No golden getaway, says Pike ex-boss

Amorello denies he inflated his exit pay

Matthew J. Amorello was sworn in yesterday at the Ethics Commission hearing. The session might resume tomorrow. (Michele McDonald/ Globe Staff)

Matthew J. Amorello, the former Massachusetts Turnpike Authority chairman accused of ethics violations, delivered an impassioned defense yesterday of his actions in the days before his resignation from the transportation agency.

"I did nothing in my time leaving to enhance my position at all," Amorello testified at a State Ethics Commission hearing.

Amorello faces conflict-of-interest charges after being accused of helping to shape a policy on the buyback of unused sick leave for turnpike employees - a policy that made him eligible for as much as $73,000 in extra pay when he resigned.

But Amorello testified firmly that he had nothing to do with the policy change and, in fact, that when he learned of it, he sharply rebuked a subordinate and told him to reconsider it. He testified that he never accepted any payment for some 80 days of sick leave he accrued but had not used during four years as a turnpike employee.

The issue involving sick-leave buyback came to a head on July 26, 2006, Amorello testified. At the time, Amorello was under intense pressure from then-Governor Mitt Romney to resign his position following the ceiling collapse that killed a woman earlier that month in the turnpike connector tunnel.

For two weeks, Amorello had resisted Romney's public calls for his resignation, but on that late-July day, Amorello learned that the Supreme Judicial Court had ruled against his request to postpone a hearing at which Romney planned to lay out the case for Amorello to be discharged.

At a meeting later that day, Amorello testified, he told Norman Chalupka, the Turnpike's human resources director, "I'm stepping down. What does that mean?" It was only then, he said, that Chalupka informed him that the policy had been changed on unused sick time, giving Amorello - and any other turnpike employee who resigned - 100 percent cash value for that time. Under the previous policy, resigning employees would receive nothing for their unused sick leave.

"I was outraged at the 100 percent policy and asked him to re-look at it," Amorello testified.

Under questioning by his attorney, Thomas Kiley, Amorello said he used some colorful language to express his outrage at the policy change Chalupka had made without his knowledge. "I can't use the words I said in this setting," he testified at the hearing. "I was outraged that he put that into effect. I said that it was unacceptable."

Amorello also testified that he learned later that day that the policy on the buyback of unused sick leave was scaled back, in response to his challenging it, to give resigning employees 50 percent of the value of their unused sick time - still a significant enhancement.

The 50 percent policy stood until about a month after Amorello's resignation, when it was abolished by the new turnpike chief, John Cogliano. During the brief period it remained in effect, however, the buyback policy allowed five senior staff members who resigned to receive about $130,000 in extra pay that they would not otherwise have received, according to Ethics Commission documents and testimony.

Amorello testified that lawyers representing him negotiated a severance package that allowed him to be paid at the rate of his $226,000-a-year salary for six months after his resignation but that he received no compensation for his unused sick leave.

At one point in his testimony, when asked to recollect events surrounding the tunnel collapse, Amorello became emotional, his eyes welling up and reddening. Asked by one of the attorneys if he was OK, Amorello gathered himself and said, "I'm fine. It's a bad time - for that family," apparently referring to the family of Milena Del Valle, the 38-year-old Jamaica Plain mother of two who was killed in the ceiling collapse.

The three-hour hearing before a single commissioner recessed without any ruling. Lawyers in the case said the hearing could resume tomorrow with testimony from two other witnesses. The matter will then go for consideration before the full Ethics Commission.

The commission could impose fines of up to $2,000 for each of three alleged violations and force him to forfeit $73,000.

The five-person panel must begin deliberations within 30 days after a hearing concludes. There is no time limit for the deliberations, but the commission must publish its findings 30 days after reaching a decision.

Sean Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com.