The head of a task force reviewing hiring practices at the Probation Department hit the ground running today, calling for the agency to be subject to the state’s Public Record Law and dismissing the notion that substantive reform will be accomplished by making the agency subject to Civil Service hiring rules.
Scott Harshbarger, senior counsel at Proskauer Rose LLP and a former attorney general, says everyone is focused on patronage at probation right now, but the broader, underlying issue is how to make the agency more productive within the state’s criminal justice system.
“We’re spending a huge amount of money here that could be spent more effectively and efficiently,” he said.
Harshbarger was dismissive of the call yesterday by Gov. Deval Patrick, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and Senate President Therese Murray for probation to be placed under Civil Service. “Cut the (expletive deleted) about Civil Service, as if Civil Service is a reform of anything,” he said.
The former attorney general, who tried unsuccessfully in 2008 to obtain aggregate statistical data on probation’s handling of juvenile delinquents and youthful offenders, said the agency for too long has been operating in secret. A series of court decisions have held that probation, along with the rest of the judicial branch of government, is exempt from the state’s Public Records Law.
“No matter where this goes, the public records issue has to be addressed,” he said, noting that protections can be crafted for areas of decision-making in the judicial branch that need to be kept confidential.
The Legislature, which has exempted itself from the Public Records Law, would have to approve any changes in the law.
The SJC last month announced that Harshbarger would head a task force to make recommendations on hiring and promotion practices at probation and other departments within the judicial branch. The task force announced today will issue at least two reports. The first, due in 90 days, will assess the current system for hiring and promotions at probation and make recommendations to the SJC on appropriate corrective actions. The second report, due in six months, will take a comprehensive look at hiring across all court departments.
Serving with Harshbarger on the task force will be Stephen P. Crosby, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston; Kathleen M. Donovan, managing director of Manpower Business Solutions; Ruth E. Fitch, president of Dimock Community Health Center; Michael B. Keating, an attorney at Foley Hoag LLP; William J. Leahy, former chief counsel of the Committee for Public Counsel Services; James F. McHugh, an associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court,; Susan M. Prosnitz, executive director of the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Service at Suffolk University Law School; Harry Spence, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Steven H. Wright, an attorney with Holland and Knight LLP.
