Menino blasts Public Works employees after investigation
By Matt Viser, Globe Staff
Mayor Thomas M. Menino issued a strong rebuke today to the city’s Department of Public Works after an investigation found that employees routinely left early and managers failed to ensure that basic tasks were completed.
 (Patricia McDonnell/Globe Staff/file) |
“We can do better, and we will do better,” Menino said a City Hall press conference, adding that “any abuse of the public trust is unacceptable.”
Six to eight workers will face disciplinary hearings next week and dozens more could face similar measures as the investigation continues. To implement reforms, Elmo Baldassari was promoted to deputy commissioner of public works and will oversee the highway, sanitation and recycling divisions.
The four-month investigation of maintenance yards included undercover surveillance by a private investigator hired by the city. It was completed more than a year after the Boston Finance Commission, a city watchdog agency, found that West Roxbury public works employees assigned to fill potholes, sweep streets, and pick up trash often arrived late, left early, and performed "very little work" while on the job.
A resulting city audit of four work sites and the headquarters of the department's highway division, completed in October, showed that little had changed since the watchdog agency's report, and that the problems were potentially more widespread and chronic.
The results of that audit compelled Chief of Public Works Dennis Royer to hire a private investigator to spy on his own employees. What the investigator saw over five weeks beginning last month, including employees falsifying co-workers' time sheets with the knowledge of their supervisors, has placed many city workers' jobs in jeopardy.
According to the mayor’s office, dozens of employees are currently under investigation for falsifying records, insubordination, and untruthfulness.
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