Massachusetts 2035 · 09 / 10

Government

Your voice and vote will matter, you will get a response, and you will see where your tax dollars go

The moonshot

Build a Government That Listens, Responds, and Shows Its Work

Give every resident a meaningful way to influence decisions, a clear response from a person accountable for helping them, and a view of where public money goes. Connect ideas, public votes, decisions, spending, and results in one visible record.

The opportunity

A picture of 2035

A renter helps shape the housing plan alongside homeowners and neighbors she would never meet at a weekday hearing. She can see what residents recommended, how officials voted, and why. When she needs help, someone owns her case. When the town spends money, she can follow it to a result.

What we can build on

Massachusetts can build on existing institutions and platforms, including CTHRU and MyMassGov, rather than start every service again. Local performance-management models offer practical ideas for connecting activity to outcomes.

The gap to close

Public comment is not the same as representative participation. Boston University research across Massachusetts communities found that housing-meeting participants skew toward older residents and homeowners. A full meeting room cannot be treated as a poll of the whole town. 11

People need a visible connection between what they say, the votes their representatives cast, and the decision that follows. Being heard does not mean every preferred outcome wins; it means officials owe residents a reasoned response and an accountable process.

The work starts here.

Top three key initiatives

Representative resident panels and a visible path from input to decisions

Pilot paid resident panels selected by civic lottery, balanced across age, neighborhood, and renter or homeowner status. Provide childcare, translation, accessible meeting times, and independent facilitation. Hear evidence, competing proposals, and people affected by the decision. Keep public submissions open online, by phone, and in person. Publish how the panel was recruited and where participation still falls short. OECD guidance provides a starting point for this design. 12

Start with housing: ask a panel to compare concrete town-wide plans for where homes can go, how many, at what cost, and with what infrastructure. Require a public recommendation-by-recommendation response within a proposed 60 days and a recorded vote by the legally responsible body. Publish what changed and why. The panel informs the housing plan; it is not an additional project veto. Adopt clear rules through the required public and legal process, then assess compliant applications against those rules. Preserve hearings, elections, appeals, and safety and environmental protections.

MassAssist: one clear front door, all day and night

Develop a multilingual chat-and-voice assistant for service navigation, forms, appointments, and case status. Start with a measured pilot covering a small set of high-volume services, then expand what works through the state's existing identity and service infrastructure.

Set a 24-hour standard for a substantive answer or a named human response with a resolution plan. Preserve phone and in-person access. Human officials remain accountable for benefits, legal determinations, appeals, and consequential decisions.

Open the books and show what each dollar bought

Build a searchable public spending-and-outcomes layer over existing systems. Let residents follow departments, vendors, contracts, projects, payments, and delivered results. Show publication dates, corrections, and documented exceptions for protected information.

Work toward near-real-time visibility where source systems permit it. Keep financial audit and oversight independent: a dashboard makes evidence accessible, but does not itself prove spending was lawful, efficient, or effective.

The supporting work

Grade officials on the goals they control

Create public scorecards with transparent measures, independent methodology, and a right to explain context or correct errors. Start with the executive leadership responsible for this vision, then invite broader adoption.

Give the public usable data

Provide documented interfaces and downloadable records, with accessibility and privacy built in. Invite civic builders, researchers, and journalists to test the numbers and create independent tools.

Put permits on a visible clock

Give complete applications a published review sequence, decision deadline, and accountable owner. Start with suitable housing, laboratory, advanced-manufacturing, and infrastructure categories. Coordinate agency work through one intake instead of repeated requests for the same information.

Make delays and their causes visible. Propose statutory changes where required; use default approval only where lawful and appropriate. Speed comes from removing needless work and resolving issues early, not hiding incomplete environmental or safety reviews.

Connect the service front door to MyMassGov and work toward the top 25 services, with authorized data sharing and access for people without smartphones.

Track dedicated revenue all the way to delivery

Show how earmarked funds, including education and transportation revenues, are allocated, spent, and evaluated. Distinguish an authorization, an appropriation, a contract, and a payment.

Make accountability last

Seek a Government Accountability and Transparency Act that establishes reporting duties, service standards, independent review, and durable funding. Let willing municipalities join common tools while preserving their legal responsibilities.

Include a public decision record: the question, submissions and panel recommendations, the official response, recorded votes, implementation owner, and progress. Clearly distinguish advisory surveys and panel votes from legally binding votes. Pilot resident voting over a defined, legally authorized portion of the local budget, with published eligibility, costs, and delivery tracking.

The path to 2035

Proposed milestones. Expand against evidence, delivery, and public value.

2027
Start with a few services and visible results
Launch a StateScore prototype and a 90-day MassAssist pilot. Publish the baseline for permit decisions, service completion, and resident satisfaction. Show initial spending-to-outcome links for this vision's first projects.
Recruit willing towns for a representative housing-panel pilot. Publish the selection method, participation gaps, remit, proposed 60-day response standard, and baseline housing decision times before it begins.
2029
Make joined-up service normal
Pursue the top-25-service integration goal through MyMassGov. Expand effective language and accessibility support. Publish initial official scorecards and agency responses, with clear methods and independent review.
Independently evaluate whether panels broadened participation, changed decisions, and improved trust without creating another approval bottleneck. Expand only where evidence supports it.
2031
Make the system durable
Publish dependable data interfaces and establish reporting in law where needed. Audit assistant accuracy, procurement value, and access. Track whether simpler service actually reduces time and cost for residents.
2035
Be the government people trust
Aim for residents to see how their input and votes influence decisions, get substantive answers or named resolution plans within 24 hours, and follow public spending to results. Complex cases keep a visible owner and timeline. Publish where government falls short and what will change.

Questions & answers

Will AI give people wrong answers about their rights?

Limit the assistant to tested functions, use authoritative information, record provenance, and route uncertain or consequential cases to people. Maintain appeal routes and service alternatives. Publish error rates and correct harmful failures promptly.

Would a resident panel just become another way to block housing?

It should shape the town-wide plan before individual projects arrive. Give it a defined remit and end date, balanced evidence, and independent facilitation. Do not add its approval to each permit. Keep legitimate objections and legal protections, but require officials to explain decisions against published rules rather than treating the loudest meeting as the whole community. Measure whether the pilot adds delay and change or stop it if it does.

Is this just another expensive portal?

Use existing systems where they work and retire duplication deliberately. Budget the full cost of integration, security, maintenance, and human support. Fund expansion only when pilots improve completed services, access, and cost, rather than simply increasing chatbot use.

Show the results.

The public scorecard

These are the measures we would publish to judge progress.

Completed services
Answer and resolution time
Permit turnaround
Error and appeal outcomes
Spending traceability
Resident satisfaction
Operating cost per completed service
Representativeness of participation
Recommendations receiving a timely public response
Decisions changed by resident input
Recorded votes linked to explanations
Housing-panel effect on decision times

Sources & context

Reference notes dated September 16, 2026. Plans and proposals are distinguished from existing activity.

[11] Boston University: Who is heard in housing decisions?
Research across Massachusetts communities finds public housing-meeting participants are not representative of the broader community.
[12] OECD: Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions
Evidence and design principles for representative deliberation, civic lotteries, public responses, and implementation follow-up. The local pilot described here is a proposal, not an established Massachusetts program.