High Tech Councils MassTrack Website Ranks State's 351 Communities

For Immediate Release: November 26, 2007                                                            

Contact: Cort Boulanger (339) 222-2442

High Tech Council’s MassTrack Website Ranks State 's 351 Communities

Streamlined Permitting Boosts Municipality Tech Competitiveness

The latest MassTrack (www.masstrack.org) municipal technology rankings, released today by the Massachusetts High Technology Council, showed significant gains for cities and towns that have streamlined their municipal permitting process. Nine of the top 10 MassTrack-ranked municipalities have approved expedited local permitting – also known as chapter 43D – passed by the Legislature in 2006.

MassTrack, launched in March 2006, is a dynamic website designed to provide data to technology employers and employees on how state and local political leaders measure up to the technology community’s agenda. The site ranks all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns on a range of variables that measure tax policy, workforce strength, and openness to development and growth. Local adoption of 43D was added as one of the 12 variables for the 2007 rankings.

"The slow pace of development has historically been a competitive disadvantage for Massachusetts," said Council President Christopher R. Anderson. “But more forwardthinking communities are embracing expedited permitting and creating a competitive
advantage that is apparent in this year’s rankings. Streamlined permitting is a key part of a balanced community agenda to attract and retain technology employers and employees.”

The community information provided through MassTrack brings into focus the competitive priorities of technology employers and employees in 12 core variables, including the density of technology workforce, new housing created, MCAS proficiency, local taxes and environmental permits issued.

An interconnected ranking of state senators and representatives were released in October 2006 and will be updated before the state election next year. Anderson noted that the permitting reform bill, one of the key priorities used in the legislative scorecard, is now being measured as a municipal variable.

"Quite often good state policy can run into significant implementation roadblocks on the local level," said Anderson. "One key goal of MassTrack is to better connect state and local policy around the technology community’s priorities to ensure that Massachusetts can become more globally competitive."

Anderson noted that many of the top-ranked communities – like #1 Abington – were not known as high-tech hot spots, but had showed progress in permitting and other key variables. Last year’s rankings leaders, like Hopkington and Natick, still fared well but slipped out of the top 10 in part because other communities have embraced permitting reform.

MassTrack was developed over the past year with the input of technology CEOs, statisticians, corporate site selection specialists, and public policy development experts. The 12 ranking variables are derived from the most current data available from a variety of public and private sources. A full explanation of how the rankings were constructed can be found on the methodology page of MassTrack.

MassTrack provides visitors the opportunity to explore interactive, color-coded maps of the state based on the MassTrack ranking and individual variables. A visitor can focus on a specific variable and quickly determine which communities are favorable or unfavorable for that competitive priority. In addition to the variables used for ranking, MassTrack collects other data points of interest to the public.

Anderson noted that the connected legislative ranking and assessment system is scientifically weighted and more proactive than other legislative scorecards. The weights of the votes are tied directly to the Council's annual CEO survey, which sets the Council's agenda each year. And Council staff works to identify and publicize upcoming MassTrack votes so legislators understand how that issue will impact their overall rating.

About the Massachusetts High Technology Council
The Massachusetts High Technology Council is composed of CEOs from the state's top technology
employers who for 30 years have worked to make Massachusetts a more competitive place for technology
growth. Council members run leading global companies from all sectors of the state's diverse technology
economy. In 2004, the Council launched the Massachusetts Defense Technology Initiative, which led the
state's efforts to preserve, Hanscom Air Force Base and the Natick Army Labs and now works to promote
economic growth in the state’s defense technology center.
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