Payroll patriots run it up
The hackerama never sleeps.
They just wait until you get distracted by Super Bowl parades or Donald Trump and then they give themselves another round of pay raises.
How sweet is it to be a Massachusetts hack? Today we’ll talk about two exBoston city councilors for whom the Super Bowl was last Thursday, not Sunday.
Am I right, Felix Arroyo and Jim Byrne?
First, Arroyo. How would you like to get a $5,100 raise — on the same day you get suspended from the job that will continue to pay you at the new rate of $140,000 a year?
Until July, when you get another $5,100 pay raise. And then in January you get another $5,100, followed by $5,100 more in July 2018.
Felix Arroyo is the nowsuspended Suffolk County register of probate. All I can say is, his suspension sounds a lot like a vacation, with four bonuses thrown in on top of it.
Next, let’s talk about Jim Byrne, who was approved as a new Chelsea District Court judge a week ago by the Governor’s Council.
To give you some idea of who Byrne is, his erstwhile law partner is former House Speaker Felon Finneran, the disbarred, disgraced, justice-obstructing speaker of the Massachusetts House.
A day after Byrne got his robes, he got a pay raise from $165,097 to $171,347 — wow, nice step increase! But he earned it, dammit.
Like Arroyo, payroll patriot Byrne’s got three more raises coming, first in July and then two more in 2018. He’ll end up at $190,087 for what amounts to, after all the days off, a part-time job.
Byrne got his job the oldfashioned way. On March 31, 2015, he gave $1,000 to the guy who appointed him, RINO Gov. Charlie “Tall Deval” Baker.
This Byrne is a classic hack judge. In addition to Felon Finneran, he has given to another convicted felon speaker, Jailbird Sal DiMasi, as well as to the unindicted co-conspirator, Speaker Bobby DeLeo.
But wait, there’s more. The extinguished jurist Byrne also ponied up for Middlesex County High Sheriff Jimmy DiPaola, who killed himself before he could be indicted; Tim Cahill, Jolly John Rogers (who compared yet another felonious House speaker to Jesus Christ), City Councilor Bill Linehan (who wanted to name the South Boston branch library after Whitey Bulger’s brother Billy), exLt. Gov. “Crash” Murray.
If they’re sleazy, Byrne took care of ’em, let me put it that way.
He also chipped in to Richie Iannella — hey, isn’t his brother on the Governor’s Council, which voted Byrne his early retirement.
Jim Byrne will turn 63 in May. He’s rounding third, as they say. And when a hack starts dreaming about that kiss in the mail, it’s time to take out the checkbook.
Because if you’re a judge, if you put in 10 years and get to 70, the mandatory retirement age, you get a 75 percent pension. Sadly for him, Byrne won’t max out, but by then the pay will probably be $250K. And remember, after all the days off, he only works about 35 weeks a year.
To dust off another old saying, Byrne has died and gone to heaven.
Thanks to Felix Arroyo and Jim Byrne, we’re number one!