Today’s Globe’s banner headline: “Massport refuses to relent on sick pay.” The story calls it a “stinging setback for Governor Mitt Romney.”
Background: Massport has the most generous sick leave policy in Massachusetts, and possibly anywhere on the planet. (Surprise!) Employees accrue sick days at the rate of 15 a year. Apparently, they never expire. And here’s the kicker: you get to cash out 100% of your unused sick days when you retire, or 50% when you decide that you’ve had enough of meaningless hackery resign to pursue other opportunities.
Result: retiring Massport employees have walked away with payouts of as much as $200,000 all because of accumulated sick days. And prominent resigning employees have also done well – former executive director Craig Coy walked away with $28,000 after four years on the job, and former executive director Ginny Buckingham, who was pretty much forced out by Jane Swift after 9/11, carried nearly $6,000 off to her new gig at the Herald.
Bad policy? Horrible, even by state standards — most other retiring state employees can only cash out 20% of their sick days, and state employees who resign from agencies other than Massport get nothing. Of course, in the private sector, cashing out sick days is unheard of, AFAIK.
Amazingly, it turns out that the Romney/Healey administration had no idea that this was going on for their entire time in office until a Globe reporter clued them in. When the Globe first ran this story a couple of weeks ago, it said:
Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for Romney, on Friday afternoon said [Massport executive director Tom] Kinton’s call was the first the governor’s office had heard of the policy.
“It’s an outrageous and overly generous policy,” Fehrnstrom said. “Governor Romney made his views clear to Tom Kinton.”
Romney told Kinton that he expected the Massport policy to be quickly revised to cap the percentage of sick days that can be cashed in at 20 percent — the norm in state agencies.
Putting aside why it’s OK that the Gov’s office had no idea what was going on at Republicans’ favorite hack dumping ground Massport, Romney didn’t deliver. Here’s what happened yesterday:
In a stinging setback for Governor Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts Port Authority board of directors yesterday refused to reduce its sick-pay policy, retaining a benefit that is the most generous in state government and has provided retiring employees with payouts of as much as $201,000….
The vote suggests Romney’s power to shape state policy may be declining. Four of the seven members of the board are Romney appointees, but it’s not clear how hard the governor, who travels to New Hampshire today, lobbied for the change.
Eric Fehrnstrom makes excuses: “‘The governor expressed his position, but we can’t force them to vote our way,’ Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s spokesman, said after the meeting.” Oh gosh, that’s right — I remember now. It’s always someone else’s fault.
Does anyone really believe that if Mitt Romney had actually gone over to Massport to knock heads, he wouldn’t have gotten the vote he wanted?
More to the point: does anyone really believe that the four Romney appointees couldn’t have been pressured into revising this outrageous policy by Kerry Healey, the sitting Lieutenant Governor, Romney’s heir(ess) apparent, and the last best hope for the Massachusetts Republican party not to slide into total irrelevance?
We’ll never know. Because they didn’t try. Healey was too busy working up misleading negative ads, pretending that she couldn’t remember what she thought about MCAS six years ago, and trying to explain how Republican-for-Patrick Gloria Larson is actually a communist. And Romney was too busy running for President.
Here’s Deval Patrick on this:
“These kinds of excessive benefits have no place in the public sector and only further undermine voters’ confidence in our government’s ability to properly manage taxpayers’ money,” said Patrick “It’s no wonder that people are tired of the Romney/Healey Administration’s lack of leadership and are so ready to change the Big Dig Culture on Beacon Hill. It’s time to bring responsible management and oversight to Beacon Hill.”
The Big Dig Culture: it’s not just for highways anymore!
lynne says
You guys are kicking ass and taking names in dealing with Healey’s baseless attacks on Deval.
<
p>
It’s the same old Republican playbook…smear with everything you’ve got…hope no one notices the cognative dissonance.
<
p>
Following all this is making my brain squishy. I’m taking the rest of the weekend off. ;*P
dbang says
just one quibble, which is the idea that the governor should necessarily be aware of the benefits package of every state employee. I’m no Romney fan but not knowing this seems pretty minor as his sins go.
<
p>
I was amazed to learn that sick days get paid out at all. I’ve never seen that even once at any job I or my friends have had, private sector or non-profit. Sweet deal…
david says
is a huge employer – any competent manager ought to know what’s going on at one of his largest operations. And there really aren’t that many different plans to keep track of – actual state employees (i.e. those who don’t work for the independent authorities) I think all have pretty much the same plan, and then there’s the Pike, Massport, and … who else? Those are certainly the biggies.
ikant says
I’m sick and tired of all this bashing of state workers that goes on this blog. State workers put in the time at these jobs and deserve a few perks. Unlike private sector jobs, these workers get no bonuses, company cars for their own use, stock options, etc. If they have no sponsor, they wind up being passed over for promotion, losing to the more connected.
<
p>
So, if they can get a little benefit, so be it. There are plenty of other perks out there. What about the people with multiple state jobs or those that live free in state historical mansions? I don’t see anyone pestering these people. The state’s got plenty of money to pay out and can always get more through the legislature.
<
p>
Let’s move on.
pmegan says
Agreed. Government jobs have always been crappy and thankless, with low pay but good benefits. That’s how they can get employees.
sabutai says
It’s easier to take the conservative route of condemning people with great benefits than being a true liberal and trying to get benefits to match for oneself. You can’t have a race to the bottom without participants.
david says
“The state’s got plenty of money to pay out and can always get more through the legislature.”
<
p>
Isn’t that attitude a big part of the problem?
ryepower12 says
People should use their sick/vacation days – if only to maintain their sanity (and not spread germs when they’re actually sick). So… use em or lose em.
dmac says
Leave the state workers alone…we’re not all that bad…As an employee of a State agency for the past 8 years, I can tell you that it’s been no cake walk. The State has not negotiated in good faith with our union and I have seen not had anything remotely substantial in terms of finances. Which sucks because of the failing school districts, I made the decision to educate my child in a private school setting. In any case, I can assure you that the job that I do is vitally important to the Commonwealth and no we don’t cash out sick days ever…not even at 20%. So yes I agree that Massports policy is ridiculous especially when you have other employees of the Commonwealth who see less than a 2% increase per year. We can’t take care of our families on that…