Administration Out of Touch and Hopefully Almost Out of Time

Could the Patrick Administration possibly be any more out of touch than it is now? We don’t think it’s possible! According to a report in the Boston Globe over the weekend, “As Governor Deval Patrick merges the state’s transportation agencies in an attempt to reduce duplication and waste, a review of payroll records shows that his own administration presided over much of the growth in spending he must now rein in.” The Globe goes on to report, “Since Romney’s last year in office, the number of officials in the Executive Office of Transportation and MassHighway earning at least $100,000 a year more than doubled, from 16 to 37.”

As The Capitol View has reported many times, the Commonwealth is in the midst of a $600 million budget shortfall. The Governor recently announced his plans for dealing with this dilemma. The Globe says, “The Department of Transportation’s budget will be cut by $13.5 million with reductions in the snow and ice removal and overtime budgets. Managers will be asked to take furloughs.” So, cities and towns are going to take a hit so Governor Patrick can keep his overpaid cronies employed? Forget furloughs for the managers, it’s time to lay off some of the people holding duplicated positions with $100,000 plus salaries.

When asked about the MassHighway, an administration spokesman said, “when Patrick became governor, the highway department was “so severely understaffed’’ it could not handle urgent construction projects and was cited for the deficiency by federal highway officials.” Even if that were true, the kind of staff needed is skilled construction workers and laborers, not costly managers who hold do-nothing jobs.

The Governor’s re-election slogan should be “Together we can be wasteful and inefficient and put more hacks on the state’s payroll!”