Legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, which on Monday held a joint hearing with the Health and Human Services Committee on health care-related spending within the plan.
Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew, who represented the Mills administration at the hearing, told lawmakers that the budget proposal appropriately weighs current needs with fiscal caution.
“The supplemental budget is balanced, prudent and responsible, and it advances the governor’s long-held belief that we must continue to invest in the people of Maine — our greatest asset,” Lambrew said. “That is why the governor’s proposal strikes the balance between making timely investments to address urgent needs — like public safety, mental health, housing, education and health care — and saving money to ensure that our state continues to stand on strong financial fiscal footing.”
However, many of those testifying at Monday’s hearing were not convinced, arguing that while the budget contains many admirable investments, several provisions would be detrimental to vulnerable Mainers.
Medicare Savings expansion rollback
One frequent target of those testifying was Mills’ proposal to rollback an expansion of the Medicare Savings Program that was approved as part of last year’s biennial budget. The expansion aims to help low-income retirees by raising the threshold for income eligibility and eliminating an asset test. It was supposed to be implemented by March 1, opening the program up to 19,000 additional people.
Lambrew said the administration believes with state revenues slowing — along with high drug costs and an aging population — the expansion would not be sustainable.
Many testifying blasted the proposed reversal, though. Fran Seeley of Portland said the program would lead to thousands of dollars in savings for older Mainers. In her case, Seeley said it would provide her with sufficient funds to pay her electricity and heating bill.
Seeley argued that Mills’ proposal to halt the expansion and save the state $14 million would create those savings “on the backs of financially-vulnerable, lower-income Mainers.”
“This is a social injustice we must not allow,” she said.
Jess Maurer of the Maine Council on Aging added that older residents are struggling with the rising costs of food, housing, health care and other basic necessities and that providers are seeing an increase in evictions of such people. Rolling back the Medicare Savings Program expansion is the last thing older Mainers need, she said. She also noted that although Maine would save $14 million by nixing the expansion, it would also forfeit $38 million in matching federal dollars.
Child care program delays
Proposed delays in state funding meant to stabilize the child care workforce also came under heavy criticism.
Providers have repeatedly told lawmakers that the state’s child care industry is in crisis, with facilities operating on extremely tight margins that makes it difficult to adequately pay workers, leading to staffing shortages that create a lack of available slots for families.
To help address the issue, lawmakers and Mills in last year’s biennial budget doubled stipends for child care workers and also provided an ongoing stipend to child care workers with young children in the subsidy program in an effort to recruit and retain staff.
After telling providers that the doubled stipend would be available this spring, Mills has proposed delaying implementation until July 1 and also asked the Legislature to turn the child care worker subsidy program into a limited two-year initiative.
“I hear a lot about how Maine won’t wait, but it seems like on this issue, Maine is definitely waiting. The situation in Maine regarding childcare is dire. … The last thing that we should be doing is going back on our commitments or scaling back our relief” – Senate President Troy Jackson
Lambrew emphasized that the state is not doing away with either of those programs but simply needs more time to implement them.
But that didn’t go over well with providers.
“It’s little wonder folks lose faith in state government,” said Chrissie Davis, a child care provider in Skowhegan, in testimony read by another person. “Child care providers are real people, serving real people’s children on a daily basis [and] trying to pay our ever increasing bills each week. We don’t have the luxury of pushing our financial obligations off for months or a year.”
Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook), who sponsored the initial bill to double worker stipends, also blasted Mills’ proposal.
“I hear a lot about how Maine won’t wait, but it seems like on this issue, Maine is definitely waiting. The situation in Maine regarding childcare is dire. … The last thing that we should be doing is going back on our commitments or scaling back our relief,” Jackson said.
Change in food stamps eligibility
Mills’ proposed budget also removes a provision within the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that allows asylum seekers to receive benefits while they are looking for employment after receiving their work authorization.
Mills’ budget does include $5.4 million in SNAP funding due to increased enrollment in the program. But the proposal to eliminate the hardship exemption — the initiative that allows people to receive benefits after getting work authorization — sparked significant pushback.
DHHS said the proposal is to help control costs while ensuring others can continue to access the program.
But Simane Ibrahim of Maine Access Immigrant Network said the change would cause significant problems. She noted that there is often a significant delay between when immigrants receive work authorization and when they get a job. The SNAP program is a crucial bridge that helps people survive during that time, she said.
“We have people who come to us who are starving,” Ibrahim said.
“This is a retraumatization, it’s inhumane,” she added of Mills’ proposal.
Kathy Kilrain del Rio of Maine Equal Justice also criticized the plan, calling the elimination of the hardship exemption egregious given the frequent delays in people finding jobs. And along with rejecting that proposal, she called for lawmakers to ensure all immigrants can access MaineCare benefits, a long-time goal of health care advocates that was not included in Mills’ budget plan.
General Assistance program adjustments
Mills’ budget proposed adding $5 million to reimburse municipalities for general assistance program costs, which is meant to be a program of last resort to help people meet basic needs such as food, housing and utilities.
Municipalities and advocates said those funds are needed. But they asked lawmakers to strike another part of the governor’s budget that would prevent municipalities from exceeding the maximum amount of assistance to any applicant for more than one month within a year-long period.
Portland Mayor Mark Dion spoke against the proposed change. While he said he agrees with one of the Mills administration’s stated reasons for the reform — to move away from putting unhoused people up in hotels because of the expense of that solution — he argued municipalities need the ability to stay flexible enough to help those struggling with housing insecurity.
“This cap [on GA assistance levels], by its very nature, threatens our ability to respond to those needs,” Dion said.
Nursing homes and residential care challenges
In her budget, Mills also proposed a $10 million allocation to support rate reimbursement reform for nursing facilities — a sector that has faced many of the same challenges as the child care industry — in an attempt to incentivize staff retention and spur high quality service.
Maine Health Care Association President Angela Westhoff said while she appreciates that proposed investment, it’s not enough to support the needs of the nursing home workforce. Westhoff said inflation, a labor shortage and an aging population mean the cost of providing nursing and residential care has skyrocketed and that MaineCare reimbursement rates continue to lag behind. That’s a significant reason why she said nine nursing homes have closed in the last three years alone.
Although reforms to reimbursement rates are slated to begin in 2025, Westhoff said nursing and residential care facilities need help now, telling lawmakers that a $31 million allocation would provide a meaningful start toward addressing the issues such centers face.
“If the budget advances as drafted, Maine will continue to lose access to nursing homes and residential care facilities,” she warned.
Evan Popp studied journalism at Ithaca College. He joins Maine Morning Star following three years at Maine Beacon writing about statewide politics. Before that, he worked for the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper and interned at the Progressive magazine, ThinkProgress and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Andover educators struck illegally in November and made big gains. The Massachusetts Teachers Association is pushing to make such strikes legal. Photo: Andover Education Association.
A wildly successful, illegal three-day strike by the Andover Education Association in November has reverberated statewide for educators in Massachusetts.
The lowest-paid instructional assistants got a 60 percent wage jump immediately. Classroom aides on the higher end of the scale got a 37 percent increase.
Members won paid family medical leave, an extra personal day, fewer staff meetings, and the extension of lunch and recess times for elementary students.
Andover is 20 miles north of Boston, and the strike involved 10 schools.
For 10 months and 27 bargaining sessions, the Andover School Committee had insisted that none of these demands was possible. But by the end of the first day of the strike, they had ceded many items. By day three, they agreed to almost all of the union’s demands.
Public school workers can’t legally strike in Massachusetts—but Andover’s is just one of a series of school unions that have struck over the last four years, defying the ban, and in some cases paying heavy fines as a result.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association is pushing for legislation that would legalize public sector strikes after six months of bargaining.
OPENING UP MEETINGS
The wins at Andover come after years of building rank-and-file power and democracy within the Andover Education Association (AEA).
When President Matt Bach and his slate won leadership in 2019, they startled the district by refusing to meet privately with the superintendent, insisting that all meetings would include at least one member.
The new leaders opened up union meetings and budgets. They shared union budget details, including that coffers had been significantly depleted by leadership travel to conferences. They encouraged discussion of critical issues, and the union started organizing building by building.
The first big fight was at South Elementary School, where a bullying principal was targeting teachers. The new union leaders sent out a survey about the school climate, but the recently deposed union leaders alleged that those asking for the survey were themselves the bullies.
Siding with the former union leaders, the district began an investigation and interviewed dozens of teachers. Instead of being intimidated, members got angry and organized a rally to call out the bullying. Under this pressure, the principal and the head of human resources were removed by the superintendent.
LAWN CHAIR DAY
In the return to work mid-pandemic, AEA members refused to enter the school buildings for a professional development day until their safety could be assured. Instead they set up lawn chairs and their computers outside.
This action was deemed a strike by the state. The members were unprepared for an actual strike, so they returned to the buildings the next day. However, the action secured them a new air filtration system and helped lead to the resignation of the superintendent.
When the district received American Rescue Plan Act funds in the midst of the pandemic, AEA insisted that some of those funds be used to pay bonuses to the lowest-paid workers in the district, including cafeteria and other workers not in the union. The district balked, so the union worked with the community to bring the question to the Andover town meeting, which in some towns in Massachusetts is the town’s governing body. The goal: let the residents decide if they wanted to use the funds as bonuses.
School lawyers insisted that the motion was illegal and the issue was between the union and the district. At the town meeting, though, the community voted to support the motion as an advisory decision. (The district re-opened negotiations, and the issue remains unsettled.)
OPENING UP BARGAINING
Each of these actions added a layer of educators ready to take on the district during contract negotiations. But not everyone was convinced.
Kate Carlton, a special education teacher at Doherty Middle School, told me she kept the union at arm’s length, because of negative past experiences with unions.
She said she didn’t believe the dire reports sent by Bach during the pandemic negotiations: “The language in his emails, I was like, no way. This is charged language, opinionated words. It cannot be that bad.”
Carlton started to attend negotiations to see for herself. “I heard and saw the way our town talked about teachers and what we do,” she said. “I was watching them and thinking, your child uses special ed! Your child uses special ed and you don’t respect what educators do? Feeling the ugliness. Then they speak out of the other side of their mouths and write these emails about how much they value us.”
Dan Donovan, a 15-year science teacher, was reluctant at first to join the strike vote—but changed his mind after he, too, witnessed negotiations. “It was informative to see how our side wanted to discuss and reason and go through things and we were just talking to a stone wall,” said Donovan. “When the School Committee sends out a press release or an email, they say one thing, but when you go to the bargaining session it is clear what is really going on.”
‘THE PRICE IS RIGHT’
The School Committee resisted having union members in the room during bargaining—and the room could not hold the 100 to 200 members who wanted to attend each time.
While the union could have filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging that the district was not allowing the union to choose its own bargaining team and not meeting in a mutually agreed-upon space, it took an organizing approach instead.
Fifty members sat in the room as negotiations took place. Then the union would call a caucus and meet with those members and more who were in the auditorium next door. After discussion, a new group of 50 members would return, and negotiations would continue. Every time the union called a caucus, new members swapped in.
After one session when the School Committee objected to this swapping, members got more fired up than ever. Bach said enthusiasm was so great, “it was like ‘The Price is Right.’ People were rushing to be the ones to get in the room.”
TOP TIP: LISTEN
What moved members to strike? Everyone I spoke to said members witnessing bargaining was central, but what made the most difference was listening.
Carlton identified members in her building who she knew had had issues with the union in the past. “I just say, ‘Hey, can I talk to you?’ I’m not going to tell them what to do. I am going to listen.”
Beth Arnold, a high school math teacher who was on the bargaining team, said the creation of communication teams of 10 members to one leader in the high school allowed people to engage in more conversations with each other, to hear from voices other than “the loudest,” and not rely just on emails or the word of the leadership.
When she talked with members about the illegality of the strike, and their fears, Arnold emphasized that the choice to strike was a shared decision—not one to make alone.
PASSING IT ON
The strike wave among Massachusetts educators started in April 2019 with the Dedham Teachers Association. It was the first teachers strike in Massachusetts since 2007.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that even using the word “strike” constitutes “inducing, encouraging or condoning a work stoppage by public employees.” Union leaders who do so risk fines—personally and as elected leaders—and even jail time.
The Dedham educators voted to strike on a Thursday, were out one day, and had a tentative agreement in time to return to work Monday. They faced minimal fines.
The Brookline Educators Union struck in May 2022. They were out one day and were willing to pay a $50,000 fine imposed by the school district on the union.
The wave built with Haverhill, Malden, Woburn, and now Andover. Melrose Teacher Association members authorized a strike, but won all they demanded before they could walk out.
Some unions faced fines of up to $50,000 a day; others did not. In Woburn the community held a bake sale to help pay the fine. Some people paid $100 a cookie.
‘NOTHING DIFFERENT ABOUT US’
Educators in Massachusetts are not only seeing each other strike and win, but also teaching each other how to do it.
Barry Davis, president of the Haverhill Teachers Association, which struck in October 2022, says the lessons were first forged in the Merrimack Valley bargaining council, an informal network of six teacher locals that meet regularly to share contract issues and organizing strategies. After the Haverhill and Malden strikes, organizers from those locals reached out to or were contacted by members of other locals.
“We’d go out and talk to members in these locals, and they realized that we were just like them, that there was nothing different about us that made us able to strike,” Davis said. “When you are a third grade teacher with three kids, and a third grade teacher with three kids shows up to tell you how to do this, you realize much more is possible.”
AEA members have been transformed. “I don’t recognize these people,” said Bach shortly after the strike.
Originally Donovan said that he would do anything to support the union, except break the law. Now he says, “I’ve come around. Not all laws are just, and that is an unjust law. Teachers deserve the right to strike for just wages.”
COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE 
