SAY IT ain’t so, Joe. In a shameless Beacon Hill ritual, outgoing state Auditor A. Joseph DeNucci is rewarding his staff with a 5 percent raise, retroactive to July 1. Through a spokesman, DeNucci defended the raises as just compensation for a staff that hasn’t seen a pay boost in nearly four years and has taken 11 furlough days over the last two years, a concession equivalent to a 4 percent wage reduction.
DeNucci’s defense is weak and his timing couldn’t be worse.
The state’s unemployment rate is 9 percent. Many in the private sector workforce have lost jobs and benefits. In the public sector, state programs are being cut and more state workers face layoffs.
Governor Patrick already eliminated 2,700 positions in the executive branch and, as of October 2008, froze merit pay increases for all 5,000 managers. The 34,000 unionized employees who make up the bulk of the state work force were given a 1 percent pay increase over the last three years. The state budget that took effect on July 1 is expected to lead to scores of additional layoffs elsewhere in state government.
DeNucci is clearly taking care of his own, at the expense of taxpayers, as he goes out the door. That’s disappointing. It’s also disappointing that three of five candidates who are seeking to replace him as the state’s fiscal watchdog are unwilling to call him out.
Democrat Mike Lake and Republican Kamal Jain said they would rescind the raises. Jain called the increases “disrespectful to the taxpayers’’ and Lake described them as “a parting gift at just the wrong moment in time.’’
But Suzanne Bump, the Democratic candidate who was endorsed by DeNucci, dismisses the calls to rescind the raises as “facile political posturing.’’ Bump said if she’s elected, she will review all staffing and compensation levels and determine what’s appropriate.
Worcester County Sheriff Guy Glodis, another Democrat in the race, said he, too, would review pay and staffing levels if elected, but would not pass judgment on whether the salary increases are justified.
On the Republican side, Mary Z. Connaughton criticized the raises, but also said it is too soon to call for rescinding them.
If these candidates can’t see the raises for that they are — a fiscally unwise move by a lameduck state auditor — how can voters expect them to see waste, fraud, and corruption if they win election as the next state auditor?
It’s significant that all the candidates, Democrats and Republicans, seem to regard DeNucci, who has been in office for 24 years, as a respectable public servant who nonetheless represents an outmoded approach to being auditor. Giving everyone in the office a goodbye gift at taxpayer’s expense is one tradition that has to end. Bump, Glodis, and Connaughton need to acknowledge it.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
