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Gov. Maura Healey touted her administration’s accomplishments on housing, healthcare, and higher education while criticizing the Trump administration on energy policy and funding cuts in a wide-ranging exclusive interview with The Light on Monday.
Healey said there “could be” a future for UMass Dartmouth in downtown New Bedford. She was not familiar with the Bristol County Sheriff’s state funding request to renovate the Dartmouth jail — which would free the sheriff to close New Bedford’s antiquated Ash Street Jail — but said she would look into it. The governor also called on the Legislature to pass its final version of an energy affordability bill that’s currently stuck in negotiations between the House and Senate.
The governor, who is running for reelection this fall, visited The Light’s newsroom after stopping at New Bedford Community Health to highlight her administration’s investments in primary care, including a recent executive order directing MassHealth to increase spending on primary care over the next two years.
The order aims to address disparities in insurance reimbursement rates that make specialized medicine more lucrative, which is one reason there’s a shortage of primary care doctors. Healey also said she is trying to compensate for federal cuts to Medicaid under President Donald Trump.
“I can’t wait for Washington to fix it,” she said. “The Trump administration is doing everything it can to make healthcare more expensive, more out of reach, for more Americans.”
Healey repeatedly took aim at the administration for its efforts to halt offshore wind development and slash spending across the federal government.
Healey backs offshore wind to cut utility bills
Healey blamed rising utility costs on Trump, for-profit utility companies, and delays in getting an energy bill through the Legislature.
“I don’t understand why people don’t see the connection between the big oil guys making money, and their support of Trump, and Trump’s killing of other forms of energy,” the governor said.
Healey said she supported all types of energy, including both natural gas and renewable energy projects the president has tried to stop. She touted the new transmission line sending hydropower from Quebec to New England, activated in January.
Trump has taken aim at offshore wind, halting all permitting and leasing of wind farms on his first day in office. “Look what he did with Vineyard Wind,” Healey said, referring to the Trump administration’s December suspension of the Massachusetts wind farm’s federal lease, which a judge overturned a month later.
In stark contrast, Healey described wind energy as a path to “American energy independence” amid global uncertainty over the war with Iran and the struggle over the Strait of Hormuz.
“We have no control over Hormuz. As governor, I’m looking for ways where we can have control,” she said. “And so, I damn well am going to continue to fight for those wind farms, because they provide energy.”
Healey said she has also tried to keep energy costs down by fighting against utility companies’ proposed rate hikes that she said would benefit shareholders “at the expense of us as ratepayers.” She has also reallocated green energy funding toward utility bill discounts.
The governor said she was frustrated that an energy bill she filed in the Legislature over a year ago has not yet passed. It is stalled in conference committee negotiations as House and Senate leaders reconcile differences between their versions of the bill.
“That’s something that our residents need, our businesses need, and it’s sitting right there,” she said. “Get it to my desk.”
The future of UMass Dartmouth
When asked whether UMass Dartmouth could once again have a presence in New Bedford, Healey did not rule it out.
“I think that there could be,” she said.
Healey said she recognizes the economic “vibrancy” that campuses bring to cities, but she added that funding decisions on improvements to state universities are about “math” and the “return on investment” with taxpayer dollars.
UMass Dartmouth closed its downtown arts campus in the former Star Store building in 2023. The state inspector general sharply criticized the university and several state and local leaders in a report the following year about the campus’ lease and closure.
The governor touted increases in funding to higher education, including renovations to the Dartmouth campus. She criticized the Trump administration for cutting research funding to universities, trying to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, and proposing “wrongheaded” new regulations that could cut UMass Dartmouth arts students off from federal financial aid.
Plugging her housing policy
On housing, Healey listed off numerous investments, policy changes, and programs her administration has overseen to build more homes and put downward pressure on housing costs. Her administration found that the state needs 222,000 new homes by 2035 to “stabilize prices.”
The governor cited funding for first-time homebuyers, selling state-owned land for redevelopment, and increasing funding for new construction projects in the state’s mid-sized Gateway Cities.
In the two years since Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act, the state has built 100,000 new homes, a drastic increase in production, the governor said. She promised to look for even more changes she could make to incentivize more housing development.
Healey said she will follow up on Ash Street Jail
The Light asked Healey about Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux’s plans to close the 138-year-old Ash Street Jail, which he has called for repeatedly since taking office in 2023. Healey asked The Light’s reporters for more information, then said she’d look into it.
Heroux says he needs $10 million to $20 million from the state to renovate the Bristol County Jail and House of Correction in North Dartmouth, where the cells in half of the housing units don’t have toilets, and as a result, don’t lock. He says that renovation would allow him to close Ash Street Jail, built in 1888 and often described as one of the oldest continuously operating jails in the country. Heroux is currently seeking a grant to fund the renovation from the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance — or DCAMM.
Meanwhile, Ash Street Jail refused to admit police arrestees 135 times following medical and mental health screenings in 2025, The Light has reported. Heroux has said he could move arrestees to the Dartmouth facility after renovation and reduce the number of refusals now occurring at Ash Street.
Healey said “I don’t control the sheriffs” because they are independently elected officials, but she said she would look into pending DCAMM grants.
“Let me take a look at it and see if my administration can help all parties get to a better place,” she said.
Governor refrains from proposing new changes to nursing home staff regulations
Healey complimented The Light’s recent reporting on widespread understaffing in nursing homes, which she described as a “workforce problem.” She did not propose new policy changes to address it. The governor touted efforts her office has already made to improve the state’s long-term care system.
Half of the state’s nursing homes failed to meet the state’s minimum staffing ratios at the end of last year, a Light investigation found last month. Resident advocates say the state needs to set steeper penalties to force profit-seeking nursing home owners to provide enough staff. But last year, state public health officials reduced financial penalties for many understaffed nursing homes at the request of an industry group, while increasing them for others.
The governor backed those recent changes, which set lower penalties for nursing homes that are closer to meeting minimum staffing levels.
“Let’s see how it goes,” she said. “If it isn’t doing what it needs to do, then we’ll change it.”
Healey pointed to state grants to train new nursing home workers and a long-term care bill she signed in late 2024. That law included more training grants, requirements for annual inspections, and higher penalties for violating state standards.
The Department of Public Health oversees conditions in nursing homes, but it hasn’t yet passed final regulations to implement the changes legislators called for nearly two years ago. The agency proposed new regulations in February that are still in draft format.
Healey didn’t have an explanation for the delay, but said she understood it was important to finalize the new rules.
“My instructions are to be, with all regulations, get it done yesterday,” she said.
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org.
Eleonora Bianchi and Nathan Collins contributed reporting.
