Governor Deval Patrick and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi embraced briefly at yesterday's press conference. It was the first time they have appeared together publicly since the speaker orchestrated a crushing defeat of the governor's casino proposal.
(SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF)
State takes aim at police details
Trims would save about $5m a year
Governor Deval Patrick and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi embraced briefly at yesterday's press conference. It was the first time they have appeared together publicly since the speaker orchestrated a crushing defeat of the governor's casino proposal.
(SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF)
The state's top leaders vowed yesterday to use their combined political might to take on powerful police unions by limiting construction details, a longstanding cash cow for police officers that critics for years have called a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Senate President Therese Murray, joined by Governor Deval Patrick and House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi at a Beacon Hill press conference, said they had agreed to come up with new regulations that will encourage state and municipal officials to rely on civilians in bright vests with flags, instead of officers, to direct traffic and monitor some low-risk construction sites.
They offered few specifics about how the rules would work, but said they would focus initially on dead-end streets and side roads. The change would be modest, saving only about $5 million a year. The rules, which would apply to road construction and utility-work sites alike, could be in place in a matter of months.
The move is surprising because it is being undertaken by Democrats who typically count public safety unions among their political allies. Governor William F. Weld, a Republican, tried in the 1990s to crack down on police details and failed. His successors opted against taking them on.
But with a state study last year identifying $19 billion in transportation needs over the next 20 years and an immediate state budget gap of $1.3 billion, Beacon Hill leaders said they are looking everywhere for savings, even if it means targeting expenses long seen as off-limits. "Everything is on the table," Murray said. "This is a necessary step."
Massachusetts has no statewide regulations requiring the use of police details for state or local road projects or utility jobs. But for decades state and local officials have used them at construction sites anyway, in deference to politically powerful unions. Any attempts on Beacon Hill to require by law the less expensive use of civilian flagmen have quickly been quashed.
The effort announced yesterday would establish recommendations for when flaggers should be used and when police details should be used.
Police unions generally declined to comment yesterday, because the administration has not spelled out the specifics. Police have argued that the presence of a patrol cruiser and a uniformed officer slows traffic and provides the best protection for the public and for road workers.
"The public safety that we offer is leaps and bounds beyond what a flagman could offer," said Rick Brown, president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts. "I don't know how you put a flagman out there without endangering the public."
The press conference to unveil the plan was the first time DiMasi and Patrick have appeared together publicly since the speaker orchestrated a crushing defeat of the governor's proposal to license three casinos in Massachusetts. They did their best to put a good public face on their fractured and sometimes acrimonious relationship. They stood several feet away from one another, but their eyes rarely met. They did embrace briefly.
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"Obviously the papers are used to put forth a twist or a bend on something," DiMasi said when it was his turn to talk about the Times story. "The reality is that I'm working with the governor."
Murray, who was hosting the press conference in the ornate Senate Reading Room, quickly stepped in and halted questions about the tiff between DiMasi and Patrick. "This is about transportation," Murray said. "Let's turn back to the subject."
The leaders, flanked by a dozen or so legislators, also announced plans to streamline construction projects, crack down on retirement and pension plans at the MBTA, and force the Turnpike Authority to look into adopting electronic toll systems and get rid of workers. But the police detail changes are expected to be the most controversial. The proposal would save the state $100 million over 20 years, according to Murray's office, or $5 million annually.
In comparison, costs for police details on Massachusetts Highway Department projects alone increased from $15.5 million in 2003 to $22.6 million in 2006, a 48 percent increase over the three years, according to a report last year by the Transportation Finance Commission.
About 4.5 percent of the total cost of MassHighway's construction projects goes to pay for police details.
Municipalities would also save between $37 million and $67 million a year by replacing most police details with less expensive flaggers, according to a 2004 study by the Beacon Hill Institute, a nonprofit economics study group at Suffolk University.
"The very fact that there's movement in this direction represents a very important shift," said David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute. "It's very promising."
Senator Steven A. Baddour, a Methuen Democrat and cochairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation, said the recommendations would classify streets in tiers, with heavily trafficked streets in one tier and secondary and dead end streets in another.
State officials said they want to use the money to help ease infrastructure costs. There is a projected shortfall in funding of $15 billion to $19 billion to maintain roads, bridges, and other transportation projects over the next two decades, according to a blue ribbon commission impaneled by the state last year.
"This is an impressive list of proposals, and they're taking on several sacred cows," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and a member of the Transportation Finance Commission. "This is an impressive first step."
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
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