DA Early Offers Funds to Support Safe End-of-Year School Events

WORCESTER - District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. is inviting local schools and parent groups to apply for mini grants to support post-prom and post-graduation events designed to keep students safe and prevent drunken driving crashes.

"This time of year is supposed to be a celebration for students and their families, but too often we see tragedies," Mr. Early said. "We're hoping these grants will assist more schools in offering safe options for students."

These events, organized and overseen by adults, offer safe drug- and alcohol-free alternatives to high-risk activities that often follow end of the year celebrations for high school students.

"While none of us know what the status of school activities will be in the spring of 2022 due to the COVID pandemic, we are cautiously optimistic and accepting applications for funding requests," Mr. Early said. "Some celebrations looked different in 2021, but we were proud to continue supporting these efforts and providing students with the fun and safe events they deserve."

This is the fourth year the office has offered grants thanks to the support of the Massachusetts Office of Victim Assistance Drunk Driving Trust Fund. Prior to that, Mr. Early supported local post-prom and post-graduation events at high schools across the county through his drug forfeiture funding.

Schools and parent groups can apply for these grants to either support existing events or to assist in establishing new events. Applications for funding requests are due by Feb. 17. To request a grant application, contact Ellen Miller at ellen.miller@mass.gov.

Audit Identifies Need for Center for Health Information and Analysis to Update its Publicly Accessible Information

BOSTON (December 31, 2021) - In an audit released today, the Office of State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump (OSA) found the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) has not updated its consumer healthcare information website, CompareCare, as required by Massachusetts General Laws. The website offers various tools to consumers, such as a tool to compare costs of medical procedures at different healthcare facilities, the quality of local hospitals and healthcare facilities, and information about health insurance coverage to help consumers make informed decisions. The audit reviewed the period of January 1, 2019 through November 30, 2020, and found that in that time the CompareCare website only contained healthcare information from 2015 and 2016.

In its audit response, CHIA listed a number of factors related to the inadequacy of the data available, but ultimately acknowledged that those inadequacies did not prevent the agency from fulfilling its responsibility to update the website annually. "CHIA now anticipates being able to produce the extracts necessary for annual updates to CompareCare," according to its official response.

"The CompareCare mandate has presented a challenge for CHIA, since the data available to it is not as robust as it would like, and I appreciate those concerns. Nonetheless, the agency is required to make an effort annually to provide certain information to consumers," said State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump.

CHIA is an independent agency that serves as the Commonwealth's primary hub for health care data and a primary source of health care analytics that support policy development. CHIA is managed by an executive director, who is appointed by a majority vote of the Governor, Attorney General, and State Auditor, and is overseen by the Health Information and Analysis Oversight Council, which manages its budget allocation and provides guidance on research and analytics conducted by CHIA. Additionally, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, the State Auditor makes two appointments to the 11-member Health Information and Analysis Oversight Council. During fiscal year 2021, CHIA had an approved budget of $31,320,586, and during our audit period had approximately 150 employees.

The full audit report is available here.