High-tech fabrics manufacturing institute still needs $40M funding approval
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Gov. Charlie Baker said the legislature must approve $40 million in funding for a new high-tech fabrics institute.
State funding pledged to a high-tech fabrics institute still require legislative approval, Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday after attending a welcome reception for new businesses entering the Massachusetts marketplace.
At the event held at Genzyme's location in Cambridge's Kendall Square, Baker said his economic development bill, pegged at about $920 million, includes about $100 million for public-private partnerships, and that funding has already "borne fruit."
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on April 1 announced Cambridge would be the headquarters of the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America Institute, a joint venture between government, universities and private sector companies.
The Baker administration committed $40 million in matching capital funds for the initiative, which will stretch the bounds of textiles' capabilities with potential health care and military applications. The $317 million institute will be founded near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
After speaking to the crowd of business executives and foreign consulates, Baker expressed confidence that lawmakers would send him a bill including the capital funding committed to the fabrics institute.
"Legislature needs to pass it," Baker affirmed to reporters, continuing, "What DoD wanted was a commitment from us that demonstrated a desire to make it happen. We filed it as part of that $950 million jobs bill, and we got a pretty positive vibe from the Legislature that a number of elements of that were likely to find their way through in this session, including that one."
In a phone call with investors earlier this year, Baker expressed confidence that his jobs bill would be enacted.
The event hosted by MassEcon celebrated 19 major companies entering Massachusetts, including the Turkish aluminum supplier Erd Metal, which this month opened a 20,000-square-foot facility in Avon, and Amazon, which is building a roughly 1 million-square-foot center in Fall River that the company hopes will be operational by the holiday season.
The state is on track to hit its statutory debt limit, which reaches $21.735 billion in fiscal 2017. Asked how the major borrowing in the five-year jobs bill would affect the debt ceiling, Baker earlier this month said he expects "a series of hearings" on the subject and expressed confidence that the state has a "clear path" for addressing that.
"We think with some adjustments that are appropriate around the way the state currently funds a variety of revenue-based as well as general-obligation-based debt we can put ourselves in pretty solid financial footing," Baker said.
In an annual bill funding local road repairs through state borrowing, Baker included a provision that would have exempted from the debt-ceiling calculation all borrowing in the Rail Enhancement Program, where outstanding debt totals $450 million. According to the administration that program is financed by special obligation bonds backed by dedicated revenue from the gas tax and Registry of Motor Vehicle fees.
Baker last week signed a more pared-down version of the so-called Chapter 90 bill, sending $200 million for local transportation improvements.
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