MHTC

Mass High Tech Council's Rooney Focuses on Taxes, Education, Defense and Energy (Mass High Tech)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Q&A
By James M. Connolly

The Massachusetts High Tech Council, a CEO-focused lobbying organization based in Waltham, recently hired James D. Rooney as vice president, focusing on policy. Rooney, a former executive with the Boston Foundation, discussed his four top priorities with Mass High Tech managing editor James M. Connolly.
Taxes and services:

“We argue that we are not a one tech town, and that it is critical for the Commonwealth first to do no harm, and allow our tech sector to grow and prosper, given the tremendous competitive pressures and opportunities not only around the country but around the world, but also to maintain a stable, competitive and predictable tax structure.

I would suggest that the flip side of that coin is that we strongly believe that the regulatory structure has to be competitive and, frankly, that government has to become more efficient. I think over the past two decades or so we have seen a number of reforms in government that have made our tax policies more competitive and a number of reforms to government service delivery.

Even in the past year and a half I know many of the legislative leaders have dubbed this the session of reform. Clearly, there is an appetite on Beacon Hill to work very closely with business, but we feel there is an ongoing critical effort to keep the focus on some of these issues.”

“When you look at transportation, pension, ethics, there are a number of major reform efforts that have gone forward. Pension reform is one where several observers have dubbed the low hanging fruit as having been addressed. One of the areas that the council has supported has been health insurance plan design at the local level. Allowing the cities and towns the same power that the state has to set its insurance rates outside of the collective bargaining process is an area that is still pending.

In the last couple of months, the legislature acted on unemployment insurance to create kind of an immediate fix to what would be a real ballooning of costs to businesses.

At the same time, there are very innovative incentives that Massachusetts has been a leader in over the years. The research and development tax credit in ‘91 was at the time very forward thinking and aggressive. But since then, other states have caught up. In general, we work to impress upon leaders that we can never afford to let up and always have to maintain as competitive an environment as we can.”

Education:
“We are fortunate to boast the largest concentration of scientists and engineers in the world. We have more patents per capita than any other technology hub in the world, and obviously an unmatched constellation of research universities and teaching hospitals that many people call our global marker. But again, other regions and other nations around the world are aggressively investing in capacity. We need to do everything we can to ensure a ready and robust flow of talent in the region.

As part of that, we feel it is absolutely priority one that we have an innovative public education delivery system at the K-12 level. One, it produces the work force of tomorrow.

Homegrown talent is more likely to stay. Second, it also attracts working families to Massachusetts. So we have been very involved in pushing for the retention of the standards and innovations that flowed from the 1993 reforms, specifically charter schools and other innovative school models, MCAS and rigorous assessments and measurements, which we think have really helped us retain or regain our leading role as measured at the international level.”

Defense:
“A competitive tax structure and a robust talent pipeline are key ingredients to the continued growth of the defense industry. We were proud to play a key role in the protection of (Hanscom Air Force Base) and (the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center) in the recent BRAC round of base closings. The assets of those labs really spoke for themselves. As the military becomes more increasingly technology based in its war fighting mission, Hanscom and Natick are absolutely central to the military’s work.

However, we also feel there are tremendous, untapped opportunities to better connect Natick and Hanscom with local institutes of higher education and businesses and wider technology transfer opportunities.”

Energy:
“Our fourth major area of focus is energy efficiency and environmental stewardship. A new board team led by Millipore’s Martin Madaus is helping members adopt more efficient, cost-effective and sustainable practices and will work to inform public policy. This builds on the council’s trailblazing role in designing the state’s first competitive procurement of electricity and related economies of scale programs which have saved members nearly $100 million to date. We recently entered into a new partnership with EnerNOC that promises to save members 20 percent of their energy costs.”