Official left in disgrace, then stayed on as adviser
Review finds little evidence of work by ex-commissioner paid more than $50,000
When David D’Arcangelo was accused of verbal abuse and mismanagement at the state’s Commission for the Blind in April, he stepped down from the top post within days. But the disgraced former commissioner stayed on as a paid adviser for nearly five months afterward — and it’s unclear what work he accomplished during that time.
D’Arcangelo received more than $50,000 as an adviser between April 7, when he resigned as commissioner, and late August, when his term as commissioner would have ended.
The Globe requested reports, memos, research, or other documents produced by D’Arcangelo during that period, as well as all the emails he sent. The commission provided no documents, and the hundreds of emails the commission provided revealed little evidence of new work. In fact, the majority of D’Arcangelo’s sent messages were forwarded old emails from his time as commissioner sent in response to either a public records request or a state investigation of possible policy violations. Virtually the only emails he sent in August were dozens of copies of his farewell message.
A top union official in the agency said D’Arcangelo was never seen, and rarely heard from, after he stepped down.
“Maybe the first month he tried to reach out to people,” said Carolyn Ovesen, vice president of the Service Employees International Union Local 509 s chapter representing Commission for the Blind workers. “I don’t think anybody heard from him after May.”
D’Arcangelo didn’t reply to multiple requests for comment.
D’Arcangelo, who was appointed by former governor Charlie Baker, is far from the only government executive who remained on the state payroll for months after leaving a highprofile job in recent years. Sometimes, the practice eases the transition from one administration to another, government watchdogs said. In some cases, though, it’s a fi
nal windfall of taxpayer money for people who never seemed particularly good at conducting the public’s business.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Amy Ruell, a former statutory advisory board member and advocate for the blind. “As a taxpayer, I’m dismayed and upset.”
Because the agency’s commissioners are guaranteed fiveyear terms, Ruell believed terminating D’Arcangelo’s employment before the end of his term would have been difficult.
“I don’t think he would have gone out quietly,” said Ruell, a past critic of D’Arcangelo. “I think this was probably the most expedient way to get him away from decision-making power.”
During his nearly five-year tenure, D’Arcangelo’s leadership demoralized staff while services for the state’s nearly 30,000 people with blindness or visual impairments languished, according to a Globe investigation. Meanwhile, he spent public money on dubious projects, such as a comic book for the blind that wasn’t published in Braille.
In his advisory role, D’Arcangelo was supposed to be researching self-employment and small business opportunities for blind people, commission spokesperson Michael Saccone said, to support a collaboration between the Commission for the Blind and a national service that finds work for people with blindness, the National Industries for the Blind. D’Arcangelo is on the organization’s board, a position he held while still serving as commissioner, according to his LinkedIn profile.
None of D’Arcangelo’s emails clearly pertained to that research.
The former commissioner reported working 250.75 hours, roughly six and a half weeks, after his resignation but before his departure, according to the commission. He received $53,491, which included pay for his hours worked, as well as pay for vacation, sick, holiday, and personal time. He received another $18,559 for unused vacation time.
The commission’s response to the Globe’s public records requests noted it withheld certain documents, citing broad public records exemptions, including privacy concerns.
Shifting senior administrators to advisory roles on their way out can make sense, said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonprofit budget watchdog. A generation of senior officials are in the process of retiring statewide, taking with them extensive knowledge about their agencies. A way to manage that, he said, “is to retain people’s services in some capacity.”
Other high-ranking officials who kept earning money from the state after their departures include Marylou Sudders, former secretary of Health and Human Services, who left at the beginning of the year and received almost $3,000 through March as an adviser, state records show. The former secretary of transportation, Gina Fiandaca, shifted to an advisory role when she left her job in September after about eight months. She had made about $30,000 as of the beginning of December, according to state payroll records.
Olga Roche, former commissioner of the Department of Children and Family Services, left her job in April 2014 after the unrelated deaths of three children under DCF’s care during her administration, but stayed on the state payroll, first as a consultant and then through family leave, until her 60th birthday about six months later, long enough to receive a significant pension bump, the Boston Herald reported.
In D’Arcangelo’s case, keeping him on the payroll for the remainder of his statutory term may have been done to avoid the possibility of litigation by dismissing him, said Paul Saner, D’Arcangelo’s predecessor. He called it the right decision.
“If they paid him X number of thousand dollars to remove him from management, I think that was money well spent by the Commonwealth,” he said.
While a commissioner’s statutory five-year term may make it difficult to get rid of a poor performer, it can also be an asset, Saner said. It gives the commissioner some autonomy from the governor’s administration. During his own term, Saner said, it made him feel comfortable being outspoken about the need for more state funding for the commission.
“I think it best that it not be removed,” he said. “From the perspective of the blindness community, is it good to have, or not? I guess it would depend on the circumstances.”
The administration of Governor Maura Healey did not address questions about D’Arcangelo, instead offering a statement in support of the new commissioner, John Oliveira, who was permanently appointed in September after serving as interim commissioner.
In a recent interview, Oliveira also emphasized that he was focused on the future.
Moving on is easier said than done. Cleaning up the financial mess he inherited is consuming Oliveira’s first few months on the job, he has said. Just last month, he announced D’Arcangelo’s administration mismanaged two federal grants, costing the commission more than $1.4 million.
”It’s really regrettable that the commission will be penalized for things he did,” Ruell said, “but at this point the best thing we can do is all just to move forward.”