Legislative Affairs Manager

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Job Description

Description

The Department of Public Health (DPH) is accepting applications for a Legislative Affairs Manager
.The Legislative Affairs Manager operates in the fast-paced office of the Commissioner, providing critical support to executive leadership and managing legislative coordination, reporting, and constituent inquiries. Working closely with the Director of Legislative Affairs, this role analyzes policy issues, tracks legislative priorities and translates complex public health data into actionable strategies and policy recommendations. Additionally, the Manager is responsible for drafting briefing documents, presentations, and testimony to effectively promote the Department’s mission and the Administration’s priorities.

• Draft legislative and budget testimony and supporting documentation designed to support and implement the Department’s policy priorities.
• Track, analyze and prepare internal summaries on legislation before the General Court.
• Directly engage in the development of legislative policy and strategies that proactively advance public health initiatives.
• Coordinate internal feedback on pending legislation in collaboration with the Director, Legislative Affairs and Deputy Chief of Staff, Strategy.
• Manage priority projects within the Chief of Staff office with supervision from the Director of Legislative Affairs.
• Attend legislative hearings and create briefing documents after hearing.
• Establish and maintain legislative report tracking systems and submission workflows.
• Formulate evidence-based policy and conduct research to support legislative opportunities and strategic initiatives.
• Work with advocacy and community groups to convey the official position of DPH across the full range of public health issues.
• Foster and support favorable public relationships and active partnerships between Department of Public Health and the Legislative branch of State and Federal government.
• Manage legislative constituent inquiry intake, tracking, and resolution processes in collaboration with Bureau and Office staff.
• Coordinate and quality-control briefings, presentations, and testimony for the Commissioner and senior staff.

• Excellent interpersonal, presentation, and communication skills with the ability to collaborate with diverse work teams.
• Ability to use data to inform policy decisions, identify systemic gaps and underserved populations and develop system wide quality improvement initiatives.
• Understanding of health equity and social determinants of health.
• Strong planning, research, analytical, organizational and problem-solving skills and be able to research information affecting a broad range of public health topics.
• Analytical, research, and problem-solving skills.
• Experience developing, implementing and using project management tools to oversee and keep initiatives on task.
• Action-oriented and highly organized with the ability to work under deadlines, work on a number of tasks simultaneously, and quickly prioritize multiple and competing tasks.
• Proactive and solution-oriented approach to challenges with the ability to think through problems, organize information, identify key factors and underlying causes to generate solutions.
• Understanding of diversity and the importance/commitment to shaping and developing a positive, inclusive, diverse and supportive work culture.
• Knowledgeable of various methods used in the preparation of charts, graphs and tables and be adept with various software programs, including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Strong judgement, responsiveness, political awareness, project management skills, and the ability to translate complex policy into actionable legislative strategy.

The mission of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) is to prevent illness, injury, and premature death, to assure access to high quality public health and health care services, and to promote wellness and health equity for all people in the Commonwealth.

We envision a Commonwealth in which all people enjoy optimal health. Massachusetts ranks among the healthiest states according to comparative analyses, but we face numerous challenges, including chronic and infectious disease, substance abuse, violence, preventable hospitalizations, and health disparities.

DPH coordinates programs and policies to address specific diseases and conditions and offer services to address the needs of vulnerable populations. We also develop, implement, promote, and enforce regulations and policies to assure that the conditions under which people live are most conducive to health and enable people to make healthy choices for themselves and their families. We license health professionals, healthcare facilities and a variety of businesses that impact public health.

We operate the state laboratory and four public health…