Housing office gets audit pass
No state review yet of agency spending
The state auditor’s office failed to address six-figure pay, a fleet of free cars and other expenditures at MassHousing in its last scrub of the quasi-public agency and refused to say if they will do so the next time.
“We can’t discuss any audit we may do,” said Mike Wessler, spokesman for Auditor Suzanne Bump, “but we will be conducting an audit of them in the coming future.”
MassHousing, charged with funding affordable housing in Massachusetts, is home to nine top staffers who earn $200,000 or more, as the Herald first reported yesterday.
More than 150 of the agency’s 375 employees make more than $100,000, payroll records show. And they all have access to a fleet of 18 Toyotas — mostly Camrys.
Ten of those cars are assigned full time to specific employees who work outside the One Beacon Street office more than “51 percent” of the time, the agency said. All but three of those staffers are paid $100,000plus.
Gov. Charlie Baker yesterday said the agency’s $270,000-a-year executive director should keep looking for savings.
“Chrystal Kornegay is a terrific administrator and I have no doubt that she’ll squeeze whatever efficiencies are there to be had in that agency,” Baker said. “I would also remind people that MassHousing operates on user fees. It’s not a taxpayerfunded agency and operates independently.”
Jay Gonzalez, Baker’s Democratic rival in the Nov. 6 general election, said the big pay and free cars are among “one example after another of wasteful and inappropriate spending at state agencies, MassHousing being the most recent example. The people of Massachusetts deserve better from their governor.”
The agency’s communications director, Paul McMorrow, paid $149,599 annually, said Kornegay was not available for an interview. He did say MassHousing is addressing the auditor’s January 2017 report on the agency’s shortfalls.
“We have fully addressed the vast majority of findings in the Auditor’s report, and are making progress on the rest,” he said in an email.
That audit slammed the agency for not having a “formally documented” IT strategic plan, the failure to keep documents on the testing of a disaster-recovery plan and “did not have sufficient controls over the security and confidentiality of protected information.”
Wessler said the audit focused on “risk-based” concerns and was not a financial audit.
MassHousing’s total annual spending on salaries tops $17 million, making it the third-highest quasi-agency payroll in the state,
Nine MassHousing staffers earn $200,000-plus and more than 150 of the employees there make over $100,000, payroll records show.
behind only Massport and the MBTA, according to state payroll records.
MassHousing was created in 1966 to provide financing for lowand moderate-income housing.
Yesterday it announced $24.7 million in affordable housing financing for the construction of the 98-unit Concord Highlands apartments in Cambridge.