"Bid to merge agencies called into question" by Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | April 9, 2009
On the heels of his politically damaging attempt to install a political ally in a high-paying job at a state bonding agency, Governor Deval L. Patrick is now maneuvering to combine the agency with another state authority.
The governor's goal is to merge the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority with the much larger Massachusetts Development Finance Agency. In a letter to HEFA board chairman Allen Larson, Patrick instructed him to complete the merger over the next few months.
Advocates for HEFA say the move is a power grab by the governor and is being undertaken without public notice or serious study of the implications. The charge is denied by the administration, which says the concept has long been under consideration....
Whom do you think I believe?
Also see: Patrick's Patterns
The letter, which has been obtained by the Globe, is dated the same day, March 31, that state Senator Marian Walsh bowed to a public outcry and decided to abandon her quest for a $120,000 job at HEFA as its assistant executive director....
The two agencies have overlapping operations to provide tax-exempt bond financing for state educational institutions and nonprofit cultural institutions. HEFA also issues bonds for hospitals. Advocates for keeping them separate say competition allows those institutions to bid for lower financing costs....
David Hannan, a former authority board chairman, decried the lack of public debate on a merger. And he accused the governor of trying to paper over his failed effort to give Walsh a job with a flimsy policy initiative. "The governor has chosen to attack this in secret," he said. "Now that he has been caught, he has couched it as an issue of reform."
But the governor's aides said the idea had been in the works before the Walsh episode. The governor's aides concede there has been no detailed plan outlining the need for a merger....
Translation: The guverner's office is LYING AGAIN!!!!!
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Update: Deval the dictator is defeated.
"Patrick's merger plan for agencies on hold
Governor Deval Patrick's gambit to merge two financing agencies, which drew scrutiny when he attempted to install a political ally in a high-paying position, suffered a setback yesterday when one authority's board blocked negotiations and postponed any further consolidation talks until after the governor's July 1 deadline. Voting 6-2, the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority established an advisory panel to examine financial consequences of a union with the Massachusetts Development Finance Authority and whether the quasi-public agencies would need authorization from the Legislature, which created them. The decision pushed the new panel's reporting requirement to after July 1 (State House News Service)."
Of course, I'd scrap the whole thing.
Why do we need 80 million "quasi-public" agencies ripping us off?
