---
type: "Bill"
title: "An Act authorizing the city of Springfield to continue the employment of police officer Lawrence E. Akers"
description: "An Act authorizing the city of Springfield to continue the employment of police officer Lawrence E. Akers"
jurisdiction: "us/states/ma"
legislature: "Massachusetts General Court"
session: "193rd"
identifier: "H 4768"
citation: "Massachusetts H 4768 (193rd)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: []
version_count: 1
action_count: 13
vote_count: 0
first_action: "2024-06-24"
last_action: "2024-08-07"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/25a17122-0383-4fee-9805-9fbe2d9425ef"
source_url: "https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/H4768"
source_hash: "cabf5d9d6efc78ae89d86a210afdfa8dff909c5e44adb0973fa54d8feef1c5a2"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ma"]
---

# Massachusetts H 4768 (193rd) — An Act authorizing the city of Springfield to continue the employment of police officer Lawrence E. Akers

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/H4768.pdf)

## Sponsors

- Joint Committee on Public Service — primary (organization)
- Angelo J. Puppolo, Jr. — cosponsor (person)
- Brian M. Ashe — cosponsor (person)
- Bud L. Williams — cosponsor (person)
- Carlos González — cosponsor (person)
- Orlando Ramos — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2024-06-24** Reported from the committee on Public Service
- **2024-06-24** New draft of H4482
- **2024-06-24** Bill reported favorably by committee and referred to the committee on House Steering, Policy and Scheduling `committee-passage-favorable, referral-committee`
- **2024-07-15** Committee reported that the matter be placed in the Orders of the Day for the next sitting
- **2024-07-15** Rules suspended
- **2024-07-15** Read second and ordered to a third reading `reading-2`
- **2024-07-29** Read third and passed to be engrossed `passage, reading-3`
- **2024-07-29** Read, rules suspended, read second and ordered to a third reading `reading-1, reading-2`
- **2024-07-31** Taken out of the Orders of the Day
- **2024-07-31** Read third and passed to be engrossed `passage, reading-3`
- **2024-07-31** Enacted `passage`
- **2024-07-31** Enacted and laid before the Governor `passage`
- **2024-08-07** Signed by the Governor, Chapter 157 of the Acts of 2024 `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/25a17122-0383-4fee-9805-9fbe2d9425ef`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Massachusetts legislature records).