Registrar quits post in power struggle
Resisted overhaul of state agency
The state's first female registrar of motor vehicles abruptly announced her resignation yesterday after apparently losing a bitter power struggle with Governor Mitt Romney's transportation czar.
Kimberly Hinden had resisted streamlining the Registry's operations and giving up control over hiring. She was also reluctant to move the agency's main offices from Copley Square to less expensive real estate near Boston Common.
Hinden was defiant in an e-mail sent to staff announcing her departure.
''I want each of you to know that I fought with everything I had to keep us whole," she wrote. ''I did this because I believed that it was the right thing to do . . . not only for the employees but for the citizens of the Commonwealth. We are stronger when we work together as a team. Unfortunately, politics, rather than reason, prevailed."
Hinden, who was appointed in 2002 by acting governor Jane M. Swift, became the first woman to head the Registry in its 97-year history. She had been widely credited, along with former registrar Daniel A. Grabauskas, with helping to improve customer service at the agency.
But she had also run afoul of the state's new transportation secretary, John Cogliano, who was appointed by Romney in May with a mandate to consolidate Registry operations.
One of Cogliano's directives called for the Registry to move its executive offices, including Hinden's suite, out of posh Copley Place into decidedly drabber surroundings at 10 Park Plaza, where Cogliano has his suite. Administration officials said the move, involving about 68 Registry employees, would save $2.3 million annually.
Cogliano also ordered an array of top Registry personnel placed under his direct control, to prevent new hiring and stop the filling of vacant positions.
Some legislators said Hinden chafed at the orders and earlier this month placed a round of phone calls to lawmakers asking them to help stop the changes.
''The bottom line is she was insubordinate," said Senator Robert L. Hedlund, a Weymouth Republican who sits on the Transportation Committee. ''You've got to have people on the same page when it comes to definitive administration policy. Someone cannot be insubordinate like that, get caught, and then survive."
In a statement e-mailed to reporters, Cogliano cited a study by the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, which stressed the need to restructure the state's transportation agencies to save money and improve efficiency.
''We wish Kim well after her many years of service in state government, but this restructuring is a critical element in transportation reform," Cogliano said.
He added, ''We will continue with these reforms to deliver the best possible product to the taxpayers with the least amount of their valuable public dollars."
In an interview yesterday, Hinden said she expected two other top officials who were unhappy with changes at the agency to step down from the Registry.
Hinden said she alone had made the decision to resign her $129,000-a-year position, but she made clear she had serious differences with Cogliano over his management of the Registry.
''While I understand and respect reforms in state government, the Registry is a place that I think is a true success story and not because of myself but because of the hardworking people there," Hinden said. ''If it's not broken, I don't think it needs to be fixed."
Some lawmakers tried to prevent the overhauls earlier this week.
On Tuesday, some Senate lawmakers quietly inserted a provision deep in a budget bill that would have exempted the Registry from a transportation restructuring law passed last year, which Cogliano has been implementing. After the language came to light and stirred an uproar in the chamber, senators stripped the language from the bill.
Some saw the measure as Hinden's last stand. ''She definitely had some sympathetic legislators looking out for her," Hedlund said.
With the bill's defeat, Cogliano scored a victory in his bid to outmaneuver Hinden for control of the Registry, a sprawling agency with a $47 million budget, hundreds of employees, and a broad mandate to oversee licensing, citations, excise taxes, and other issues, lawmakers said.
Sean P. Murphy and Frank Phillips of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 