State Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Mullan is leaving his job later this year because Gov. Deval Patrick refused to give him a raise.
The Globe broke the story, reporting that Mullan asked for a raise in May and Patrick turned him down. Mullan, who has two children in college and a third at a private high school, apparently told the governor he couldn’t afford to stay in state government. The Herald reports on the lack of continuity in transportation at a very critical time. Mullan’s replacement will be the fourth transportation secretary since Patrick took office.
Patrick’s hard-line stance on keeping salaries down has created a lot of tension in the transportation bureaucracy. Jobs there are extremely difficult, yet Patrick has refused to increase compensation. The cover story in the new issue of CommonWealth dissects the pros and cons of Patrick’s pay philosophy, as well as some of the inconsistencies.
Mullan was earning $160,000 a year running the Turnpike Authority, and had to take a $10,000 pay cut when he assumed the much bigger job of transportation secretary. The head of the T, Richard Davey, took an even bigger pay cut when he accepted his job, which pays $145,000.
Patrick, who is paid $140,000 a year, has also scaled back the pay of the top officials at most of the state’s authorities. Yet Susan Windham-Bannister, whom Patrick appointed to oversee seven employees at the state’s Life Sciences Center, is earning $285,000 a year.
Frank Phillips, one of the Globe reporters who broke the Mullan story, said on Radio Boston yesterday that the public sector is having a hard time finding quality people. He called Mullan’s post a “horrible job” and said the secretary could earn three times as much in the private sector.
–BRUCE MOHL
BEACON HILL
The Massachusetts Legislature is considering a proposal to address workplace bullying, reports the State House News Service. Via the Springfield Republican.
US Rep. Stephen Lynch urged the Legislature’s Redistricitng Committee to keep his 9th Congressional District intact in order to preserve the “highest concentration of Irish surnames in the state.”
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
A municipal workers’ union in New Bedford that has gone the longest there without a contract says Mayor Scott Lang is refusing a 2 percent pay raise to workers because the union has refused to drop three complaints it has filed challenging Lang’s use of furloughs.
The American Spectator is spotlighting a county in Georgia that has privatized its fire department and says it could be a model for struggling municipalities with intransigent unions.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley desanctified six churches in the archdiocese, allowing them to be put up for sale, the Globe reports. Among them is Wellesley’s St. James the Great Church, which the MetroWest Daily News reports on.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Minnesota ends its budget crisis by borrowing school money and future payments to the state from a tobacco settlement, Time reports.
The Washington Post reports on the Senate’s effort in debt ceiling negotiations.
The MetroWest Daily News pens an interesting editorial on what happens when living people are inadvertently added to the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File.
The Washington Post editorializes against the proposed balanced budget amendment.
KENNEDYS
The seeming rift behind the once-impenetrable Kennedy family facade is getting more attention.
ELECTION 2012
Avi Nelson, an Eisenhower Institute fellow, and political analyst Jennifer Donahue talk about the 2012 presidential election with Jim Braude.
Universal Hub reports that Mitt Romney’s campaign is refusing to let parents use a parking lot near its North End headquarters to pick up their kids from a nearby tennis camp. The city is allowing parents to use the few resident street parking spaces for 15 minutes and a garage across the street is also allowing short-term use to pick up their kids.
EDUCATION
The state has given Greenfield the green light to open an “innovation school” with an
environmental focus aimed at inspiring kids in K-3 to pursue a career in science.
The Berkshire Eagle registers its support for the statewide school junk food ban in an editorial.
HEALTH CARE
The Globe reports that a patient is suing Tufts Medical Center, saying the hospital faxed confidential medical records about her to a machine at her office where at least two co-workers read the information.
Massachusetts health care industry representatives protested possible federal cuts that they say could harm the state’s health care sector, a crucial sector of the Massachusetts economy.
TRANSPORTATION
Two jets collide at Logan Airport. The Herald story says no one was seriously injured. Here is the Globe account.
Everyman’s question: A Cohasset commuter pens a column for the Patriot Ledger about his daily travel travails headlined “Why does the MBTA hate me?” That says it all. The Ledger is also reporting that the T is eyeing selling an underutilized parking lot in the Hingham Shipyard even as it prepares to break ground on a new ferry and bus terminal adjacent to the land.
It must be official kvetch-about-two-wheeled-vehicles-day at the Globe. Tell bicycle riders to stay out of town, says Brian McGrory. Tell motorcycles to shut-up, says Scot Lehigh.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Do you want to appeal that $15 parking ticket? If a court wants to charge you a $275 fee for filing the challenge, it can, says the state Supreme Judicial Court.
ARTS
The New Bedford Art Museum curator has been banned from her own exhibit by the museum’s executive director after an increasingly testy relationship resulted in the curator calling the director an epithet during a tour with a friend.
MEDIA
Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch’s loyal lieutenant, is the latest casualty of the phone hacking scandal that is plaguing Murdoch’s media empire, reports the Lowell Sun (via AP). The FBI will begin investigating whether 9/11 victims were the target of any unethical behavior by News Corp., the Christian Science Monitor reports.
