Dear Baker-Polito Family,

It has been our honor and privilege to spend the previous eight years working with you to build a better, stronger, more vibrant Commonwealth. We put the issues facing the Commonwealth ahead of partisan politics and it paid off. We made Massachusetts a national leader in so many ways and delivered for every resident from the Berkshires to Cape Cod. But none of it would have been possible without your support. Thank you. As we close out our second term, I wanted to share with you just some of the major wins you helped us pull off.

We began our term with a $1 billion structural deficit and a Rainy Day Fund that was about to fall below $1 billion. We left with a Rainy Day Fund that is already north of $7 billion and on the verge of exceeding its statutory max during FY 23 - and a $2 billion + budget surplus - after funding a $3 billion rebate to MA taxpayers - without raising taxes on anybody. Sound fiscal management allowed us to go on to do so much more.

We delivered the first affordable large-scale clean energy projects off the deep waters of the Atlantic Coast of the US and basically creating the deep water offshore wind industry in the US. Our first of its kind hydro project from Canada is still in the works, and will bring thousands of megawatts of 24/7 365 days a year hydro power to MA.

We created and implemented the first Municipal Vulnerability Planning program to identify and mitigate climate hazards across our cities and towns. Virtually every community participates on a voluntary basis and the state has distributed over $100 MM on resiliency and mitigation projects.

We changed, for the better, across the board, the relationship between the Commonwealth and our 351 cities and towns. Created a best practices program that every city and town participated in, modernized municipal finance and administration legislation, and created five new local road and bridge programs with our legislative colleagues so that all local communities can benefit from state and federal funding for roads - especially western Mass - which is where most of our road miles are.

We created “One-Stop” grant-making for cities and towns, which streamlines the way municipalities pursue downtown, economic & housing development projects in partnership with us through grants issued by HED.

We enacted and funded the Student Opportunity Act, ensuring all school districts in MA have the resources they need to serve their staff & students.

We invested over $200 MM in equipment and gear modernization at our career and technical education programs - giving MA the best equipped career and technical schools in the country when they are needed more than ever. We also added almost 10,000 seats in these schools and added afternoon and evening classes for students and young adults looking to learn a marketable skill.

We created Early College programs, which have been a game changer around the transition from high school to college for first generation college students who are mostly from black and brown communities across the Commonwealth. This program will grow - because Mayors and families in cities love it.

We expanded financial support for MA students attending MA colleges to record levels. Students can now go debt free using these programs.

For the first time, we targeted our workforce development efforts to reflect the economic activity in each region of the Commonwealth.

We built a coalition to advance “Housing Choice” the first major legal reform to make it easier to build more housing. And we made historic investments in housing every year.

We brought high speed broadband to the 53 communities in Western Mass that never had it. One of the toughest tasks we took on, but it was worth it in so many ways. In Western Mass, we also financed the long-awaited Berkshire Innovation Center in Pittsfield (promised years ago), financed the construction of the Greylock Glen Visitation Center in Adams (also promised decades ago), financed the teardown and rebuild of the Convention Center Parking Garage in Springfield (also promised forever), made sure the renovation of 31 Elm Street into mixed use development focused on market rate housing in downtown Springfield happened (on the radar but never done for over 20 years).

We reformed the care and custody program at Bridgewater State Hospital after more than 30 years of fits and starts.

We opened the first addiction treatment beds EVER at Taunton State Hospital for incarcerated women, implemented Medication Assisted Treatment across the Department of Corrections, and significantly increased addiction treatment beds for men across the DOC, including units at Taunton that are very similar to the women's units.

We were the first Administration to fund "Chapter 257" - which required the Commonwealth to fund health and human service provider programs "at cost." It was the subject of a massive, long-running lawsuit when we took office. We settled the suit and paid the providers what we were supposed to pay them.

We negotiated two 1115 waivers with the federal government to protect the near universal health insurance coverage we offer to citizens here in MA.

We created and implemented a series of reforms worth hundreds of millions of dollars to expand and simplify services and supports for residents dealing with behavioral health issues. We also expanded state funding for addiction recovery services (a 5x increase in state sponsored residential beds and services & the creation and licensing of thousands of recovery coaches across MA).

We built and opened the long-awaited Green Line Extension project from Boston to Medford on budget and mostly on time. We committed to funding and building Southcoast Rail, a commuter rail service extension to Fall River and New Bedford that was promised but never started since the 1980s. That service will open fall of 2023.

While work remains to be done in the MBTA, there have been dramatic improvements in bus and commuter rail service, and we have a plan to expand service to Western Mass ready for the years ahead.

We nominated and swore in 247 Justices to our Courts, including all 7 members of our Supreme Judicial Court. The first Governor since John Hancock to do that - and that SJC in particular is one of the most diverse in the Country.

The RMV, which was a service delivery nightmare when we took office, has never been a better service provider. Millions of transactions are now done online and almost all the counter service is done by appointment. Waiting forever to get something done is basically a thing of the past.

We created an Executive Office of Technology Services and Security, which proved its worth throughout the pandemic and ever since, by giving the Commonwealth a true center of excellence as we dealt with the constantly changing information technology, digital security and IT project landscape.

And on the pandemic - The Commonwealth Fund did a comprehensive study of how all 50 states handled the pandemic relying on 56 metrics to measure performance. MA finished just behind Hawaii - and significantly ahead of everyone else - even though we are not an island, do not have nice weather 10 months of the year and are the third most densely populated state in the country.

All this thanks to our nonpartisan, no nonsense, collaborative approach to our work.

There is much, much more. But suffice it to say that your help made these eight years among the most productive and successful in recent history.

The people of Massachusetts had our backs, because they knew that we had theirs. And because of that, we and they are leaving the Commonwealth much better than we found it.

Thank you for this extraordinary opportunity to serve the people of our Commonwealth.

Charlie & Karyn