Transportation payroll soared under Patrick

The two major transportation agencies more than doubled the number of six-figure jobs since Patrick won the governorship in 2006. Transportation secretaries under Patrick have been paid 25 percent more than in the prior administration. New appointees have been simply layered over old ones, with the displaced workers given new titles.

The result: The Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works and the Massachusetts Highway Department together saw a 20 percent surge in their payrolls under Patrick, according to state comptroller records obtained under open records laws. The boost in personnel costs came as the administration, which had pledged early on to reform the transportation system, was facing an increasingly difficult financial picture.

The current secretary of transportation, Jeffrey B. Mullan, said he is reviewing “every seat in the house,’’ evaluating each employee’s role within the new Department of Transportation, to make sure that “everybody in the new DOT will have a job that lines up with the mission.’’

“I’ve been involved in transportation for a long time,’’ he said. “I don’t think it’s ever been done before.’’

While former governor Mitt Romney’s last transportation secretary, John Cogliano, had three deputies. Patrick’s first transportation secretary, Bernard Cohen, had six, and Cohen’s successor, James A. Aloisi Jr., had eight. While Cogliano earned $120,000 a year, Cohen and Aloisi each made $150,000, as does Mullan.

Since Romney’s last year in office, the number of officials in the Executive Office of Transportation and MassHighway earning at least $100,000 a year more than doubled, from 16 to 37, records show.

In several cases, Patrick allowed a new manager to bring in his own staff without getting rid of the predecessor’s key aides.

Aloisi, after taking office in January, chose his own chief of staff, Karen Charles, while the previous chief of staff, Amy Branger, continued to collect her $100,000-a-year salary. Branger was given several different titles, including “assistant secretary for environmental coordination,’’ and now holds the position of “director of the office of transition management.’’

Lily Mendez-Morgan, who had been a special assistant to the governor, became one of Aloisi’s eight deputies in January , taking on the responsibilities of Susan Quinones, who had been the director of interagency affairs. Quinones, as of July, continued to collect her $93,000-a-year salary and is now responsible for “tracking federal funding and policy,’’ a spokesman said; Mendez-Morgan, who is now “deputy secretary for interagency management and reform,’’ saw her pay bumped from $108,000 to $125,000 a year, records show.

Aloisi also brought in his own communications director, Colin Durrant, who was appointed to a $115,000-a-year deputy secretary position. Durrant’s predecessor, Klark Jessen, remains on the payroll, handling internal communications and blogging.

Among the highest-paid employees of either agency are hires that came with a political pedigree. Albert Shaw, a retiree who served on Patrick’s inaugural committee, was given a $115,000-a-year job as “director of intergovernmental affairs.’’ The fourth-highest-paid employee at MassHighway, Shaw was head of the Massachusetts Minority Business Roundtable and a former MBTA board member.

Mullan acknowledged there have been multiple people with the same or similar duties. “This is one of the things we’re working on,’’ he said.

Cohen did not return a phone message; Aloisi could not be reached for comment.

Administration officials say many employees were hired at MassHighway to handle the governor’s new Accelerated Bridge Program, a $3.8 billion blueprint to repair more than 400 deteriorating bridges over eight years.

Durrant said that when Patrick became governor, the highway department was “so severely understaffed’’ it could not handle urgent construction projects and was cited for the deficiency by federal highway officials.

“Since that time, we’ve had an unprecedented investment in the statewide road and bridge program and the Accelerated Bridge Program and over $400 million in [federal] stimulus money, all to repair our roads and bridges and undo decades of neglect,’’ he said. “The vast majority of people who have come on board have been professional engineers, inspectors, and maintenance personnel who are critical to moving projects quickly and ensuring the sort of oversight of taxpayer-funded projects that is necessary.’’

Some critics say the administration has added layers of managers without regard to the state’s financial condition.

Senator Mark C. Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat who chairs the Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets, said Patrick should have imposed a hiring freeze.

“For a year now many of us in both parties have said we need a complete hiring freeze, but we haven’t seen it yet,’’ said Montigny, who opposed creating a new transportation agency. “Anyone who’s come on recently - those positions need to be scrutinized. If we got along fine without them before, we can get along fine without them now.’’

Still, Montigny said he had “full faith in this governor,’’ adding: “He wants to do the right thing. But transportation is such a big monster, it’s really difficult for even a very smart guy to get his arms around. It’s like turning around a tanker in the middle of a pond.’’

Senate minority leader Richard R. Tisei, a Republican and a top supporter of Patrick’s chief GOP rival in next year’s governor’s race, Charles D. Baker, said the administration has been irresponsible in its hiring.

“A lot of the jobs that have been created haven’t been on the ground level, where services are being provided. They’re at the top of the organization charts,’’ Tisei said. “Now that we’re in a fiscal crisis, all these positions are adding up and dragging down the whole state budget.’’

Late last month, with state tax revenues missing expectations, Patrick said he would close an estimated $600 million budget gap this fiscal year in part by eliminating nearly 1,000 jobs. The Department of Transportation’s budget will be cut by $13.5 million, Durrant said, with reductions in the snow and ice removal and overtime budgets. Managers will be asked to take furloughs.

Patrick’s handling of the budget has become a central issue in the nascent 2010 gubernatorial campaign: His three challengers - Baker; another Republican, Christy Mihos; and state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, running as an independent - have all sought to capitalize politically on the state’s budget woes.

Two weeks ago, Cahill said he had warned Patrick and legislative leaders in 2008 to keep spending down, but was ignored. And while the administration says it has eliminated jobs and reduced spending, Cahill said he saw no evidence of that.

Administration officials disputed Cahill’s assertion, saying more than 1,600 jobs had been cut and 761 people laid off. They also said the number of executive branch employees had decreased over the past two years.

The payroll records also show that more than 80 percent of MassHighway’s nearly 2,000 employees are paid out of the state’s capital budget and funded through bonds. In a parting letter Aloisi wrote to Patrick last month, he called this method “a wasteful and duplicitous practice designed to hide the real cost of our workforce while seriously shortchanging our statewide road and bridge programs.’’ He blamed the Legislature for failing to transfer the payroll costs to the regular operating budget.