Also see: The Boston Globe Needs Purple-Tinted Glasses For Gaza
"Abuse-of-power cases upset Mass. pension system; High-profile abuse cases, public outrage spur Mass. lawmakers to reform pension system
James Marzilli abandoned his duties as a state senator and left the Statehouse after he was arrested last June on charges of trying to grope four women in broad daylight while visiting suburban Lowell on official business.
Still, the embarrassment didn't keep Marzilli from trying to make his resignation effective Jan. 6, which would have allowed him to qualify for an extra year in his state pension because he technically held the post a few days in 2009.
That plan backfired when he was forced from office in November, when colleagues learned he had represented the Senate on a speaking panel in Germany. But he still wasn't through. He has asked the state to double his pension, citing a clause in public employee retirement law allowing for enhanced pensions of longtime lawmakers who lose re-election.
See: Pervert's Paradise
Quirks such as those — and an economic crisis that has left the state with a $1.1 billion budget deficit this year and $3.5 billion in anticipated cuts to start its next fiscal year — have prompted the state's governor and House speaker to vow that Massachusetts will reform its pension system this year.
"People are outraged when anybody cheats," said Barbara Anderson, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Citizens for Limited Taxation. "It's adding insult to injury when public employees are getting things the average citizen can't even hope for."
Marzilli isn't alone.
— Jeffrey Simon, tapped by Gov. Deval Patrick to oversee state spending of federal stimulus money, more than doubled his annual pension for prior state service by seeking credit for five years on a school committee board when he hadn't paid into the retirement system.
Simon has collected more than $400,000 in enhanced pension payments under the same provision Marzilli is attempting to use, which includes a clause for state employees with more than 20 years' experience who are fired, resign, or lose re-election. The purpose of the provision is to protect state workers whose jobs are "politically sensitive positions."
FLASHBACK:
"GOP hits Patrick stimulus chief" by Andrea Estes and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | February 14, 2009
Republican lawmakers sharply criticized yesterday Governor Deval Patrick's choice of real estate developer Jeffrey A. Simon to oversee the distribution of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money, citing the state pension he has been receiving since he was fired from his job at a state development agency in the mid-1990s.
Oh, no.
"Symbolically, the governor couldn't have picked a worse person for the position," said Senate minority leader Richard R. Tisei of Wakefield. "It highlights what's wrong with Massachusetts government, people cashing out and serving their own interest, instead of the public interest.
This is why I am a REGISTERED REPUBLICAN in this state!
However, it doesn't matter. Voters around here are so biased and closed-minded they reject Republicans out of hand even as the liberal Democrats of this state are looting the fuck out of them!!!! I've tried to talk with them, and they just hate Republicans. They don't really understand the positions, they just hate Republican, period.
So MASS. VOTERS DESERVE to be LOOTED and FED SHIT!!!
"This is the person who will be distributing all the federal stimulus money," Tisei said. "Doesn't it make you feel a little unsure the money is going to be spent properly?"
I never thought it would be which is why I was against this bill.
Said House minority leader Bradley H. Jones Jr.: "I have to think with the nature of the economy and the people being laid off that there was someone they could have chosen who didn't bring the pension issue with them. It speaks to the vetting. Either they didn't know or should have known. Or they did know and thought he was so exceptional they didn't care. Shame on them either way."
Simon, an Ipswich real estate developer, was named by Patrick Wednesday to the newly created $150,000 post of director of infrastructure investment. His resume, posted online, highlighted his experience as a real estate professional, with special expertise in redeveloping military bases.
Un-frikkin-real!! So there is ANOTHER $150,000 of TAXPAYER MONEY THROWN AWAY!
What could YOU DO with $150,000 dollars, American? I know what I could do: I could live for 10 YEARS!!!!
It also mentioned his work for the Massachusetts Government Land Bank in the mid-1990s, helping to redevelop Fort Devens, but it did not say he was fired from that state job in 1995. Under a Massachusetts law intended to protect employees from patronage-related retribution in a change of administration, Simon was able to collect an enhanced state pension while in his mid-40s. He has collected more than $400,000 in the last 13 years.
And yet, SERVICES are GUTTED and TAXES RAISED!!!
His termination from the Land Bank took effect three years and a day after he started in the job, entitling him to a pension based on his pay during those three years, when he received the highest salary of his state and local public service.
Simon could not be reached for comment.
Yesterday, administration spokesman Joe Landolfi called Simon "well qualified."
"He was very successful in helping develop Devens," Landolfi said. "Spending a fraction of the money we could receive in federal stimulus funds to have a seasoned real estate developer make sure the money is spent honestly and with transparency is well worth it."
Though Simon's official resume suggests he left the Massachusetts Government Land Bank because he was recruited for a similar job by the government of Bermuda, he was fired from the land bank by Michael Hogan, then its executive director.
Translation: the most qualified guy, the "honest" guy LIED on his resume!
Nice going, guv!
— John Brennan, a 16-year senator, worked as a volunteer local library trustee for 19 years and got that time as credit toward doubling his state pension, even as he missed 30 out of 36 meetings during his last four years on the board.
See: Ssssshhhhhh!: Pension Being Drawn
— Retired Senate president and former UMass president William Bulger — brother of the FBI's most wanted mobster Whitey Bulger — got his yearly $29,000 housing allowance to count as compensation, raising his annual pension from $179,000 to $196,000. Bulger has the highest state pension in Massachusetts.
Bulger's lawyer, Thomas Kiley, said the court simply decided what was "obvious" — the definition of regular compensation includes contracted-for payments beyond salary.
Yup, BOTH SCUM-BUCKET BROTHERS are CROOKS!!!
Also see Pigs at the State Trough for more about UMass and its wasteful looting.
Marzilli's lawyer, Terrence Kennedy, also said his client is seeking what he is entitled to by law. The state retirement board has postponed a decision until Marzilli's criminal case is resolved.
Gov. Deval Patrick said this week that pension reform, in the wake of abuses and the state's fiscal crisis, is essential.
"It's the outliers — that year and a day stuff, the 23-years-and-out rule at the T — that just makes the public mad as heck," Patrick said, referring to the provision Marzilli hopes to use and a perk in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority pension system that gives all employees a full pension after 23 years of service.
Patrick proposed eliminating the MBTA perk as part of his transportation reform package. He has also said he supports the overall structure of the state's benefit system, but says rules must be tightened to eliminate abuses and remove benefits for a select few.
Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, said a typical pension model is that an employee must work a certain number of hours a year to qualify for a pension raise. In most other state systems, Brainard said, Massachusetts' policies would never work.
Still, Brainard pointed out that Massachusetts isn't the only state with pension abuses. New Jersey had similar problems with people sitting on state consumer affairs boards — meeting as infrequently as once a month — to pad their pensions, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating whether political consultants used their connections to guide state pension business to their financial firms....
House Speaker Robert DeLeo said he plans to address pension reform alongside ethics reform in the coming weeks. "We have to regain the public trust, and I think the way we regain that is through addressing those two issues," DeLeo said. "It's important that we do something, and we do something as quickly as we can." --more--"
"Robert A. DeLeo created an additional House committee chairmanship that carries a $7,500 stipend on top of legislators' base salary of $61,440"
Also see: A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
