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About Ed Augustus Senator Edward M. Augustus, Jr. was born on March 31, 1965 in Worcester growing up in a neighborhood adjacent to Webster Square. From the two-family home in that neighborhood, Augustus made his way to Gates Lane School on Main Street before attending St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury. With an avid interest in history and government, Augustus moved on to attend and graduate from Suffolk University to obtain a bachelor’s degree involving both subjects and worked hard to put himself through. At the end of his four years, he became the first in his family to earn a college degree, although his education by no means ended there. Augustus persisted in his hard work and establishing his own path, all the while learning the skills necessary to serve his neighbors, both in Webster Square and the communities that formed the district he would one day represent. The path continued in 1989 when, at 24 years of age, Augustus was the youngest person ever elected to the Worcester School Committee on which he served two terms. Just as it is now, Worcester was the second largest school district in the state with only Boston containing a greater number of students. During his time with the school committee, Augustus also spent one term on the Worcester Human Rights Commission. Aside from his experience in working for Worcester schools and human rights in Worcester, Augustus progressed on to attain invaluable empiricism as Chief of Staff to Third District Congressman James P. McGovern for whom he worked the six years prior to his appointment in the State Senate. A current leader on education issues in the Commonwealth, Augustus was also a high-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Education during the Clinton Administration. Towards the beginning of his tenure with McGovern, Augustus received a master's degree in government from The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C in 1999. With such a myriad of experience and education, Augustus returned home and pursued the State Senate seat in the Second Worcester District with the full endorsement of Congressman McGovern. Augustus, running as a democrat, emerged victorious and was sworn in on January 5, 2005. The Senator, now in his second term, represents the citizens of Worcester’s Grafton Hill, Vernon Hill, Webster Square and Quinsigamond Village neighborhoods, as well as the communities of Auburn, Grafton, Leicester, Millbury, Shrewsbury and Upton. Still a champion of education, Augustus has fought tirelessly and ardently to boost state education aid and to revise the funding formula so that school districts are treated equitably and receive the resources they need regardless of their size or socioeconomic status. In the present session, Augustus is leading the charge on Beacon Hill to reduce the number of High School dropouts in the Commonwealth by 50 percent in the next five years. The vehicle for that change is the Senator’s bill, An Act to Improve Dropout Prevention and Recovery. A staunch advocate of public libraries, Augustus authored a new state matching fund to help public libraries leverage private donations to enhance technology upgrades and programming. The initiative provides 50 cents for every dollar raised over $2,000 in private donations up to $100,000 annually to public library foundations to support local public library programming and operations. Through this and other advocacy for the state’s libraries, Augustus was presented the 2007 Legislator of the Year Award from the Massachusetts Library Association. As Co-Chair of the Central Massachusetts Legislative Caucus, Augustus has been a leader on regional transit and public safety issues. Augustus cooperated with fellow legislators to secure a record increase in funding for the modernization of the Worcester County Jail, where he previously served as Director of Staff Training, and authored legislation to crackdown on assaults on corrections officers. For his work on that front, he was presented with Massachusetts Correctional Officers Federated Union’s 2006 Legislator of the Year Award. At the urging of state and municipal law enforcement officials, Augustus worked to reopen the Central Massachusetts Medical Examiner’s office at UMASS Medical School in Worcester. Thanks to Augustus and many others, the facility was reopened in April of 2007. While the state has recently seen a population decrease overall, Worcester County remained the only area where the population increased. Noting that shift pouring into Central Massachusetts, Augustus has relentlessly called for doubling commuter rail service to Worcester while helping steer $25 million in state funding to the CitySquare smart-growth redevelopment project. This ambitious and extensive undertaking will seek to transform abandoned and underutilized buildings in downtown Worcester into a revitalized and bustling hub of residential and commercial use that all of central Massachusetts can be proud of. Augustus has also proven to be a leader in the effort to recapitalize the state’s Brownfields Trust Fund, which provides funding to clean-up and revitalize abandoned contaminated industrial sites, creating jobs and getting them back on municipal tax rolls. This has been a proven method to boosting a community’s local economy. Sitting on an astounding seven committees with two chairmanships and three vice chairmanships, Augustus never has a lack of work. The Democratic Senator from Worcester serves as Chair of the Joint Committee in Election Laws, Chair of Bills in the Third Reading, Senate Vice-Chair of the Joint Committee on Education, Senate Vice-Chair of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs, Senate Vice-Chair of the Joint Committee on Public Service, is a member of the powerful Senate Ways & Means Committee and is a member of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. Other noteworthy accomplishments and awards of Senator Augustus include:
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