Government

Recruit AI-native builders, designers, engineers, and public-service operators to modernize the Commonwealth’s technology. Inventory every system, platform, form, and handoff; redesign the work around what residents need, then upgrade or replace what holds that service back. Build on useful existing infrastructure, including MyMassGov, and retire duplication deliberately.

Create a connected service platform for applications, appointments, permits, payments, and case status. A multilingual chat-and-voice front door should be available 24/7, 365, with a visible case owner and a clear route to a person. Preserve phone and in-person access, accessible design, and support for residents without smartphones.

Start with a 90-day pilot and work toward integrating the top 25 services. Measure completed tasks, response time, error rates, and cost per resolved case. AI should help people navigate and complete services; accountable officials retain responsibility for consequential determinations and appeals.

Build a public visibility layer over existing financial and delivery systems, including CTHRU. Let people follow a dollar from its budget and appropriation through a department, vendor, contract, project, and payment to the service or infrastructure it delivered. Show dates, corrections, and documented exceptions for protected information.

Connect spending to outcomes: homes completed, permits processed, travel time reduced, services resolved, and the cost of delivering each result. Publish the baseline, target, actual result, measurement method, and accountable owner. Distinguish activity and correlation from evidence that spending caused an improvement.

Start by linking every project in this vision to a public budget-and-results record. Update as frequently as reliable source systems allow, with downloadable data and clear explanations. Keep independent audit and oversight alongside the dashboard so residents can examine both the money and its impact.

Create a public path from an idea to a decision. Let residents propose improvements, compare concrete options, and follow what happens next online, by phone, or in person. Publish the input received, the official response, recorded votes, the person responsible for delivery, and progress. Make it easy to see what changed because people spoke up—and why officials chose a different course when they did.

Pilot paid resident panels selected by civic lottery, balanced across age, neighborhood, and renter or homeowner status. Provide childcare, translation, accessible meeting times, and independent facilitation. Hear evidence, competing proposals, and people affected by the decision. Keep public submissions open online, by phone, and in person. Publish how the panel was recruited and where participation still falls short. OECD guidance provides a starting point for this design. 12

Start with housing: ask a panel to compare concrete town-wide plans for where homes can go, how many, at what cost, and with what infrastructure. Require a public recommendation-by-recommendation response within a proposed 60 days and a recorded vote by the legally responsible body. Publish what changed and why. The panel informs the housing plan; it is not an additional project veto. Adopt clear rules through the required public and legal process, then assess compliant applications against those rules. Preserve hearings, elections, appeals, and safety and environmental protections.