Mass. hearing on BRIGHT Act advances $2.5 billion plan for campus repairs as lawmakers press for equity and decarbonization details

President Meehan, Secretary Gorkowitz and multiple campus presidents urged lawmakers Thursday to back House Bill 5493, the BRIGHT Act, a proposal to finance major repairs and modernization at Massachusetts public higher-education campuses.

President Meehan, representing the University of Massachusetts system, told the joint committee the system is confronting a $4.8 billion deferred maintenance backlog and that the BRIGHT Act would be "a generational investment in public higher education." He described aging building stock, the system's biennial capital plan and data-driven prioritization processes designed to target the most urgent facility needs.

The administration’s financing plan, presented by Secretary for Administration and Finance Gorkowitz, would use a portion of Fair Share surtax receipts to support special-obligation bond financing modeled after the Commonwealth Transportation Fund. Gorkowitz said the administration proposes $2.5 billion targeted to the public higher-education systems over a 10-year horizon, plus $500 million in authorizations for smaller modernization, planning and workforce grants. He cited FY24 and FY25 surtax receipts of roughly $2.46 billion and nearly $3.0 billion, respectively, as the revenue source for the structure.

Commissioner Noah Ortega of the Department of Higher Education emphasized the student-facing rationale: more than 135,000 students attend the state's…