It’s about time for Charlie to take charge
It’s one of the oldest Massachusetts hack tricks in the book — collecting overtime for shifts not worked — but it shouldn’t be happening in the era of supposed government reform.
The question now is, how was it allowed to go on, and who is responsible?
Gov. Charlie Baker got elected promising fiscal responsibility and tougher ethical standards but it’s clear that message didn’t reach the Massachusetts
State Police, now facing yet another major scandal.
An internal police audit revealed
21 current and retired troopers allegedly cooked the books, cashing in for overtime they didn’t work.
The new leader of the state police, Col. Kerry Gilpin, deserves credit for pressing hard on the scam, expanding the investigation and reporting the allegations to Attorney General Maura Healey.
But the fact is, it was a news organization’s inquiries that triggered the investigation. Where was the state auditor in all this? And what about the Inspector General? It was no secret that state police troopers were raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime, and that should have set off some alarm bells.
And the fact that the scandal was going on under the noses of the police leadership team shows how widespread the practice had become, and how little the troopers feared getting caught.
It’s all part of a culture on Beacon Hill that has long tolerated state employees grabbing as much money as they can, then retiring with a fat state pension.
Healey should jump all over this. If she digs deep enough, she’s likely to find this type of payroll abuse has been going on for years. And if she finds enough evidence, she should indict the troopers who were fattening their wallets.
The internal police audit covers 2016 — under Baker’s watch — so the governor deserves some blame for the scandal.
“Clearly there are some people here who broke the rules, allegedly, got way beyond the bounds of what anybody would consider to be appropriate behavior and for those are found to be committed what’s been alleged they should face the music,” Baker said yesterday.
Face the music? Wow, that’s tough language, governor. That is Baker’s tortured way of trying to soften the blow of the scandal, which is now going to hit him in the middle of his re-election campaign.
He has repeatedly praised state police, saying most of the troopers are honest, hard workers, but the audit, along with other recent scandals, suggests otherwise.
The overtime scandal is just the latest to hit the embattled state police, whose former Col. Richard McKeon was forced out after he reportedly ordered a state trooper to change the OUI arrest report of the daughter of a district court judge.
The hiring of Gilpin is a good start, but Baker needs to get control of the police, who are clearly incapable of policing themselves.