$49 Million in Federal Money May Be Lost Because of DiMasi’s Vacation
       In what might be one of the costliest blunders in the state since the Big Dig, Speaker Sal DiMasi has refused to reconvene the legislature and approve a bond bill which is now threatening tens of millions in Federal education funding. Some $49 million from Washington may be lost as a result of DiMasi’s mismanagement.
       The federal “No Child Left Behind” Act requires data on teachers, information the state was planning to collect by using a statewide computer database. But this was one of the Information Technology projects that was halted when the money dried up because of DiMasi’s neglect of the bond bill.
       “We’re on precarious ground with the feds right now, so we need this funding as soon as possible,” said Heidi Perlman, the DOE spokeswoman. The state could lose “a little of it or we could lose a lot of it,” she said.
       In addition to the Federal education money, $25 million in federal Health and Human Service revenue will be lost without the bill’s passage. The clock runs at a clip of $500,000 per week, experts have said.
       Whether DiMasi would return to approve the bond bill appeared settled last month when both Senate President Robert Travaglini and DiMasi relented to Romney’s pressure and agreed lawmakers should return. However, schedule conflicts, mostly caused by junket trips for lawmakers (including one for DiMasi to Graceland), precluded them from actually setting a date.