Dear friends,
Not surprisingly, the down-ballot race for the Auditor’s office has received little attention during this active political season. This has left many to wonder who the candidates are and what differentiates one from the others.
Yesterday was a pivotal moment in this campaign to replace Joe DeNucci. Yesterday the defining issue of the race was identified and communicated widely across the Commonwealth, and now the people of Massachusetts know which of the Democratic candidates for State Auditor has the integrity and courage to stand up for them and against politics as usual.
I am disappointed with Auditor DeNucci’s decision to provide a 5% pay increase for his entire staff-particularly as we are cutting programs and services that families across the Commonwealth depend on every day. I have called for him to right this wrong and rescind this pay hike. I am a champion of public service, and the individuals who make personal sacrifices to serve their Commonwealth. They are deserving of many things, including our respect and praise. However, in these difficult economic times, Massachusetts cannot afford to provide these pay increases.
What outraged me most about this issue was the lack of response from my Democratic opponents. When the taxpayers of Massachusetts needed someone in State Government to protect their hard earned money, I was the only candidate for State Auditor willing to speak out. Yesterday’s Globe article did far more than just shine a light on the Auditor’s pay hike, it was a test for me and my opponents. It was a test to determine who will serve as a truly independent watchdog over state government, and who is willing to stand up for the people of Massachusetts to protect the programs and services that we, as Democrats, believe in and fight for.
My opponents failed. They demonstrated that they represent business as usual, that they will side with their fellow insiders and watch on as our taxes are misused. Their inaction and apathy endorsed the notion that a select few state employees should receive higher pay while we are forced to lay-off teachers and public safety officers and close down community centers and libraries.
You deserve better. You deserve an independent auditor who will always put the taxpayers first. An auditor who will work hard to celebrate what is right in our state government and work diligently to create greater efficiency so that every tax dollar is stretched to the maximum. We must protect and restore the programs and services that families rely on before we promise any more pay increases.
Please stand with me, because I have proven already that I am running for State Auditor to stand up for you. You can join our grassroots campaign by visiting my website at ElectMikeLake.com.
Thank you.
Mike Lake
sharpmac says
Early on, David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix revealed this guy as a resume fraud:
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p>See the piece here
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p>I have to wonder if this posting was meant for Red Mass Group, not BMG, as no real Democrat would try to take advantage of people who haven’t had a raise in four years while voluntarily taking nearly a dozen unpaid furlough days. Seems to me this is an attempt by a desperate candidate trying to convince folks like Michael “I hate everything about government” Graham and Howie “I hate everything about living human beings” Carr that despite the (D) after his name, Lake is really one of them.
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p>The good news is that after September 14th, this guy can disappear down his rabbit hole and emerge two years from now as the Republican he really is.
bfk says
Who is taking advantage? You clearly must have a secure job with a good paycheck each Friday. Many are not so lucky as the Globe article made clear:
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p>That’s the source of frustration here.
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p>Besides, if this was such a good thing, why did DeNucci do it during the sleepy August recess when the press corps is out of the building and voters aren’t paying any attention? Why not announce in May or June that come July 1 everyone would be getting a raise?
patricklong says
It’s an issue of actually thinking about government vs. choosing your positions based on soundbites.
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p>L’il Mikey (I like that; I’m stealing it like a Jeff Perry staffer with a young girl’s clothes) doesn’t recognize the difference. These people haven’t had a raise in four years. During that time, the Auditor has laid off significant numbers of staff and his employees have taken 11 furlough days. Eleven furlough days may not sound like a lot, but it’s 4.25% of a working year. This is effectively a less than 1% raise, which is less than the change in cost of living during the last 4 years.
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p>And DeNucci’s not asking for more money to make this happen. He doesn’t get to write his own budget without limitations. The Legislature appropriated the money for FY11 to make this happen. That’s the most disingenuous part of both the media coverage and Lake’s own statements, which give the impression that he’s asking for more tax dollars to do it.
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p>We can debate the specifics of this raise endlessly, but what’s more important is L’il Mikey’s tone. His temper tantrum against state employees is exactly the kind of tone Republicans want to set for this election.
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p>Big Dig Baker is campaigning against unions and public employees because he wants to turn workers against each other. If the middle and working class are busy fighting amongst themselves, no one’s going to notice Baker giving handouts to his corporate masters. L’il Mikey is now doing the same thing. But public employees didn’t cause the financial collapse. Banks taking irresponsible risks did. If Mike Lake wants to run for office as a Democrat, he needs to stop repeating Charlie Baker’s talking points.
bfk says
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p>OK, so Mike agrees with Charlie Baker on this one. Tim Cahill, too. Guess what? Even Deval Patrick thinks this raise was a bad idea. Check this out from the State House News Service:
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p>
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p>Sure, the raise over time wasn’t much. Sure, they do important work. And sure, in good times it would be absolutely appropriate. The problem is that these are not good times, and 1 in 10 of their fellow citizens are out of work. Who caused the collapse is irrelevant. It’s not as if Mike is out praising banks while condemning public employees. He’s not a government-is-evil kinda guy. No, in fact he calls himself a champion of public service, and he is. Sounds more like Deval’s talking points.
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p>Furthermore, I’m not nearly as bothered by his tone as your’s. You can disagree with him on the content of his position. That’s all fine and well. Throwing out diminutives like “L’il Mikey” are ad hominum and unproductive, however. Glodis is overweight and Bump is a woman. Hell, the Governor is black. I bet you could come up with a couple of slurs for any of them with just as much thought as you put into the Jeff Perry comment.
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p>None of them would be helpful, though. None of them would give me or any other reader a clearer understanding of the issues facing our state. It wouldn’t do anything to advance the dialogue, and none of us would be edified reading them. So, before you criticize others for throwing a temper tantrum, you might want to raise the rhetoric above the schoolyard level yourself.
patricklong says
When he acts like a child. The slurs you’re suggesting are based on characteristics they can’t control, or can only sort of control in the case of Glodis’s weight. I can’t speak for cd40, but I’m not making fun of him for his age. I’m making fun of him for his immaturity. 32 is a perfectly reasonable age to be running for statewide office if you actually have the experience and judgment for the office. But Lake doesn’t.
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p>Other commenters have pointed out his misleading statements about his resume, and I’m willing to bet Bernstein could have found more if he’d really looked.
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p>Who caused the recession is important. Or more precisely, who a candidate blames is important because it says something about their thought processes, which is important for evaluating how they’ll act during the next crisis. Government needs competent employees. You need to pay them decently to get competent employees. Never having hired any employees, Lake doesn’t know that. But Glodis and Connaughton, who have plenty of incentive to attack the Auditor over this, have chosen not to. Mike Lake is the only one throwing a temper tantrum.
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p>To paraphrase my parents when I was a teenager, when he acts like an adult I’ll treat him like one.
scout says
With the possible exception of the Gubernatorial candidates, Lake’s resume has got more critical scrutiny than any other candidate in the entire state. If there was a smoking gun to be found on that front, there is little doubt it would have been found and trumpeted far and wide by the many interested parties. IMHO, this level of scrutiny is appropriate, but it should be applied universally to candidates.
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p>As it is, that article does leave the reader with a vague sense that Lake may have done something wrong, but never actually gives anything specific. Bernstein us usually good, but that was definitely not his best work. Perhaps probably why when people keep mentioning the article they always do so with a unspecific insinuation about what’s in it (patricklong, progressiveman) or even a false claim (sharpmac)…but never with a specific allegation of what he was supposedly untruthful about or even a quote. As I quoted before, even Bernstein ultimately did say: “I certainly can’t conclude that Lake is lying about his experience. Nor would I necessarily say that he has puffed it up (through omissions or hyperbole) more than many other pols.”
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p>As for the straw man that taking issue with these out-the-door pay bumps is somehow bashing public employees, that’s ridiculous & extremely myopic (perhaps purposely in some cases)…especially in the context of a race for Auditor. This is about a last minute gift (of taxpayer $$$) by DeNucci to his people, a gift he has chosen to give just at the time it’s impossible for him to be held accountable. This is a classic Beacon Hill maneuver, repeated countless times and recognizable to anyone who has been paying attention- including Gov Patrick, BTW. It’s definitely not a good sign for Bump and Glodis that they are so trusting of other public officials that they won’t even say boo. And it a weird sign that their supporters would so angrily insist that Lake shouldn’t have spoken out.
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p>Auditor is actually not supposed to just trust, after all.
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patricklong says
DeNucci submitted his budget request the same time as everyone else for FY11. The money for the raises was in there then, as a result of significant layoffs and furlough days. If Lake really thought this was ripping off the taxpayers, then the Auditor’s budget was a ripoff when it was submitted. He could have made an issue of it then if he thought it was a big deal. That would have made more sense if he actually wanted to accomplish anything. Maybe he could have changed the legislature’s mind.
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p>This is a big deal because it proves how empty-headed he is. Either giving the Auditor’s staff pay raises is a good idea or it isn’t. The fact that other people are going through a tough time is irrelevant. What matters is making sure there are qualified people working in the Auditor’s office. And realistically, qualified people have a lot of incentive to leave right now. Nobody knows who the next Auditor is going to be. Whoever it is may make major staff changes. The Auditor’s staff have far less job security than the private sector beyond January. Good performance won’t save them. A bigger staff budget won’t save them. The whim of the next Auditor will. People usually demand high salaries for accepting that kind of risk.
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p>http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/ta…
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p>”
Those duties are impressive; they are not, however, what probably comes to most people’s minds when they see the phrase: “managed the day-to-day operations of the White House.” Most people don’t know that “White House Operations” is separate from the political functions; they are likely to infer that Lake was a Josh Lyman-esque deputy chief of staff.”
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p>Bernstein could get sued if he said Lake lied and that wasn’t technically correct. He is writing in legalese to protect himself from suit. But if you translate the legalese to English, he’s saying that Lake’s resume is far less impressive than Lake claims. The fact that “many other pols” have inflated their resumes as well isn’t important unless those are other candidates in this race. And being as good as “many other pols” when it comes to integrity is definitely not right for someone whose slogan is “believe again.”
peter-porcupine says
scout says
…the version Bernstein article you link to reads like it has been translated into a foreign language and then back into English by someone who doesn’t read either language very well. Did you actually look at what you linked? It’s weird. Second, the article didn’t at all reveal “the guy as a resume fraud”. Here is the bottom line from the actual article:
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p>
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p>Third, the issue with these pay raises is that these on-the-way-out-the-door gifts have been a bi-partisan scourge on Beacon Hill for decades, and greatly undermine people’s belief in honest government. Real Democrats will argue openly for fair wages for people doing important jobs well, not just hand out perks on the way out the door when they can no longer be held accountable.
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p>We’d all be much better off if we left the sneaky, inside deals to Republicans…and if people actually call it out when done in our own party.
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progressiveman says
…the Bernstein piece politely skewered Lake for his resume puffery. It seems he really has been a political operative since college. He really hasn’t done anything at Northeastern yet. The most he can do is help Glodis win the Democratic Primary.
shillelaghlaw says
He’s trying to attract the Goo-Goo vote.
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p>Or based on his cliched convention speech, pulling a Tracy Flick.
seascraper says
… just when I couldn’t stand the solar panel people any more, the tired hack brigade shows up.
ryepower12 says
I’m 99.9% sure I just killed a few brain cells trying to understand ANYTHING written in whatever you just linked. Furthermore, I don’t see Bernstein’s name written anywhere on that article, and it’s not from Bernstein’s Phoenix blog.
shillelaghlaw says
Was that one of those web sites that gives your computer worms and viruses? It was a headline, the appearance of a blog, and a boatload of random words.
liveandletlive says
So glad you posted today. I have to contact your office and get some lawn signs. Do you have an office in Western MA?
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p>Yes, our state can’t afford pay raises right now. I think that raises will have to wait until after the schools receive the funding they need to restore the important programs that have been cut – such as music.
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p>Don’t worry about being called a republican. That sort of thing often happens when an outsider enters the picture. A republican would not say this:
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p>A republican would say that we should not give out these raises because the wealthy taxpayers and corporations need their taxes cuts, and while we’re at it lets cut funding to schools so we can give the wealthy and corporations more tax cuts.
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p>I don’t believe that is your intention at all. I believe that you want to make better use of taxpayer dollars so there is more to give to the important services we rely on.
I think you are on to something there. You can want that and still be a Democrat.
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p>I will contact your office soon about getting lawn signs.
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p>Thanks Mike,
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p>I hope you win!!!!
amberpaw says
I found out one on one discussions refreshing, and you definitely get my vote.
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p>This campaign season I haven’t had much time for campaigns, though. My spouse is still unemployed and i have a mortgage to pay and a family to support – being self employed that translates to “work more hours.”
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p>But a lawn sign? That I would be glad to do, or a political coffee in our small house.
judy-meredith says
accountants, experienced investigators, conservative attorneys because this is serious business auditing about 10,000 accounts of state agencies,contracted providers and suppliers. Requires skilled serious professionals, who get great salaries in the private sector. (I made the 10,000 number up. Maybe you know it. You should.)
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p>No place for grassroots informants making careless allegations and wasting the Auditors time.
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p>I’m backing Suzanne Bump because she knows what she’s talking about.
seascraper says
Like salary and pension lock-in hasn’t been a major issue for departing state officers. They could never justify it during re-election because every department has some dope playing golf on state time.
peter-porcupine says
judy-meredith says
yellowdogdem says
Nice to hear your opinion about Joe DeNucci, Mike, but, with all due respect, can you tell us something about your own performance as a Senior Manager at Northeastern University’s World Class Cities Partnership? When did you last give your employees raises, Mike? And how many employees do you supervise there? How have you been safegurading Northeastern students’ expensive tuition payments, and what does that tell us about what kind of auditor you will be?
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p>And you’re running for State Auditor while you are still a full-time, senior manager at one of Boston’s largest universities, charged with building relationships with corporate, government, and university partners all around the world. Amazing. Maybe even more amazing than earning five degrees from Northeastern. You have to be traveling all over the world for this job, and to major U.S. cities, while running this awesome program, and managing a staff (presumably while not handing out raises), all while running for state-wide office. It’s almost unbelievable.
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p>And tell us about your performance at the senior executive for the World Class Cities Partnership. I’ve been all over Google and Northeastern’s website, and I can find information about one conference that you ran in June 2009 for two-dozen senior municipal officials from Hangzhou, China, but not much else, besides an invitation to officials from Melbourne, Australia. And I’ve looked everywhere for some kind of publication, like a report on what kind of success your program has had, something about how non-world class cities can turn themselves into world class cities, but I just can’t find it. Funny that I can find so many press releases about what great things you were going to do with that program, but nothing about what you have actually done, other than that conference with folks from Hangzhou, China. Maybe Northeastern should get an auditor to find out what you’ve been doing.
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p> Disclosure: I think Suzanne Bump is the best thing since sliced bread.
christopher says
…to what extent is it really up to the Auditor to give or deny pay raises? I assumed those were set by statute with raises at regular intervals and included in the state budget. Personally I think these raises should have been done at regular intervals without furloughs followed by sudden big jumps. There should not be politics involved.
conseph says
My understanding is that the Auditor’s staff work at the pleasure of the Auditor and he (or she in the near future) makes the salary decisions for all those within their office. This is the same as with the Treasurer’s office. So there is no statute involved.
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p>I think that Joe is taking the opportunity to give a salary boost to his entire staff on his way out the door. They may or may not deserve increases based on their performance, but the timing of the raise and its announcement is greatly suspect and, if merit-based (and Joe does not say they are merit-based as near as I can see) you would expect a dispersion of raise percentages, but all are 5% here.
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p>I do not think Joe should have done this now. I also do not think he would have done it were he up for re-election.
cd40 says
All of the serious candidates agree with Guy’s position that this is a decision you really need to be in the office before passing judgement on.
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p>But L’il Mikey, never having held a real job, and certainly never a management position, doesn’t understand this.
johnd says
BMG may be a very quiet and boring place if the standard for criticism is you
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p>”need to be in the office before passing judgement on”.
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p>George Bush’s name comes to mind…
swampyshanty says
This is “Much ado about nothing”. This is not going to cost the tax payers a penny – the money was already in the Auditor’s budget. Denucci’s biggest fault was in his timing. If he had waited until after the elections it would be a “story without legs”. I think this was an opportunistic “cheap shot” on Lake’s part. It just gives me more respect for the real PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATE – Suzanne Bump.
ms says
To all auditor candidates:
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p>It has been said that federal money that was sent to Massachusetts was sent to companies in Tennessee, New Jersey, and elsewhere. Getting jobs here is the most important issue in this election. What are you going to do to insure that all Federal money stays in state, providing jobs here and not there?
theloquaciousliberal says
How could you possibly rate this unsubstantiated comment a six? “It has been said.”?!?
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p>Massachusetts has a detailed and comprehensive website on the use of federal stimulus dollars:
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=st…
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p>On this website, one can research exactly how almost all the federal dollars have been spent and/or allocated. You can see what money went to what agency or company. And which jobs flowed from that spending.
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p>You can even apply for a job and/or find stimulus-funded contracts to bid on. You can read stimulus stories from all over Massachusetts.
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p>This is almost certainly the most transparent government program ever concieved. The only comparable transparency I’ve seen in my many years in politics is the Governor’s excellent state budget site, where you can learn see in great deal how state revenue is spent:
http://www.mass.gov/bb/gaa/fy2…
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p>I would happy to discuss/address ms’s specific concenrns, if they are substantiated/sourced in any way at all.
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p>In the meantime, let’s all try to be a little more cautious in accepting the “truths” of out fellow posters.
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patricklong says
Tell the federal government we don’t want any of their stinkin’ stimulus money?
Because that would be the price of ensuring none of our stimulus money went to companies in other states.Putting restrictions on interstate commerce is generally frowned upon, and especially when the federal government is giving you the money to conduct that commerce.
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p>Not to mention that even if it was legal, starting a trade war would cause all the other states currently giving money to MA companies to stop doing so.
mark-bail says
Suzanne Bump, but Mike, I was impressed by your convention speech and look forward to watching your career.
couves says
The Globe article says “…Lake stopped short of saying he would rescind the pay increase if elected.” But on Broadside, you say that you would rescind the increase. Did the Globe get it wrong? Do you intend to rescind to pay increase?