In the State House, sounds of silence as the dog days of summer descend

Did anyone hear a pin drop?

With the annual state budget signed, lawmakers have dusted off their hands and fled to fairer weather, plunging the State House into the silence of the dog days of August.

Left behind are promises to meet the “urgent” need of tax relief, and a host of other top priorities which, apparently, can wait until fall, or next year.

But not every aspect of state government has undergone the same sluggish transformation.

This week, the Massachusetts Health Connector Board of Directors unanimously approved regulatory changes to extend state-subsidized insurance coverage to an estimated 50,000 people.

The change was included in the $56 billion fiscal year 2024 budget Gov. Maura Healey signed last week, to expand access to the low-cost insurance program.

As of Jan. 1 of next year, individuals making up to $72,900 and families of four bringing in $150,000 will qualify for ConnectorCare, which the Health Connector touts as offering “$0 or low monthly premiums, low out-of-pocket costs, and no deductibles.”

The expansion comes at a time when the state is simultaneously moving up to 400,000 people off of MassHealth. Starting in March, the publicly funded health insurance agency has had to redetermine eligibility for all 2.4 million of its members, with a one-year deadline to shrink the size of its rolls.

For some booted off of MassHealth, the new ConnectorCare expansion may provide a parachute in the form of still heavily subsidized coverage -- at least for the two years of the pilot program.

“That’s particularly important right now as folks are coming off of MassHealth for the Connector to be able to say, truthfully, ‘There has never been more help available to the people in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through the Health Connector as there is today,’” Audrey Morse Gasteier, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, said at Monday’s board meeting.

Over in the Saltonstall Building, the Department of Energy Resources waded into a fight that has been developing over offshore wind.

DOER threw its weight behind a major developer in their efforts to scrap energy contracts for a 1,200-megawatt offshore wind installation and start over.

Commonwealth Wind hopes to back out of its previous agreements with utility companies for the project -- which is an important piece of the puzzle for the state to meet its climate targets -- in order to allow developer Avangrid pursue more favorable terms in a new round of bidding.

Company officials have argued they can no longer finance the project under previously agreed terms with utilities because of increasing price pressures; but Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper has said she doesn’t want to “reward developers for backing out of their commitments.”

The Department of Public Utilities, which is under Tepper’s office alongside DOER, has to approve the contract termination. And in the deliberations, having the energy resources department’s support could be a big win for the developer.

Another wing of the Healey administration was also busy this week, as the Executive Office of Health and Human Services has begun reaching out to more than 134,000 people who may have had medical or financial information compromised in a data breach.

The breach stems from a file transfer program used by the UMass Chan Medical School, and the state has warned that people currently or previously enrolled in certain state programs could have had their name and other information like date of birth, mailing address, protected medical information like diagnosis and treatment details, Social Security number and financial account information exposed.

The leak wasn’t concentrated in Massachusetts, and organizations around the world have begun taking steps to warn people about compromised data.

The incident comes not long after another massive data incident, when Point23Health, the parent company of Harvard Pilgrim, warned its members that patient information may have been stolen in a ransomware attack in May.

Unlike that incident, when Point32 Health initially declined to offer an estimate of the number of people potentially affected by its breach, UMass Chan and EOHHS have begun sending letters to the 134,000 people whose information was compromised.

And another executive office made headlines this week, by changing a housing law that has gotten pushback from some municipalities, but is popular with housing advocates, to give cities and towns more wiggle room.

The 2021 law requires that every community served by the MBTA have at least one zoning district near a transit station in which multi-family housing is allowed.

The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities announced updated guidelines on Thursday to allow municipalities to allow housing units in mixed-use buildings with commercial space to count towards their compliance with the law -- though the change doesn’t reduce the total unit capacity required.

Brookline claimed to have had a hand in the updated guidelines. Town Administrator Chas Carey said the Brookline Select Board voted earlier in the week to adopt a zoning proposal that mandates ground-floor commercial uses along portions of Harvard Street.

The move will allow the town to focus housing production along one of the town’s main corridors around Coolidge Corner, after the wealthy municipality was criticized for being resistant to the change.

“And like many other rich, liberal, largely white suburbs, Brookline — where Joe Biden won 87 percent of the vote in the 2020 presidential election — has not always lived up to its purported values, especially when it comes to housing policy.

For decades, Brookline’s zoning code and its discretionary special permitting requirements have stunted the growth of multifamily housing, which is exactly the kind of development that would help make living in the town more financially feasible for moderate-income earners,” a Boston Globe editorial from May said, about Brookline’s response to the MBTA housing law.

Maybe with the new flexibility, the Warren’s Group next home sale report won’t be as bleak.

Median sale prices for single-family homes and condos reached new all-time highs for July last month, the real estate data company revealed in their most recent report.

But the pace of home sales continue to decline in what’s becoming an increasingly higher stakes housing market, where a scarce inventory of homes and condos for sale are leading to intense competition. Add in the highest mortgage interest rates in 20 years and more would-be buyers are feeling left out.

But even as businesses have raised the alarm that the strained housing market is hurting the local economy, Massachusetts actually climbed this year in annual “Top States for Business” rankings.

The Bay State moved up nine spots in CNBC’s yearly rankings, coming in 15th place. CNBC Special Correspondent Scott Cohn said the scorecard is beginning to put more emphasis on things like reproductive rights and inclusion in the ranking -- a song that Healey has been singing for the past few months.

Despite climbing the ranks, the news site still gave Massachusetts an “F” score in the “cost of doing business” and “cost of living” categories.

Meanwhile, tax cut measures that the governor says would make the state more affordable for businesses and individuals alike, are among the policies that seem to have been put on the back burner in the State House until (rainy) beach season comes to a close.

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