HOUSE, SENATE TO WORK WITH BAKER TO CURB MCC SPENDING
The state’s House and Senate leaders say they will work with Gov. Charlie Baker next session to clamp down on spending at the embattled Mass Cultural Council that issued a stateleased Prius to its executive director and spent thousands on Davio’s take-out meals.
Baker and the state treasurer’s office both have claimed they have no direct control over the taxpayer-subsidized agency’s spending.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo’s spokeswoman said the House would cooperate with Baker, a day after the governor cracked the door to the Legislature applying blanket policies on state-leased cars.
“If the Governor is interested in updating the Council’s enabling law, the House would be happy to work with the Administration and consider any proposed changes,” spokeswoman Catherine Williams said in a statement.
Yesterday the Herald reported Baker was looking to lawmakers for help to rein in spending at independent state agencies that are not held to the same policies for spending or state car use as those under his executive office. He said everyone in the public sector should follow the policies his administration put in place in late 2016.
Senate President Karen Spilka is “willing to work with the House to take a look at this next session,” spokeswoman Sarah Blodgett said yesterday in a statement.
House Minority Leader Brad Jones also backed the idea of setting up a statewide policy for leased state-vehicles.
“I strongly support Governor Baker’s suggestion that the Legislature take steps to implement a statewide policy on the proper use of state-leased vehicles,” Jones said in a statement. “Having a clear and concise policy that applies to all agencies would protect taxpayer dollars while also creating more fiscal accountability and transparency
throughout state government.”
The cultural council’s executive director, Anita Walker, has at her disposal a state-leased Toyota Prius, which is gassed up and parked near the agency’s St. James Avenue offices on the public’s dime. Walker made $174,000 last year.
At an official council meeting yesterday in Lawrence, the council detailed its total available resources of $18,068,305 for fiscal year 2019, but remained tight-lipped about its tax-subsidized spending practices.
Walker wouldn’t discuss her car usage and spokesman Greg Liakos declined to comment on whether the council has considered giving up the car or on any other questionable expenditures reported by the Herald.
Liakos instead provided a statement from the council that said: “Mass Cultural Council has leased an agency vehicle since May 2011 after concluding that a dedicated agency vehicle for use by the Executive Director for statewide work was more costeffective than either rental cars or paying mileage reimbursement.”
The statement continues: “This vehicle is to be used only for official agency business and is not used as a personal vehicle by the Executive Director. As an agency vehicle used for only official business, the agency pays all costs — gas, maintenance, insurance, registration — for the vehicle.”
When asked to clarify if the car could be taken home, Liakos said that it was “only for public use” and that “the statement is clear as day.” He declined to address line items that appear to show numerous tax-funded gas-ups in the North Shore town where Walker lives.
In June, the Herald reported the council racked up $3,700 in take-out meals from a Davio’s location in its office building, including $220 on cookie orders.
The agency is technically under the treasurer’s office, but it does not answer to Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg or the governor. Baker appoints board members to the council and the legislature signs off on its spending levels. The board of the council votes on how to spend its allocated funds, who serves as is executive director and how much that person is paid.