STUDY HAUL
Cash-strapped UMass gives retired PR flack $100-an-hour consulting gig ... plus $75G buyout!
The cash-strapped University of Massachusetts, faced with more tuition hikes and steep budget cuts, handed its retired PR flak a $100-anhour consulting contract and more than $75,000 in unused time off on his way out the door, records show.
The former vice president of communications, Robert Connolly, has raked in a total of $231,662 in taxpayer-funded compensation in 2016, even though he retired in August, according to the latest state payroll records.
That includes $10,171 for his new part-time consulting gig, $76,647 in a “buyout” — which officials say is unused vacation, as well as personal and sick time — and eight months of his $212,000 annual salary.
And all those earnings are in addition to the state pension Connolly started collecting after August. The state allows retired employees to get part-time work along with their pension but their hours are limited.
Connolly’s new consulting contract caps his annual earnings at just under $50,000 a year.
The longtime spokesman was brought on to the state payroll by former UMass President William M. Bulger. His retirement came about a year after new President Martin T. Meehan took over.
Meehan’s new spokesman, Jeffrey Cournoyer, now earns $198,000 annually, according to records.
Cournoyer said Connolly’s assistance and knowledge have been “invaluable” since he retired.
“Bob is a post-retirement professional on contract,” Cournoyer said. “His scope of work includes writing assignments, message development, system-level marketing communications development, including video production, as well as providing advice and counsel.”
Meehan has four press aides, including Cournoyer, working for his office and UMass’ campuses have dozens of staffers in the communications departments, many making six-figure salaries.
But Cournoyer said that salaries for communications staffers have actually decreased over the previous year.
UMass and its campuses are in the middle of a budget crisis that has the school barely staying out of the red.
Trustees this week said the university has just a 0.2 percent operating margin, triggering major concern about its financial future.
UMass Boston disclosed it’s facing a $26 million shortfall, prompting Chancellor Keith Motley to call for major spending cuts, furloughs for teachers and employees, and raising the student-teacher ratio to make up for the deficit.
The Herald reported earlier this year that Meehan’s plush new offices at One Beacon Street cost $1.5 million a year more in rent than its previous office building. UMass administrators also got pay hikes this year, bringing some of their salaries to well over $400,000 per year.
Meehan, a former Democratic congressman and UMass Lowell chancellor, gets more than $500,000 in compensation and a $60,000-ayear housing allowance, and just moved into a nearly $1 million condo on the Boston waterfront.