Fireable Offenses?

State House News Service Weekly Roundup
www.statehousenews.com

                           Fireable Offenses?
By Matt Murphy
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE


STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, SEPT. 2, 2016.....To fire or not to fire? That was the question.

Gov. Charlie Baker chose not to fire two Department of Conservation and Recreation employees whose use of public resources and time to plan a July 3 party for political types became one of the first personnel scandals to test the Baker administration.



Recap and analysis of the week in state government.Maine lawmakers, on the other hand, were wringing their collective hands over what to do with their Gov. Paul LePage, who stoked the fires of race and drug abuse on a visit to Boston Monday before returning home to deal with restive political forces in his home state.



The informal last week of summer brought more bad drought news, the heating up of ballot campaigns and legislative races and new action from Attorney General Maura Healey to fight the opioid epidemic.



LePage, who was in Boston on Monday for a conference of New England governors and eastern Canada premiers, got the week started when he doubled down on controversial comments made a week earlier that black and Hispanic drug dealers from out of state were helping fuel Maine's opioid epidemic.



This time playing to the home crowd and in an interview with the News Service, LePage lumped Lawrence and Lowell into his category of prime suspects for exporting black and Hispanic drug dealers to the Pine Tree State. The comments helped touch off another round of recriminations that started with a similar claim about Connecticut and New York and an expletive-laced voicemail for a Democratic lawmaker from Maine whom LePage thought called him a racist.



Leaders in Lowell and Lawrence blasted the governor for his smearing of their cities, while Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy called it a "tremendous mistake" on the part of LePage to interject race into the debate over how to fight opioid addiction.



For his part, Gov. Charlie Baker opted not to get involved in the LePage saga, and while he insisted that the opioid crisis "knows no race" he passed up the chance to distance himself from his fellow New England Republican, with whom he shares little in common in either style or substance.



LePage, who would later in the week declare he had no intention of resigning, gave the Massachusetts Democratic Party its first chance to go on the offense against Baker, insisting that the governor should have been more vocal in defending his cities.


Fireable Offenses?


The party's second chance came later in the week when WCVB uncovered a pre-Fourth of July party organized by top officials at the Department of Conservation and Recreation with the use of state time and resources.



The party, in turned out, was held at the Back Bay apartment of Bay State Republican big wheel Ron Kaufman, who did not attend the party himself but lent the keys to his fellow Republican State Committee member Matthew Sisk. Golf carts rented by DCR and driver by DCR employees were used to shuttle guests to the Esplanade for a Pops dress rehearsal.

Kaufman's fellow Republican National Committee member Rep Keiko Orrall attended the party along with MassGOP Chairwoman Kirsten Hughes, but the MassGOP insisted neither knew how the party came together.



DCR Commissioner Leo Roy and his deputy Sisk were suspended for a week without pay for their actions after they agreed to repay the more than $800 in state resources they used to plan and host the party, but calls for their firing came from both Democrats and Republicans - mostly the aggrieved conservative wing of the GOP still smarting from the governor's takeover of the state committee in March.



"This is exactly the right kind of message," Baker said at an event in Plymouth on Wednesday, according to Commonwealth Magazine. "It's a pretty significant punishment. It sends a message that we don't support this behavior."



He got backup in that decision from an unusual source - Attorney General Healey. Healey deviated from her party's messaging when she said she thought Baker "took the right action" and did not believe a criminal investigation was warranted, despite urging from the Massachusetts Republican Assembly for just that.



Healey's focus was elsewhere this week, namely on supporting her Assistant Attorney General Sookyoung Shin, whom Baker nominated for an Appeals Court judgeship, putting out new guidelines for how businesses and law enforcement should use the transgender public accommodations protection law and announcing a settlement with CVS pharmacies that will require the major chain's pharmacists to use the state's updated Prescription Monitoring Program each time they dispense powerful painkillers to patients.

Chronicling the DCR and LePage twists and turns helped quench a thirsty press corps in the throes of an August news drought - and the real drought helped too.



Another week and another upgrade in the status of the drought that has now been classified as "extreme" by national monitors in almost 23 percent of the state.



Greater Boston residents, however, can rest a little easier knowing that despite the 31 billion gallons of water lost from the Quabbin Resevoir since May the major household water source still hold enough - 351 billion gallons - to meet drinking and washing demands for the net 4.9 years.



That's longer than Bay State workers might have to wait to finally see the income tax rate fall to 5 percent, despite the confirmation this week that for the first time in four year income ta relief, albeit incremental, will not be coming in January.



Revenue growth in fiscal 2016 proved insufficient to meet the first of five economic triggers that would have been required to set in motion a decrease in the income tax rate to 5.05 percent in January. Instead, after 16 years of waiting since voters approved in income tax reduction to 5 percent, taxpayers will pay the same 5.1 percent in 2017.



Despite supporting a 5 percent income tax rate, Gov. Baker's office said the governor was content to leave the current process - developed by Democrats in the midst of budget struggles in 2002 - in place rather than force the issue as some of his GOP colleagues in the legislature have tried for years.



That means it will be 2019 at the earliest that the full voter-backed income tax reduction could be realized.



STORY OF THE WEEK: Two New England Republican governors, in many ways worlds apart, are brought together in Boston for one day, but provided fodder for a week.



SONG OF THE WEEK: For when you're riding those golf carts to the VIP party this weekend, via my millennial colleagues.

A swath of Plymouth County - where this nearly dried up pond in Wompatuck State Park is located - was upgraded by the U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday from its "severe drought" category to "extreme drought" classification. [Photo: Michael Norton/SHNS]


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