GOV URGES AGENCIES TO LIMIT CAR LEASES
Calls on Legislature to regulate such spending
Gov. Charlie Baker is calling for agencies such as the Massachusetts Cultural Council to voluntarily abide by his administration’s policies limiting state-leased vehicles but said lawmakers do have the authority to force the agency to curb its lavish spending.
The cultural council — whose $174,700-a-year director Anita Walker drives a state-leased Toyota Prius, which is gassed and parked on the pubic dime — is exempt from Baker’s 2016 policies cracking down on the use of state-issued vehicles.
Baker said yesterday the Legislature could write the oversight policies into law.
“If you do that with a statute, obviously it has much more force than anything we can do,” Baker told the Herald. “Anything you can do with a statute creates a requirement.”
The governor said he couldn’t say whether Walker deserved the state-leased vehicle because he lacked the details of why it was issued. So far, the council has been silent on the rationale for the spending since the Herald broke the story last week and didn’t respond to questions yesterday.
Baker pressed the issue of take-home state vehicles in 2016, cutting the numbers to 192 from 224 and issuing new criteria to all administration offices for who qualifies for the cars.
“My view is simple,” Baker said, “people should abide by that policy. … It’s one that should be adopted by everybody who is part of the public sector and I would include the cultural council and others in that category.”
Acknowledging the policy has worked for the executive branch, Baker lamented independent agencies such as the cultural council currently have more leeway.
“The vast majority of the folks who play in the executive branch abide by that policy,” Baker said. “But the higher ed folks and the courts and other folks like that are obviously in a position to do what they think makes the most sense for them.”
Council spokesman Greg Liakos said all the agency’s spending supports its mission and “represent responsible and appropriate use of state funds.” The Prius is only to be used on official agency business, he said.
“We follow best practices in the use of vehicles for agency business,” Liakos said in a statement. “Mass Cultural Council has leased an agency vehicle since 2011 after concluding that its use by the Executive Director for statewide work was a cost–effective and efficient means for her to serve constituents in communities across the Commonwealth.”
Representatives for House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka did not offer a response to the governor’s interest in a law codifying the vehicle policy.
The cultural council is technically in the state treasurer’s office, but it is not overseen by the office. The council racked up $3,700 in take-out meals from a Davio’s location in its upscale St. James Avenue office building over a 10-month period — including $220 on cookie orders.
Asked whether the obscure agency running under her office should be subject to stricter financial oversight, Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg said the answer to that question was simply unknowable from where she sits.
“I couldn’t possible speculate on that,” Goldberg told the Herald, repeating that her office simple handles the agency’s money. “I know nothing about how they’re run, and I know nothing about who’s responsible for that.”
Goldberg said: “I have no knowledge of how they are governed, and what it should be. I am not involved in any of that decision-making, ever.”