Briefcase

Federal $10M Grant Will Help Improve Long Island Sound
GREENFIELD — The Connecticut River Watershed Council (CRWC) is one of seven partners receiving a $10 million federal grant funded through USDA’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program. This new project brings together seven partners to improve the health of Long Island Sound. The funding will be matched dollar for dollar by other local, state, and private funding sources. Excess nutrients have been identified as the primary driver of hypoxic conditions (lack of oxygen) in Long Island Sound and are also impacting upland water resources within the watershed, which encompasses areas of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. This project will develop a comprehensive, whole-farm, management-certainty program for farmers in the area and use both working lands and easement programs to improve soil health and nutrient management, establish community resiliency areas with a focus on enhancing riparian areas, and institute a land-protection program to protect agricultural and forestry areas. “The council is very pleased to be one of the many partners on this important project to improve the health of both the Connecticut River basin and Long Island Sound,” said CRWC Executive Director Andrew Fisk. “Funding will allow CRWC to continue working with landowners on restoration projects on their land that will improve our rivers and protect their investment in productive farm and forest land.” The Connecticut River contributes more than 70% of the freshwater to Long Island Sound and plays an important role in the health of the sound. “We are proud to be working with landowners to help them do their part to restore and protect the public’s water,” noted Fisk. “Many individuals working together across the entire watershed will have a great impact to improve the health of our rivers and Long Island Sound.” The Connecticut River Watershed Council works to protect the watershed from source to sea. To learn more, visit www.ctriver.org.

Construction Employment Increases in 40 States
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Construction firms added jobs in 40 states and the District of Columbia between December 2013 and December 2014, while construction employment increased in 38 states and D.C. between November and December, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Associated General Contractors of America. “Part of the reason for the positive December construction employment figures was the exceptionally harsh weather in much of December 2013 and November 2014 and milder-than-normal weather in December 2014,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “Nevertheless, the underlying trend is very positive, with construction employment expanding at more than double the rate for total non-farm payroll jobs.” Texas added more new construction jobs (47,500 jobs, 7.7%) between December 2013 and December 2014 than any other state. Other states adding a high number of new construction jobs for the past 12 months included Florida (34,300 jobs, 8.9%), California (26,000 jobs, 4.0%), Illinois (20,200 jobs, 10.6%) and Washington (14,100 jobs, 9.5%). North Dakota (25.7%, 8,300 jobs) added the highest percentage of new construction jobs during the past year, followed by Utah (13.4%, 10,100 jobs), Wisconsin (12.7%, 12,400 jobs), and Arkansas (12.6%, 5,800 jobs). Ten states shed construction jobs during the past 12 months. West Virginia lost the highest percentage (-9.1%, -3,000 jobs). Other states that lost a high percentage of jobs include Mississippi (-7.5%, -4,000 jobs), Hawaii (-4.5%, -1,400 jobs), and Arizona (-3.4%, -4,300 jobs). Arizona lost the most construction jobs between December 2013 and December 2014, followed by Mississippi, West Virginia, and Ohio (-2,500 jobs, -1.3%). Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia added construction jobs between November and December. New York (6,400 jobs, 2.0%) added the most jobs, followed by Illinois (6,000 jobs, 2.9%), Texas (5,100 jobs, 0.8%), and North Carolina (4,100 jobs, 2.3%). Association officials said the latest construction employment figures are consistent with the optimism many contractors expressed in the association’s recently released annual “Construction Hiring and Business Outlook.” According to the outlook, 80% of contractors report plans to add new construction jobs in 2015. In addition, a majority of contractors expect demand for most construction-market segments this year to grow. “The construction industry appears on track to add many new construction jobs in 2015,” said Stephen Sandherr, the association’s CEO.

BCBS Grants to Support Care for Vulnerable Populations
BOSTON — Individuals with behavioral health and other medical issues are among the highest-need, most complex patients in the healthcare system but rarely receive care that integrates both aspects of treatment. The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation’s new, $1.3 million grant program, called Fostering Effective Integration of Behavioral Health and Primary Care, will support 10 organizations — including one in Western Mass., the Center for Human Development — that are currently implementing collaborative, co-located, and integrated service models for patients with a range of medical and behavioral-health needs, including support for their families. The National Co-morbidity Survey Replication shows that 68% of adults with a severe behavioral-health disorder have at least one chronic medical condition, and 29% of adults with a chronic medical condition have serious mental illness. Moreover, those with a mental illness live far shorter lives than those without, partly due to treatable medical conditions and inadequate access to medical care. Better coordination of primary care and behavioral health — including early identification, timely and regular treatment, and rehabilitation and recovery supports — is important to improving health care outcomes and potentially controlling costs for people with behavioral-health needs, said Audrey Shelto, president of the BCBS of Massachusetts Foundation. “We believe the time is now to invest in and evaluate programs that have experience providing primary care and also treating mental-health and substance-use disorders to help define what truly constitutes an effective integrated model of care.” The grantee organizations represent a variety of provider types — community health centers, community-based behavioral-health centers, and hospital-based programs — located throughout the entire state. “We are thrilled to be working with some of the most experienced healthcare providers in the Commonwealth and look forward to sharing information and collaborating on this critical issue,” said Shelto. The local grantee, the Center for Human Development (CHD), has created a project in partnership with two health centers to provide integrated care to seriously mentally ill adults and individuals with substance-use disorders. The health centers — Caring Health Center of Springfield and Holyoke Health Center — provide integrated primary care, care management and wellness services, while the Western MA Recovery Learning Community provides peer-guided wellness groups and peer specialists. The largest cluster of patients is within the Department of Mental Health-funded Community-Based Flexible Supports program, identified as ‘super-utilizers’ with high rates of avoidable ED visits. The program provides primary-care services to people with serious mental illness on site at a CHD community mental-health center, with a focus on patients with diabetes, pre-metabolic syndrome, and high risk for cardiovascular disease. Chronic-disease management and wellness programs are provided by primary-care nurses and peer specialists, and patients involved with the integrated care program experience reduced wait times when seeking medical care at the respective health centers. The focus of the foundation’s one-year grants is the evaluation and assessment of integrated-care programs that demonstrate the greatest likelihood of effectiveness across a range of domains such as increased access, improved outcomes, greater patient engagement, and reduced costs. The foundation will document the success factors, barriers, and challenges faced by grantees with the intent of making a longer-term investment in promising, replicable models in the future. For more information, visit www.bluecrossmafoundation.org.

Business Confidence Index Soars in 2014
BOSTON — The Associated Industries of Massachusetts Business Confidence Index ended 2014 at 57.3, 7.1 points above last December’s level. “This is the index’s highest reading since July 2007, before the Great Recession, and it concludes the best quarter since that period,” said Raymond Torto, chair of AIM’s Board of Economic Advisors (BEA) and lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Design. “There is reason to believe, moreover, that this upwelling in confidence will prove more lasting than the increase of early 2012, which was undone by fiscal conflict in Washington.” In 2014, Torto noted, “business confidence survived a stress test of economic contraction in the first quarter, then gained in eight of the last 10 months of the year. Fundamentals are looking much better — unemployment is down and job creation is running strong nationally and in Massachusetts, which shows up in rising consumer confidence; the federal deficit and the trade deficit are shrinking; and, of course, the stock market has done well. Despite significant areas of weakness in the global economy, Massachusetts employers have ample cause to be optimistic.” The AIM Index, based on a survey of Massachusetts employers, has appeared monthly since July 1991. It is calculated on a 100-point scale, with 50 as neutral; a reading above 50 is positive, while below 50 is negative. The index reached its historic high of 68.5 on two occasions in 1997-98, and its all-time low of 33.3 in February 2009. The sub-indices based on selected questions or categories of respondent experienced a mix of gains and losses from November to December, but all were up from a year before. The Massachusetts Index, assessing business conditions within the Commonwealth, added one point on the month to 56.1, and the U.S. Index of national business conditions was up four-tenths to 50.1. “This is the third time since the recession that U.S. Index reached 50, but so far it has not held that level,” said BEA member Paul Bolger, president of Massachusetts Capital Resource Co. “Respondents with 100 or fewer employees still tend to rate national conditions negatively, while larger firms are on the positive side. Compared to last December, the state indicator was up 9.1 points, while its national counterpart gained 5.3 points.” The Current Index, which assesses overall business conditions at the time of the survey, was up 1.2 points to 56.2, while the Future Index, measuring expectations for six months out, shed one-tenth to 58.4. The annual gains were 7.6 and 6.8, respectively.