Top lawmakers weigh in on Healey's housing, community college plans after first meeting

Gov. Maura Healey's plan to add a housing secretary to her Cabinet got a stamp of approval Monday from state Senate President Karen Spilka, who said the move would help the new governor drill in on one of the state's most pressing issues.

"It is something that we, as a state, need: to increase our housing stock in order to continue our economic vitality and have the quality of life that we all want here in Massachusetts," Spilka said.

Spilka said the idea was one of a number of topics that she, House Speaker Ron Mariano, Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll discussed in their first official sit-down after Healey's inauguration last week. The group met behind closed doors in the governor's office for over an hour, and Healey told reporters afterwards they also discussed issues around education, the workforce, health care and climate.

Spilka said she, Mariano and Healey all share a focus on housing. Without getting into specific policies, both of the legislative leaders mentioned housing when they sketched out their priorities last week. Spilka said lawmakers must "put our minds and hearts together to solve our continuing housing crisis," and Mariano called it critical for working people to have access to quality housing.

In her inaugural address, Healey said she intends to send lawmakers a plan, within her first 100 days in office, to establish a dedicated housing secretary who will work with cities and towns and across various government agencies to advance the state's goals.

Healey in that speech also said her first state budget proposal will include funding for a new program called MassReconnect, which will offer free community college to students older than 25 who do not have a college degree. Spilka, meanwhile, wants to make community college free for all students.

"As we've made it through which was a really terrific inauguration week, we'll begin the work of sitting down together with our teams to flesh out more details and to see what we can arrive at as we move forward in the coming months with respect to community college and education and issues generally," Healey said.

Mariano said he hadn't yet thought about whether Massachusetts should eliminate charges for community college. One detail he wants to know first is what it would cost the state.

"There's a whole lot of questions that haven't been answered about it," Mariano said.