State House swindlers

This is a truly marvelous, glorious state, where we can find millions for useless, utterly useless "full-time legislators" and no money for the most vulnerable kids among us.

If you read Michael Levenson's terrific story in yesterday's Globe, you would have learned, as you choked on your cornflakes, that Senator Busy Hands Marzilli is hardly alone when it comes to violating innocent people.

Turns out more than a dozen of these clowns are putting the arm on taxpayers, taking advantage of a legal form of larceny in which legislators are allowed to quadruple their pensions if they get voted out of office, or bail out because a grand jury is sniffing around.

Is this a great state, or what?

There was a photograph accompanying the story, showing a bunch of state reps applauding the 2002 farewell speech to the House by Chris Hodgkins, the representative from Lee, who was the envy of his colleagues because of his New York-border per diems. All the reps were smiling and clapping and laughing like hyenas.

And who can blame them? They are being paid full-time wages for part-time work, and they give themselves raises and pension boosts and no one says boo. They work for suckers.

Us.

Even by the ludicrously low standards of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts, this scam is egregious. These are the same "career" legislators who, when not working at their own law practices, won't let poorly-paid state prosecutors perform a closing or any kind of outside legal work. Our legislators have deemed that a potential conflict of interest for prosecutors, who earn less than toll collectors. I'm sure the stance on the outside work of prosecutors has nothing to do with the fact that so many legislators work as defense lawyers and have a vested interest in keeping prosecutors overworked and underpaid.

It was quite heartwarming to learn that Vinnie Piro, the former state rep from Somerville who was acquitted despite taking five large from an informant to grease a liquor license, was rewarded for behavior that usually lands you in the can: He was able to triple his pension.

It would be nice if some of these frauds could meet Gary McManus in the corridor of Lynn District Court this week and explain why they deserve to be rewarded for political failure or personal malfeasance when he has been told he can't help poor kids anymore.

There has been no attention paid to this, because it involves poor people, but eight weeks ago, a group of lawyers who work as advocates for troubled kids was informed that the state was cutting the service and judges can't appoint them anymore.

McManus is part of a small group of lawyers who for the last decade worked in the juvenile courts as guardian ad litem educational advocates for kids from dysfunctional homes who get in trouble.

These lawyers were paid the princely sum of 50 bucks an hour, or about half of what a plumber gets to show up at your door. The lawyers who do this work are doing God's work, and they could earn more money doing any other sort of legal work. They don't do it for the money. They do it because sometimes they save kids from going to jail or having a lousy life or killing themselves.

Cutting these court appointments will save the commonwealth about $4 million, which is less than the gang of 14 profiled in yesterday's Globe will end up taking in retirement.

Gary McManus shakes his head when considering what we deem important in this commonwealth.

"A very wise judge, Bonnie MacLeod, told me 17 years ago that if we can get these kids into appropriate settings, maybe they won't cost us $40,000 a year to house them at the prison in Concord," Gary McManus was saying. "The trial court has to save money. We understand that. But this is shortsighted. It will cost us more money in the long run."

What else is new?

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com