Veto this bill.
The Globe describes the duties of the Boston Licensing Board as follows:
The licensing board handles permits for liquor stores, dormitories, lodging houses, hotels, and establishments that serve food. Each week the board presides over three public hearings, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings…. As chairman, [former state rep and court clerk Daniel] Pokaski oversees the board and its staff, but the only mandatory duty for board members [former Boston corporation counsel Joseph] Mulligan and [former Secretary of State Michael] Connolly are to appear at hearings and vote on matters before the board.
For these backbreaking responsibilities, the board members are paid $60,000 a year. Apparently, that’s not enough — the legislature just passed a bill that would bump their salaries up to $85,000, and would apparently allow the Mayor of Boston to hike them even further, up to $110,000 in his “discretion.”
Who are these guys, by the way?
Appointments typically have gone to career politicians.
Really? Gosh, I never would have guessed.
Anyway, Chairman Pokaski explained that the pay raises are warranted because, well, other hacks get paid more.
“The City Council 12 years ago was making $45,000 and we were making $50,000; now the city council is making $85,000,” he said. “I was making $60,000 as a court clerk, and I think now the clerk of courts, I think they’re making $110,000. It goes on.”
It does indeed, Mr. Pokaski. Query whether that’s a good thing.
The good news in all of this is that it’s Mitt Romney’s problem — this bill is among the several that are piling up on his desk, to be dealt with should he ever return to Massachusetts. If Romney, or Kerry Healey, or Bill Galvin if both of them are out of state, vetoes the bill, it’s dead, since there’s no likelihood of the legislature coming back into formal session to override it before January 3rd. Also, since the bill was apparently passed less than 10 days before Romney/Healey’s term expires on Jan. 4th (the Globe article says it went to Romney’s desk on Thursday), they should be able to pocket-veto the bill by doing nothing. In either case, according to Mr. Pokaski, “the whole process will have to start over.” Cry me a river.
And the funniest line in the article, in which the Licensing Board’s chairman further justifies the pay increase:
“We could be making $200,000 in the private sector,” said Pokaski.
He didn’t add that, in order to make that kind of money in the private sector, they’d probably have to work more than three mornings a week. Details.
I laughed when I read the line about how they could be making $200,000 in the private sector. I doubt these guys could even find a job in the private sector, let alone keep it if they did find one. However, we probably will never know because I doubt the present incumbents will seek employment elsewhere even if the legislation does not become law. I so hope you are right about the pocket-veto.
Finneran went from $85,000.00 salary (not sure about the staff, perks, and appropriate usage of campaign funds and the ways that improved his lifestyle) to $500,000.00 plus private sector. So, sometimes this IS true…not all expoliticians need hack jobs as a form of retirement.
Finneran’s private sector job is primarily as a lobbyist.
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I don’t think MA Biotech Council hired him for his knowledge of protease inhibitors and such. His main contribution is decoding the genetic makeup of the State House.
Unlike the Federal system, I thought that if the Governor didn’t sign or veto, it DID become law. The only way to STOP this from becomeing law is for the Governor to actively veto – and I don’t think it can be overridden, as there are no more Formal Sessions since the Legislature officially adjourned for the year.
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Clarification?
link
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Or does that not make a difference?
by your question. They can only pass bills when they’re in session (whether formal or informal). If the session extends to more than 10 days later, the Gov can’t pocket veto, because normally a bill that he doesn’t act on becomes a law automatically. However, if the lege actually adjourns, thereby making it impossible for the Gov to return the bill to them 10 days later with his objections, then it’s a pocket veto.
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Does that help?
I found an explanation on the state website. http://www.mass.gov/…] Maybe that is why the legislature passed the bill when it did.
When there are less then 10 days remaining…my interpretation of this statutory language and the general practice…is that failure to sign, is a veto.
I read that a few months back on this forum. It just stuck in my mind and comes up whenever I read something like this. If these guys could be making $200k they would be doing it. Heavens knows what other political jobs they have in local, county, state government, so they might be making $200k and beyond in taxpayer money.
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As for money available, I was told the other day that Massachusetts inmates’ loved ones and others pay for collect calls to “the outside” for the inmates. The revenue generated is split between the telephone company and an inmates’ fund. Since after the basketballs and large screen TVs, there isn’t much to spend the money in the inmates’ fund on and the funds pile up in bank accounts. If the Commonwealth needs money, why not raid these funds before they increase our taxes?
Interesting idea – what about a public data base for appointive positions paid for by public funds?
Of course, what passes for newspapers and broadcasters in this town would never compile such a list. Maybe The League of Women Voters?
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“If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, ‘America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership’.” -Will Rogers.
this for the disability community for 15 years!
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For a decade and a half now the medical community has seen the disability community as a golden cash cow.
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Transparent databases are exactly what every State connected service needs and should have.
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It’s 2006, our technology is doubling at an alarming rate every day. We can’t flush this stuff out into the open????
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I’d volunteer to input and monitor, as well as research WHERE these “professionals” are and what their formulas of billing are.
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You’d be surprised at how many of us are disgusted at the waste and over billing of services and medically necessary products. And how many of us are willing to “blow the whistle on these price gougers” .
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I’m one who has been on the receiving end of overpriced “medically necessary” items. The Medical Products supply companies are so out of control, with NO oversight, the Government gets the overinflated bill and rubber stamps it and every tax payer in MA pays for it.
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For example: This week, I was prescribed a special 4 layer compression wrap for wounds on my leg. Medicare covers it. The Medical supply company has it, ships it, and Medicare gets the bill (Are you ready) $204.00, for 2 ace bandages, 1 gauze roll, and 1 roll of some sort of absorbent material!
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It stays on my leg a max of 2 days and then must be changed again, until my leg is supposedly healed, about 2 weeks.
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Um quick math here, $204 x 6 = $1224.00! The exact same materials I have purchased, at Walmart in the past, for a grand total of $9.95! The only unknown is the absorbent roll, but I’m certain it’s not worth $195.00! OH YEAH – it has to be put on and taken off by a registered nurse @ 100.00 /hr. I’ve done it myself for 18 months now!
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THESE ARE YOUR TAX DOLLARS, being wasted. I’ve spent the last 2 weeks being a medical guinea pig, because I have many chemical sensitivities on my skin and in my system, so many of the things prescribed, have ended up sitting in my bathroom (unused) and can’t be returned, because of some VNA rule or something! AND CMS just goes on paying for it.
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SO if we can get Transparency, for any of this stuff, ANY State agency, that just rubber stamps funds bleeding out of the State Treasury, sign me up to find a way to be part of the solution to PLUG UP THE HOLE and find money for truly legitimate and necessary services.
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I told Deval , “Turn me loose, I will find where all the skeletons are buried. I’ve already found some. Being on the ground, dealing with this every day. It just comes out and slaps you sometimes, SOME don’t even try to hide it anymore….. I’m sure I’m not alone in this…..
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If every resident of Massachusetts, really takes a good long look at a list of their daily dealings with the State and their agents, they can find I’m sure 1 (just one), item or bill that made them scratch their head and say…….”This just doesn’t add up…..and we’d uncover Billions…….
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Thanks for listening and thanks for being a venue where we can begin to find THE TRANSPARENCY, the Gov. is looking for…..He needs to look no farther than those that believed in him from the beginning. We know, we ALL know.
$999,925,000.00 to go.
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If you have any ideas on how to fix that, David, you should be running to replace those hacks =p
Right, here are some ideas.
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But they didn’t go over too well, I guess!
I should have qualified that. Heh.
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If you have any good ideas. Mitt Romney slashing state mental health care wasn’t such a fantastic one.
Members of the Licensing Board must spend 100% of their salaries on ham sandwiches, or other pork products, and submit the receipts to the state at the end of every 90-day period. At least that way the relationship between the appropriation and the way the money is spent will be out in the open.
of yours, Bob. I’m available for $84K (I believe in undercutting the competition).
I’ll do it for $79,995!
I’ll do it for a half dozen ham sandwiches and a couple of pork chops.
If the Governor is out of state, then the Lt. Gov. can sign legislation, and has done. If she is ALSO out of state, then the Sec. of State (aka the Prince of Darkness) can. I was there when he filed health care legislation when Cellucci and Swift were both out of state, and THAT never happened again.
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Point is – there is a bi-partisan chain of command for signing and vetoing. So why isn’t it being used?
for the Secretary of State to undertake too many of the Gov’s office powers, even though he does have the authority to do it when Mitt ‘n’ Kerry are both visiting their fabulous out of state vacation palaces. He could fire the entire Governor’s office staff if he wanted to, but it would be kind of pointless. He sensibly restricts his activities to pretty much ministerial duties. Filing legislation was highly unusual, and, as you say, it ruffled a lot of feathers. Similarly, he’s well advised not to sign or veto legislation, unless he’s cleared it with the Gov’s office.