Boston - On August 29, 2024, the Healey-Driscoll administration is releasing a report on its first-ever equity assessment, which analyzed how each state agency can improve equity, accessibility and accountability. In her inaugural address, Governor Healey announced her intention to launch this assessment as part of her commitment to lowering barriers for all Massachusetts residents to engage with state government and ensuring that her administration is equitably serving all communities. 

Last year, Governor Healey signed Executive Order No. 612, Instituting the Practice of Equity Assessment Government-Wide and Creating the Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee on Increasing Equity Through Data, which declared equity to be the standard for all policies, practices and services delivered in Massachusetts and directed state agencies to regularly assess their work through this lens. The administration hired the Lazu Group to facilitate and support the assessment process, which resulted in this report. 

“One of my first commitments as Governor was to launch this assessment across our administration with the goal of applying an equity lens to everything we do. If we want to break down barriers to accessing government service and ensure we are reaching every community, we need to be able to measure what’s working well and what needs improvement – and then we need to act,” said Governor Maura Healey. “I’m grateful for the members of our team who rose to this challenge and worked collaboratively on this groundbreaking assessment.” 

“This equity assessment is a tool that we can use over and over again to analyze all aspects of state government and ensure that we are constantly improving,” said Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll. “The programs that were analyzed in this assessment all play critical roles in supporting our economy and communities, and we are excited to implement these valuable recommendations to make them even stronger and more equitable.” 

“We are proud to partner with the Healey-Driscoll Administration to establish an equity assessment tool that looks beyond the numbers alone to the quality of equity experienced through services offered by the Commonwealth,” said Malia Lazu, CEO and Founder of the Lazu Group. 

The process began with a “Bias to Belonging” training in 2023, which was attended by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretaries and senior staff. Following the training, each Secretary nominated representatives within their teams to work on the equity assessment with the Governor’s Office of Access and Opportunity, led by Deputy Chief of Staff Marcony Almeida-Barros, and the Lazu Group. The working group identified five guiding principles of equity – access, fairness, transparency, accountability and accessibility – and analyzed one program from each secretariat according to these principles. The equity assessment is intended to be an ongoing process that the administration will use to assess additional programs and continuously measure improvements. 

The programs analyzed were:

- Department of Transportation: Process to Obtain a Massachusetts Passenger Driver’s License for Customers Over the Age of 18
- Executive Office of Economic Development: MassWorks Infrastructure Program
- Executive Office of Health and Human Services: MassHealth Doula Services
- Executive Office of Education, Social Emotional Learning Grant Program
- Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, MassHire System - Department of Career Services
- Executive Office of Technology Services and Security, Mass.gov
- Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities: Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
- Executive Office of Public Safety & Security: Commonwealth Nonprofit Security Grant Program
- Executive Office of Veterans’ Services: Veterans Home at Chelsea and Holyoke
- Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs: Massachusetts Offer Rebates for Electric Vehicles (MOR-EV) Program
- Executive Office for Administration and Finance: Certification process by which contractors apply for certification in categories of work to bid on vertical construction projects under c.149