Senate · Democrat

Kenneth J. Donnelly

Former member, served 2015–2017 in the sessions covered here · Fourth Middlesex

Data through FY2026; built October 19, 2026.

Residence

Arlington

First elected

Senate 2008

Occupation

Legislator

Left office

died (April 2, 2017); successor elected in special election July 25, 2017

Seats held, General Courts 189–194 (the FY2017–FY2026 budgets)
Session	Chamber	District	Lines	Note
189th (2015–16)	Senate	Fourth Middlesex	2011 lines
190th (2017–18)	Senate	Fourth Middlesex	2011 lines

Posts and stipends

Kenneth J. Donnelly was paid $25,823 in leadership and committee stipends from 2016 to 2017.

Posts and stipends by session (stipends by calendar year)
Session	Posts	First year	Second year
189th (2015–16)	Assistant Majority Whip	not available	$15,000
190th (2017–18)	Title not in the roster records; a stipend was paid	$10,823	not available

Posts: the Legislature’s leadership and roster records as compiled for this project; where those name no post, the member’s committee chair, vice-chair and ranking roles from the Legislature’s member profiles. Stipends: additional compensation in the Comptroller’s payroll data (CTHRU dataset 9ttk-7vz6), 2016–2026; 2026 is the year to date. Stipends for 2015 are not available. Base salary is not included.

The district

Fourth Middlesex on its 2011 lines: 5 cities and towns, 178,462 residents (2020).

Arlington 26% · Billerica 24% · Woburn 23% · Burlington 15% · Lexington 13%, 66% of the town

Percentages are each place’s share of the district’s 2020 residents; for a town split between districts, the share of the town inside this one follows.

Population-weighted Fairness Index of the district’s cities and towns: 35 for all state aid and 30 for discretionary money (50 is a fair share).

Local earmarks are counted three ways. District money uses the first, clauses that name a place in the district; the second table adds organizations located in the district (placed in the district) and state facilities located there (everything placed). Three ways to count a local earmark.

District money, first measure: enacted earmarks in clauses naming a place in the district, by session (district money, not the member’s)
Session	District	Dollars	In corrective clauses	Per resident per budget, rank	Without corrective clauses, rank
189th (2015–16)	Fourth Middlesex	$200,000	$0	$1.12 · 37th of 40	$1.12 · 37th of 40
190th (2017–18)	Fourth Middlesex	$933,000	$0	$2.61 · 34th of 40	$2.61 · 34th of 40

District money is where enacted earmarks land, by the place a clause names, mapped to districts by 2020 population; it is not attributed to the member and does not include leadership’s base-text money that names no place. Ranks are of district money per resident among the chamber’s districts, 1 = most. “In corrective clauses” is the part carried by a Ways and Means chair’s corrective amendments, which is leadership’s money; the last column gives the per-resident figure and rank without it. Sessions are labeled by the General Court that enacted each budget. Per-resident figures use the district as drawn for each session (2011 lines through the 192nd General Court, 2021 lines from the 193rd), so they will not equal a session’s dollars divided by the resident count above.

The same district on the other two measures, by session (enacted; includes any corrective-clause money)
Session	District	Placed in the district	Per resident per budget, rank	Everything placed	Per resident per budget, rank
189th (2015–16)	Fourth Middlesex	$400,000	$2.24 · 37th of 40	$400,000	$2.24 · 37th of 40
190th (2017–18)	Fourth Middlesex	$1.5M	$4.22 · 26th of 40	$1.5M	$4.22 · 28th of 40

Budget amendments

Kenneth J. Donnelly sponsored 15 budget amendments in FY2017–FY2026, asking for $8.4 million in all.

Amendments sponsored

FY2017–FY2026 budgets

Adopted, known outcomes

53%

8 of 15

Chamber rate, same ask sizes

43%

expected at the chamber’s rates

Of the 15 with a known outcome, eight were adopted (53%). At the chamber’s adoption rate for amendments of the same size, about six (43%) would have been.

Largest enacted items matched to an amendment Kenneth J. Donnelly filed (strong text matches)
Year	Amount	Enacted budget text (excerpt)	Amendment
FY2017	$250,000	“not less than $250,000 to continue the assisted outpatient treatment pilot program at Eliot Community Human Services, Inc. to treat residents who…”	S4 #412
FY2017	$150,000	“not less than $150,000 for the Arlington youth counseling center”	S4 #407
FY2017	$125,000 (shared two ways)	“workforce efforts at the Pine Street Inn, Inc. in the city of Boston”	S4 #704
FY2017	$50,000	“a grant to the town of Billerica for the Yankee Doodle Bike Path”	S4 #777
FY2017	$33,000 (shared six ways)	“On-Site Academy to provide training and treatment programs for correction officers for critical incident stress management”	S4 #1038

Strong matches: 5 enacted items, $608,000 (the member’s share where several amendments claim one clause).

For 2 amendments the sponsor is the first mover named in the amendment text, because the Legislature’s record listed none. Ask size is the larger of the earmark dollars and the line-item change an amendment requests; bands: no dollar amount, under $50,000, $50,000–$250,000, $250,000–$1 million, $1–5 million, $5 million or more. Leadership’s unattributed base-text and corrective-amendment money is never assigned to a member. The comparison describes outcomes; it is not a measure of merit.

Bills sponsored

Kenneth J. Donnelly filed 103 bills as lead sponsor in these sessions; two were enacted on their own. In completed sessions, 2% of their lead bills were enacted on their own, against chamber medians of 3% to 4% for the same sessions.

Most bills die in every legislature, and many policies pass inside other bills; the chamber median for the same session is the fair comparison.

Bills filed as lead sponsor, by session and outcome
Session	Chamber	Lead bills	Enacted	Folded into an enacted bill	Sent to study	Reported favorably, then died	No action	Enacted rate	Chamber median	Cosponsored
189th (2015–16)	Senate	52	2	0	26	17	7	4%	4%	103
190th (2017–18)	Senate	51	0	2	30	18	1	0%	3%	76

Enacted bills as lead sponsor

S1934 (189th): An Act amending the town manager act of Arlington authorizing the town manager to appoint the director of assessments · Chapter 101 of the Acts of 2016
S2249 (189th): An Act authorizing the temporary use of the Clapp elementary school property in the City of Woburn for civic purposes · Chapter 200 of the Acts of 2016

Outcomes are the furthest point each bill reached in the record. “Folded into an enacted bill” means the history names the enacted bill that absorbed it. “Passed both branches; no chapter recorded” means the bill was enacted by both branches and laid before the Governor, with no chapter or veto in the history; in the 194th General Court such bills are shown as laid before the Governor (pending). The 194th General Court is in session until January 2027, so its open bills are pending, not dead, and its rates (*) are not comparable with completed sessions. Chairs and leaders control the calendar, which raises their rates. Source: malegislature.gov bill histories.

Recorded votes on accountability measures

Kenneth J. Donnelly cast eight yes-or-no votes on the eight accountability roll calls in this file (five yes, three no).

Roll calls on rules, audits, public records, term limits and pay
Date	Measure	Vote	Chamber result
January 26, 2017	Senate engrossment of the pay-raise bill	Yes	Yeas 31, nays 9
February 2, 2017	Amendment 2.0 (Bruce E. Tarr): Matters considered in an informal session	Yes	Yeas 38, nays 0
February 2, 2017	Amendment 3.0 (Bruce E. Tarr): Time to consider matters in an informal	Yes	Yeas 39, nays 0
February 2, 2017	Amendment 7.0 (Bruce E. Tarr): Provided with text of bills prior to poll	Yes	Yeas 39, nays 0
February 2, 2017	Special orders by majority instead of two-thirds (contested meaning)	No	Yeas 6, nays 33
February 2, 2017	Amendment 11.0 (Bruce E. Tarr): Unanimous consent	No	Yeas 6, nays 33
February 2, 2017	Amendment 13.0 (Bruce E. Tarr): Timely Local Aid Notification	No	Yeas 7, nays 32
February 2, 2017	Senate override of the veto of the pay-raise bill	Yes	Yeas 31, nays 9

Votes marked “contested meaning” are rules-package and public-records passage votes; reform advocates were on both sides of them. Descriptions are the project’s plain summaries of each question, or the question as recorded for rules-package roll calls; the official record is on malegislature.gov. Votes are facts; no score is computed.

Campaign money in

Kenneth J. Donnelly’s committee reported $68,000 in contributions of $250 or more in years the member served, 2015–2017.

By year (years in the Legislature)
Year	Contributions
2015	$32,000
2016	$30,000
2017	$5,599

By kind of contributor
Kind	Total	Share
Political committees and PACs	$28,000	41%
Unions and associations	$22,000	33%
Individuals	$18,000	26%

Individuals’ money by the employer they reported
Employer reported	Share
A named employer	60%
Self-employed	14%
Retired	3%
Not employed	6%
Not reported or withheld	17%

Not counted as contributions: $1,696 in other receipts of $250 or more in the same years (candidate loans and the candidate’s own money, transfers, refunds, bank interest and aggregated small receipts).

Largest employers and organizations
Employer or organization	Kind	Total	Contributions
MA & NORTHERN NE LABORERS' DISTRICT COUNCIL POL ACTION COMM	committee or PAC	$1,500	3
NEW BEDFORD FIREFIGHTERS LOCAL 841	union or association	$1,500	2
1199 SEIU MA PAC	committee or PAC	$1,000	2
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS MA PAC	committee or PAC	$1,000	2
BOSTON CARMEN'S UNION PAC	committee or PAC	$1,000	2
BOSTON FIRE FIGHTERS LOCAL 718 PAC	committee or PAC	$1,000	2
BROCKTON FIRE FIGHTERS PEOPLE'S COMMITTEE	committee or PAC	$1,000	2
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS LOCAL 103 POL ACTION COMM	committee or PAC	$1,000	2
IRONWORKERS UNION LOCAL 7 POL ACTION COMM	committee or PAC	$1,000	2
MA CORRECTION OFFICERS FEDERATED UNION PAC M C O F U PAC	committee or PAC	$1,000	2

Source: Office of Campaign and Political Finance, itemized receipts of $250 or more since 2015; OCPF filer record: Kenneth Donnelly Committee (CPF 14734). Individuals are grouped by the employer they reported; no individual contributor is named, and an employer field that is a person’s name is withheld. Massachusetts bars business contributions to candidates. Employer shows affiliation, not instruction.

Sources

Every figure traces to a public record.

Facts only: posts, stipends, sponsored amendments, enacted items, roll-call votes and district money. No score or grade is computed. Associations shown here are not evidence of cause. Method.