A devil in the details for Romney

WILL MITT Romney rush in where Bill Weld came to fear to tread?

ADVERTISEMENT

The issue is police details -- and the tens of millions of dollars that could be saved if municipalities moved from requiring police officers for traffic control at construction sites to using civilian flagmen instead.

As anyone who has ever, say, traveled outside Massachusetts can attest, almost everywhere else in the country, most such traffic direction is performed by flagmen. But because of the influence of the police unions, nearly every Massachusetts locality requires a uniformed police officer at those sites.

That policy has been an issue here for more than a decade, and with good reason: Details drive up the price of road, utility, and construction work. Still, even determined cost-cutters have shrunk from the challenge of changing the current practice.

Back in his early years as governor, Republican Bill Weld introduced a bill that would have let highway engineers decide when a uniformed officer was needed and when a civilian flagman would suffice.

A hearing on that legislation brought as many as 800 cops to the State House. Those officers, who according to an account at the time had to be "cautioned repeatedly . . . to refrain from intimidating witnesses," proved to be exceedingly effective at persuading legislators of just what an, um, important piece of public policy the details were. A cowed committee sent Weld's bill to a study, which is the legislative equivalent of an unmarked grave.

That experience taught Weld that detail discretion was the better part of reform valor. After that, when reporters would query him on the subject of details, Weld would cite the 1992 experience, and puckishly note that if the Globe could put the votes together to pass a reform measure, he would be more than happy to file the bill.

"Politically it is very difficult for elected officials to make a change, even though it should be up to the police chief or police commissioner to decide those situations where a detail is really necessary," says Sam Tyler, president of the nonprofit Boston Municipal Research Bureau.

Certainly there's been no shortage of stories about both the cost and abuse of police details. Most recently, the Globe's Donovan Slack documented a pattern of detail double-dipping -- that is, officers being paid for working two such shifts at the same time.

And in a new study based on data obtained from 103 police departments, the Beacon Hill Institute estimates that if less expensive civilian flaggers had been used at construction sites on local roads, businesses and taxpayers would have saved between $37 million and $67 million last year.

Why such a big savings? Because it costs, on average, $34.70 an hour for a police officer, compared with something between $9.97 to $21.11 an hour for civilian flaggers.

Some argue that detail costs don't matter because many details are paid for by private companies. But the extra costs don't simply disappear. Instead, they are passed on to customers in the form of higher prices.

"In our judgment, there is no justification for this system in terms of the public interest," says David Tuerck, the institute's executive director.

When I asked the governor about the issue yesterday, I expected the sort of evasion reporters have become accustomed to on this issue. Thus it was a pleasant surprise when Romney said he had read about the new study in the Globe -- and that he planned to meet with knowledgeable officials to learn more about the issue.

"The report this morning . . . suggested that there is an opportunity for substantial savings. It is something we are going to look at very carefully," Romney said. "If we can save for our cities and towns tens of millions of dollars, that's something we have to do."

Good for the governor for not simply looking the other way -- though, when it comes to reforming police details, recent history shows that it will take a determined effort if anything is to be accomplished.

Indeed, given the Legislature's demonstrated reluctance to offend the police unions by putting the public interest first, the best way to alter the current cosy arrangement may be by making police details the subject of a ballot question and letting the voters decide.

Now there's a challenge to keep the rust off the governor's political organization.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.