Case Study: The Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts Analyzes Legislation and Tracks Changes with InstaTrac
The Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts (PFFM) is an advocacy organization that represents approximately 12,000 firefighters and their families across Massachusetts by pushing for policies that support public servants. “We advocate for safety legislation, as well as employment policies, and better healthcare for first responders,” explained Legislative Agent Paul Jacques.
When Jacques, an Attleboro firefighter, was elected to the PFFM to head its policy operations on Beacon Hill, he knew he needed a tool to help him dive into complex legislation that was effective and easy to use.
Before subscribing to InstaTrac’s MassTrac legislative tracking software Jacques said he'd use the “good old fashioned pen and paper, color coded three-ring binder.” He turned to MassTrac in 2010 to help digitize his work. Jacques was searching for a tool that would simplify reading and tracking different versions of the same bill. “Looking at legislation, sometimes it changes and it gets confusing,” said Jacques.
With MassTrac, Jacques has tools to help at each stage of the legislative process - in tracking bills and amendments, reading plain-english summaries, or comparing text of different versions of bills.
Every morning Jacques said he checks his Daily Alerts “religiously.” The Daily Alert notifies you via email of any bill actions, press releases, news, or upcoming hearings related to your tracked bills/amendments. Along with alerts, he is able to have a general overview of a bill with our summaries. Then, with a basic understanding, he uses MassTrac’s bill-text-comparison tool, saving him multiple hours everyday. When an amendment is introduced or a bill from a past session is refiled, MassTrac makes it easy to see exactly what’s different in the new bill version. Our bill-text-comparison tool is built to give you a side-by-side comparison of two bill text files, highlighting new text in green and omitted text in red, stricken. Rather than combing through each bill version line by line to spot differences, Jacques uses MassTrac’s bill-text-comparison tool with a click of a button. Even better, he can compare bills from different sessions.
By analyzing important legislation with MassTrac, Jacques and the PFFM have had a significant impact on Beacon Hill and the Massachusetts public safety space as a whole. Learn more about MassTrac and how to get started by contacting info@instatrac.com!