Disability employment subcommittee elects new co-chairs, plans employer outreach and benefits-cliff convenings

The Disability Employment Subcommittee of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Persons with Disabilities voted to name Rachel Stanton and Jossy Burks Abbott as its new co-chairs and discussed a series of outreach and policy-priority steps, including a virtual employer forum and coordination with MassAbility, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD), and other state partners on the “benefits cliff.”

The leadership change came after outgoing subcommittee co-chair Kathy Garlick said she would remain on the commission but step down from the subcommittee’s leadership. Oz nominated Rachel Stanton and Jossy Burks Abbott; the nomination was seconded and approved by voice vote. "The work that she does has really been very helpful to our commission," Oz said when nominating Stanton, and he described Abbott as "a wealth of knowledge in this area." The subcommittee then turned to planning its goals for the coming months.

The subcommittee’s top outreach priority is to leverage a recently produced video that highlights three businesses to spur additional employer engagement. Members reported active outreach—Kathy Garlick and other members said they had distributed materials to chambers of commerce across the Commonwealth and were arranging targeted invitations for employers who were featured or who had participated in the project. Rachel Stanton and Jossy Burks Abbott agreed to meet outside the meeting to organize future sessions and outreach logistics.

A related deliverable is a virtual forum intended for small and midsize businesses. The subcommittee discussed having the forum either during a regular monthly meeting or as a special meeting; members favored scheduling it at a regular meeting with an extended agenda. Potential dates mentioned for housing the forum included a meeting on April 28 and an earlier meeting on February 24, with one member noting the need to move quickly to sustain momentum among participating employers.

On policy coordination, members proposed taking a leadership role in the cross‑agency benefits-cliff conversation. The subcommittee discussed inviting representatives from MassAbility, EOLWD, and Concourse/Comcore to present updates and pilot work and recommended inviting subject-matter staff to the February meeting so the information could be folded into the subcommittee’s FY25 annual reporting. "We'd be very interested in inviting...someone in her office for workforce development," Oz said, urging that the subcommittee amplify the agencies' work rather than duplicate it.

Members also discussed tools and communications to help workers and employers understand the interaction of wages, training stipends and public benefits. The Department of Economic Research (DER) has shared a benefits calculator created by an out-of-state bank; members noted calculators can be hard to generalize given individualized Social Security and SSI rules. The subcommittee discussed exploring visual tools—such as a web-based calculator or infographic—and agreed to collect existing resources and make them accessible on the commission website.

Other operational items included recruiting additional subcommittee members (several members volunteered to invite colleagues), consolidating materials for the commission’s memo to Secretary Jones, and developing a short internal newsletter or web page that summarizes subcommittee activity for the full commission. Members noted that presentations and minutes are already posted to the commission website and suggested building out a disability-employment resources page.

The subcommittee closed by confirming its next regular meeting date (February 24) and asking staff to circulate a recording and the Department of Economic Research presentation for follow-up. Rachel Stanton and Jossy Burks Abbott will meet with staff before the next meeting to finalize the forum format and outreach plan.

The meeting record shows discussion items and a single formal action: the nomination and approval of Stanton and Burks Abbott as co-chairs by voice vote; the group did not record a roll-call tally in the transcript.