Fiscal Periods 1 through 12 correspond to the months of the fiscal year, beginning with July (Fiscal Period 1) and ending with June (Fiscal Period 12). The agencies also operate with less public accountability than traditional government offices, with their budgets largely kept separate and not subject to legislative oversight. The Legislature should come down very hard and require some level of transparency, said Greg Sullivan of the Pioneer Institute, a former state inspector general. But 644 earned $100,000 or more last year, payroll records show. Earnings may also include overtime, additional pay for working other shifts, differential pay, or some recognition for length of service or educational degrees. Some contract employees have regular schedules, but many work intermittently and do not have a salary. Rather than display an incorrect value, no salary amount is shown. NEMLEC, along with the rest of the groups, refused to fulfill the request as they claimed records were outside the reach of the public records law. Note: Fiscal Period 14 is not used in the Commonwealth. Information about payments for settlements and judgments processed by the Office of Comptroller under 815 CMR 5.00. Want the latest investigative and FOIA news? The Commonwealths fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. And at the agency that oversees the states $70 billion pension fund, four Pension Reserves Investment Management Board officials made $400,000 or more, led by director and chief investment officer Michael Trotsky, who collected $668,824 last year. Not only do these salaries strain agency budgets, they leave a monstrous burden on future administrations in the form of pension liabilities, said Mary Connaughton, director of finance, administration, and government transparency at the Boston think tank Pioneer Institute. A 2010 law calls for agencies, including quasi-public agencies, to provide financial records to the state so they can be posted online. CTHRU categorizes spending by object code and object class but does not provide a line item view of goods provided or services performed under each transaction. 04
If you have any questions about how the site displays spending or suggestions on improving the reporting of Massachusetts state government finances, please contact the CTR Solution Desk at [emailprotected]. After the passage of a 2010 transparency law, these agencies have been required to provide their financial records for the State to post online. After the issue was briefed, NEMLEC reversed its position, agreeing that its records are subject to the public records law and ultimately releasing more than 900 pages of responsive documents to the ACLU of Massachusetts., ACLU further argued that any entity with the power to break down doors and arrest in the name of the state should also be required to abide by public transparency laws.. Statutorily protected details and confidential data are not enumerated in CTHRU and will not appear in total payroll data, including: Protected information, such as personal information of victims of domestic violence and work study students, Other exemptions under the Public Records Law, A vendor may perform a particular duty that is restricted to use for only a few departments and is listed separately from the vendors universal record that is available for all departments to use, A vendor may have changed its name or moved, and its original name is preserved for historical transactions. Select any one of these categories to explore the data by a particular fiscal year. CTHRU provides spending activity that has been entered and approved by the department making the expenditure. Yes. In that case, requesters have to appeal and ultimately bring in the Attorney Generals office for additional enforcement. For example, victims of domestic violence and work study students are not listed, in compliance with state and federal law. Detailed payment information for the summary transactions is kept by the departments that issue payments through delegated systems. Updated monthly. Data pertaining to more than 190 non-budgeted special revenue funds and approximately 1,000 trust accounts with dedicated sources of revenue, dating back to 2005. Over the years she has visited all but one of the state's 351 towns Gosnold. endstream
endobj
startxref
Payroll for quasi-governmental entities, voluntarily maintained by agencies choosing to participate. 
Run by Black journalists at The Boston Globe, Black News Hour, a new radio program, delivers reliable news that connects with our community and expands on deeper issues impacting our city. The Mass Educational Financing Authority, MEFA, pays the chief operating and financial officer $341,909, records show. We hope with continued oversight, publicscrutiny and staff dedicated to comprehensive transparency, that Massachusetts will jump to the head of the class. A09: Roll call pay Over the past year, state Auditor Suzanne Bumps office cited 15 of the agencies mostly regional transit authorities for violating transparency requirements under state law, with more reviews of quasi-public agencies upcoming. Quasi-government entities are agencies that operate on the federal, state, and local level and provide basic public services like transit management, community development, health services, and law enforcement support. Government officials and employees are now under investigation for theft and fraud. I just dont think they prioritized trying to get it right, Bump said. Started on staff: 1986B.S., University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Links to financial records and open data for Regional Transit Authorities. The Spending Summary shows the total spending by fiscal year and defaults to the most recently completed fiscal year.
All hires made in the past six months for externally posted positions within Executive Departments are shown, including annualized salary information. Although a grey area, Connaughton acknowledges quasi governments are better at abiding by public records law and increasing transparency. Mike Bello, deputy city editor at The Boston Globe. In order to protect personally identifiable information, mitigate against potential fraudulent misuse, and comply with statutes including M.G.L. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions. A20: Police detail Comptroller of the Commonwealth It was the same situation at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which pipes water to Boston and dozens of other cities and towns. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. Agency trustees and a compensation consultant continually survey the market and gather detailed compensation data to ensure that PRIM staff compensation remains competitive with but not above that of its peers, Macero said. If the requester is requesting information from a quasi that refuses to release records, then the requester can file a complaint with the Secretary of State and the Attorney General can enforce, said Connaughton. View a glossary of terms related to CTHRU, state payroll, and state spending, MBTA documents produced in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Websites Owned and Updated by Municipalities. He added: We look forward to working with any quasi-governmental agencies that would choose to take advantage of CTHRU in the interest of transparency..
Deirdre also oversees a Consumer Action Center in Weymouth, Mass., which has mediated 18,000 complaints and returned $5 million to Massachusetts consumers since 1989. hbbd```b``M/@$2H]"@$E)"U_;lWZ8cQ~t, Fiscal Period 13 is the Accounts Payable Period (July-August) where payments can still occur for services or goods that were received in the fiscal year that just ended. For example, Pension Reserves Investment Management Board spokesman Cosmo Macero said in a statement that the agencys headcount grew by four full-time employees, or about 10 percent last year, and the agencys strong performance a 9.5 percent return in fiscal 2018 led to incentive compensation payments that were approximately 8% higher than the previous year., Macero said competition for talent is intense, and the agencys compensation structure is governed by a rigid and detailed process.. If you filter or sort raw CTHRU data by selecting View Data in Worksheet,you must first create a login with a valid email address as your user name and specify a password. These entities are controlled by independent boards and boards appointed by public officials. Each site is owned and operated by the individual authority.
Not all transactions in MMARS share the same field requirements for processing. hbbd``b`@ H *X0-)g$%3` According to the Massachusetts Comptroller webpage, a total of 42 quasi-government agencies operate on the state or regional level in Massachusetts. %%EOF That system then records the accounting information at a summary level in MMARS. %PDF-1.5 % The good news is, we are heading in the right direction when it comes to on-line, accessible, government spending information. But with some entities operating in both the public and private sectors, many quasi-government entities opt for the secrecy afforded to private companies. The Commonwealth audited financial statements for each fiscal year (ending June 30) are usually available by the following January. There are two types of employees reflected on the payroll listsalaried employees and contract employees. Many quasi-public agencies also noted that they dont rely solely or in some cases at all on taxpayer dollars for operating expenses, but rather use significant revenue they generate from services, investments, and fees they charge to customers, such as tolls, fares, and rent. Anew story in the Boston Globetoday found at least 19 "quasi-public" agencies in Massachusetts failed to publish millions of dollars in payroll and spending data on the state's transparency website as required by a MASSPIRG backed 2010 law that mandated the public disclosures. But they are still required to submit to public records unless there are other types of exemptions, said Mary Connaughton, the Director of Government Transparency at the Pioneer Institute. When in the Checkbook View of the CTHRU Statewide Spending module, select the Download button in the upper-right hand corner. The top quasi-state is Massport, home to Logan International Airport and Bostons massive port operation. At the Massachusetts Port Authority, one of the largest quasi-public agencies and best known for running Logan International Airport in Boston, about 600 workers made $100,000 or more last year, or 43 percent of its staff. :4._lL=7/D\Blm;T];gZf1k)faz A0OD` HA0C BWJFl$KL9LCT~{~n4C,~,N:`A@n(_ pNYOzV\_urZez+~&+gw5hmO#vv}m5, @m. endstream endobj 22 0 obj <> endobj 23 0 obj <> endobj 24 0 obj <>stream Anyone looking to finance a college loan will recognize that agency. Social Security Number, Bank Account Number, Passwords). 216 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<92844473C1235241B8E404F310D13D09>]/Index[179 87]/Info 178 0 R/Length 145/Prev 706141/Root 180 0 R/Size 266/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream &j I$Ua& D^`Aa4+v $4{Bg`:| + It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. These results are sortable by category: Entering all or part of a query into the Search field will return any relevant results from Department, Vendor, Appropriation Name, Payment ID, and Object Code fields matching your entry. Ancillary payments are typically funded through fees charged for the services rendered. The Office of the Comptroller provides any quasi-governmental agency with access to our transparency records portal, CTHRU, to easily publish spending and payroll data, a spokesman said. A summary transaction is used by institutes of higher education and represents a summary of payments issued for that date through their authorized delegated payment system. Today, many quasi agencies now have a records officer tasked in handling public records requests. Update: Good News / Bad News - Robocalls fall but robotexts soar, Biden administration commits to removing single-use plastic from national parks, EPA announces $5 billion for electric school buses. The agency saw its total payroll spending balloon 12 percent in 2018 compared with the previous year. AA1: Salaries, supplemental. When we wrote our report in 2010, we had to request most of the spending data through Freedom of Information Requests, agency by agency. e$ReqA/M ;E(GPEPEPEPEPEPEPEPEP (Ko fh. Where this field is blank in the source system, we have inserted a value of Unassigned.For example, summary payment transactions do not list a single zip code, as they are typically distributed to multiple recipients in multiple locations. hSKSq?fbjY,5S"g)IWmiKf(1[AYO8(O{@99s 2 y- v% 44 0 obj <>stream hb```f``R (pL#+ fg`d` @-q/-8-l c@ !|F l Top pay there goes to the $403,581 director of aviation. Users can sort, filter, and export (download) data in a variety of formats. It looks like JavaScript is disabled in your browser. The Commonwealth Stabilization (Rainy Day) Fund is a reserve intended to enhance the Commonwealths fiscal stability. The Herald has just posted 16 of the quasi wages from the likes of Massport and the Convention Center Authority to pension and housing boards. [-&W1"eRWQCedmcM>2ls)&Y7_d0w-\+SVFoJY1O}Nn^v?-+%)VA%}Kj_? Many agencies will comply with records request unless they claim exemptions on certain records. Quasi government agencies in Massachusetts provide public services and receive state financial support but operate with less accountability than traditional state offices. ': Sharks attack seal off Nantucket; Cape Cod beaches close to swimming after great white shark sightings, MBTA is not 'necessarily worth saving,' says transportation committee chair, Humpback whales are 'putting on a show' close to shore in Plymouth this summer, Massachusetts Republican governor candidates Geoff Diehl, Chris Doughty rip each other in fiery debate. Deval Patrick to look into quasi-state agencies. Expenditures dating back to Fiscal Year 2010 are updated daily for the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Departments, Independent Agencies, and Constitutional Offices. The data is downloaded as a Microsoft Excel Comma Separated Values (.CSV) file. Please note that the file size is considerable. Charlie Baker and the state Legislature work to pull the state out of the pandemic. For your protection, please do not email personal information (e.g. But the 2020 payroll, posted to bostonherald.com, shows 23 top managers earning $200,000 or more. A16: Professional development Higher education Its a different world than it was 20-30 years ago.. The CTHRU Statewide Payroll database also includes contract employees and individuals who were on the payroll earlier in the year but are no longer an active employee. Taxpayer funds are a key part in sustaining public services and our overall government. The agencys payroll spiked 12 percent from the previous year. Middlesex and Berkshire Sheriff Departments have published their ancillary payroll and payment systems (as described in Chapter 16 of the Acts of 2009) on CTHRU. We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Boston, MA 02108, 2022 Office of the Comptroller of the Commonwealth | Privacy Policy. He was a state inspector general then, but all his recommendations went to the Legislature where they have gathered dust. Deirdre has led campaigns to get lead out of drinking water at schools and daycare centers, protect student loan borrowers from deceptive and predatory lending practices, protect consumers from identity theft in the wake of massive security breaches at Equifax and Marriot, eliminate unfair pricing practices in disability insurance products, improve public records law and require all state spending to be transparent and available on an easy-to-use website, close $400 million in corporate tax loopholes, protect the states retail sales laws to reduce overcharges and preserve price disclosures, reduce costs of health insurance and prescription drugs, and more. Financial summaries for quasi-governmental entities, voluntarily maintained by agencies choosing to participate. Payroll data comes from the Commonwealths Human Resources / Compensation Management System (HR/CMS). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, Office of Performance Management and Oversight, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, were outside the reach of the public records law, NEMLEC Use of Force Policy #5 (6 07 05) (PDF), NEMLEC Use of Force Policy #5 (6 07 05) (Text), FY18 OPMO Report MassConventionCenterAuhthority (PDF), FY18 OPMO Report MassConventionCenterAuhthority (Text), How New England caught the COVID deaths much of the country missed, Six months after the repeal of 50-a, NY police continue to combat the release of disciplinary records, The repeal of New Yorks 50-a could be a boon to defense attorneys, Buffalo judge denies police union attempt to block police disciplinary records. A07: Shift differential pay Zo Mitchell Twitter Producer and Studio DirectorZo Mitchell is a Radio Boston producer and studio director. A15: Research Activity/summer salary compensation Higher education There are eight different categories you can explore. You can select the down arrow to the right of the year indicated (next to the Spending Summary) and change to a different fiscal year, or you can select All Years to view the complete spending data for all years dating back to Fiscal Year 2010. MuckRock is a non-profit collaborative news site that gives you the tools to keep our government transparent and accountable. As is standard procedure for all financial statement audits, samples of prior year expenditures have been audited; data for the current year is unaudited. CTHRU provides users with an intuitive experience for exploring how and where our tax dollars are utilized. This period reflects final transactions recorded for financial reporting purposes. A vendor name may have been entered with a typographical error that has since been corrected and the original record is preserved if there were transactions processed. Four other employees there made $300,000 or more.
And, when the Globe inquired about missing information for some agencies several of them quickly responded to make their data available and on line. 179 0 obj <> endobj Government spending transparency websites give citizens and government officials the ability to monitor many aspects of state spending in order to save taxpayer money, prevent corruption, reduce potential abuse of public dollars, and encourage the achievement of a wide variety of public policy goals. If you would like to filter and sort the data before exporting it, select View. 30 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[]/Index[21 24]/Info 20 0 R/Length 62/Prev 41938/Root 22 0 R/Size 45/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream And at the agency that oversees the states $70 billion pension fund, four Pension Reserves Investment Management Board officials made $400,000 or more, led by director and chief investment officer, Black News Hour presented by The Boston Globe. So individuals are the governing force of the boards. New payroll data show some hefty spending at Massachusetts quasi-public agencies.
Trotsky, Massachusetts highest-paid quasi-public official, has been praised by trustees since his tenure began in 2010, and the agency consistently outperforms its peers in both up and down markets, Macero said. Large authorities in Massachusetts like the MBTA and MASS Port are a lot better than they have been in the past. Please enable JavaScript to view the full site. Visit the website of MASSPIRG Education Fund, our sister 501(c)(3) organization. CTHRU Payroll reporting is done on a calendar year basis, while CTHRU Spending is reported on a fiscal year basis. Mostly because media has stayed on them and its important to do so added Connaughton. He tweets@thebelloblotter.
Today, most government agencies do make theirspending information available on the state website, and do so in a downloadable, easy-to-use format. Information on the number of full-time employees working for the Commonwealth. The Office of the Comptroller does not negotiate or approve the amount of settlements, or the costs of legal services and/or indemnification. A06: Stand by pay As of June 30, 2019, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had a total of 484 exempt employees with a total/cumulative annual rate of $32,300,975.13. Accurate disclosure of financial records is important, she said. In addition to the three branches of state government, the following are also included: Selected quasi-public agencies such as MassDevelopment, MassHousing, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and regional transit authorities. Bump said the reviews found that, in addition to agencies failing to report data at all, some information they posted publicly had errors or appeared more than once. Quasi-state agencies home to pay that tops $700,000 are viewed as shrouded in secrecy with many still not sharing their payrolls with the comptrollers office. endstream endobj startxref Because they are not directly accountable to the legislature and exempt from many kinds of public oversight, these agencies should make their decisions and budgets especially open to public scrutiny. Imagine the lucky pensioners getting 80 percent of their $200,000 salaries each year for life thats quite the benefit so many in the private sector could only dream of, she added. hWmOHOYNd^BJE-5F'7lZ WZ}yvfX0"xDa )p}ADjB D`'CN%d$T#94`II A3dH87!4"hDDaX(/epJ@_Jp +- *@6Qlp p9 7#hpR4$pqBXAAD/$d*U~?yO;-+IMIH![8ze2s~@xYRV 'SW/6nDR2ec@Ty>4H?HtX!zc! . Connaughton said that with the sheer number of sky-high salaries, its no wonder so many agencies lollygagged in entering the transparency age.. If a search in the Statewide Payroll module displays No Results Found, double-check the year being searched, as the module searches only one year at a time. And, often after a number of calls, the information came in the form of a scanned PDF. LRqWi%N42 Y~l2OjS E&mv)nEFq 81PG=CeFs?%+.vRqLmtxTmsu#jU_u"OXEgFwoaCh;"xSzL_D0N6Anw&h+Z;Rdkflv-@*)n<8 =oK_aY}jL*7Cy @Xr 8KFYe`$"xA$_*9"2lr)NhX"1LJ$@qqn3UAchF;)]`CeZ?l xD62 8YfyKU @CF*^?F75TE)wpV+\YPN$C;5OhM}?? Where the blurred line between public and private becomes problematic is when these government agencies function without a clear structure for oversight. Deirdre runs MASSPIRGs public health, consumer protection and tax and budget programs. To download the full data set, select Download. Earnings may be lower than the Annual Rate if the final payroll has not been paid, or if the employee was on unpaid leave during the year. It is best to set search criteria wider, and narrow results from there. Additional information on these payments may be obtained by directly contacting the corresponding sheriffs office. So in June 2014, ACLU filed a public records lawsuit in state court after NEMLEC failed to produce documents. If not, he said, they are ripe for abuse due to a lack of oversight.. Strong legal precedents mean public-private entities cant ignore your public records request in the Bay State. Inquiries regarding future or pending spending, budget plans, and procurement/contract information should be addressed to the specific department. Massachusetts state law includes quasi entities in its legal definition of an agency, which must disclose information to the public. Yet the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development houses its own oversight office for quasi-government entities on economic development called the Office of Performance Management and Oversight. Follow him on Twitter @mrochele. In 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union filed public records requests with five regional police entities in the state, including the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council. Our democracy is responsible for government oversight and ensuring the process of checks and balances works. Fiscal Period 15 runs from the end of the Accounts Payable period to the official close of the fiscal year accounting. hVmo8+%NHJt)-n{C4RHP;@+/=y'xp.B%d>|x8{h^DC("9"D( #_7shc1tsCEnoD81pj7~TX tsD~&YANn]3A:EjsCTd!1F{:% A listing of Massachusetts Tax Credit Transparency Reports administered by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Although some entities might have a governing board, not all quasi agencies have a state required entity in which they must disclose financial summaries to. Data in Statewide Spending comes from transactions recorded by state agencies in the Massachusetts Accounting and Reporting System (MMARS), the statewide accounting system. Joe Dwinell is the Herald's Executive Editor and investigative/enterprise reporter. 0 But Bump said her office did not find discrepancies with the internal financial records of agencies, nor did it find agencies were hiding or obfuscating data deliberately. On their website, the agency lists 16 quasi-government entities and annual reports for each entity including the Mass Cultural Council, the Massachusetts Port Authority, and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. At MassHousing, another affordable housing financing agency, 39 percent of workers made six-figures, including nine whose pay topped $200,000. About 46 percent of the staff at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, which supports and finances affordable housing, made $100,000 or more, including four workers who made $200,000 or more.
Updated quarterly. In 2012, the Comptroller reached out to 40 quasi-government entities for their financial data - about one-third of taxpayer dollars spent in the state, according to the Comptroller. CTHRU is an innovative open records platform that offers transparency into the finances of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Run by Black journalists at The Boston Globe, Black News Hour, a new radio program, delivers reliable news that connects with our community and expands on deeper issues impacting our city. The Mass Educational Financing Authority, MEFA, pays the chief operating and financial officer $341,909, records show. We hope with continued oversight, publicscrutiny and staff dedicated to comprehensive transparency, that Massachusetts will jump to the head of the class. A09: Roll call pay Over the past year, state Auditor Suzanne Bumps office cited 15 of the agencies mostly regional transit authorities for violating transparency requirements under state law, with more reviews of quasi-public agencies upcoming. Quasi-government entities are agencies that operate on the federal, state, and local level and provide basic public services like transit management, community development, health services, and law enforcement support. Government officials and employees are now under investigation for theft and fraud. I just dont think they prioritized trying to get it right, Bump said. Started on staff: 1986B.S., University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Links to financial records and open data for Regional Transit Authorities. The Spending Summary shows the total spending by fiscal year and defaults to the most recently completed fiscal year. All hires made in the past six months for externally posted positions within Executive Departments are shown, including annualized salary information. Although a grey area, Connaughton acknowledges quasi governments are better at abiding by public records law and increasing transparency. Mike Bello, deputy city editor at The Boston Globe. In order to protect personally identifiable information, mitigate against potential fraudulent misuse, and comply with statutes including M.G.L. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions. A20: Police detail Comptroller of the Commonwealth It was the same situation at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which pipes water to Boston and dozens of other cities and towns. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. Agency trustees and a compensation consultant continually survey the market and gather detailed compensation data to ensure that PRIM staff compensation remains competitive with but not above that of its peers, Macero said. If the requester is requesting information from a quasi that refuses to release records, then the requester can file a complaint with the Secretary of State and the Attorney General can enforce, said Connaughton. View a glossary of terms related to CTHRU, state payroll, and state spending, MBTA documents produced in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Websites Owned and Updated by Municipalities. He added: We look forward to working with any quasi-governmental agencies that would choose to take advantage of CTHRU in the interest of transparency..
Deirdre also oversees a Consumer Action Center in Weymouth, Mass., which has mediated 18,000 complaints and returned $5 million to Massachusetts consumers since 1989. hbbd```b``M/@$2H]"@$E)"U_;lWZ8cQ~t, Fiscal Period 13 is the Accounts Payable Period (July-August) where payments can still occur for services or goods that were received in the fiscal year that just ended. For example, Pension Reserves Investment Management Board spokesman Cosmo Macero said in a statement that the agencys headcount grew by four full-time employees, or about 10 percent last year, and the agencys strong performance a 9.5 percent return in fiscal 2018 led to incentive compensation payments that were approximately 8% higher than the previous year., Macero said competition for talent is intense, and the agencys compensation structure is governed by a rigid and detailed process.. If you filter or sort raw CTHRU data by selecting View Data in Worksheet,you must first create a login with a valid email address as your user name and specify a password. These entities are controlled by independent boards and boards appointed by public officials. Each site is owned and operated by the individual authority.
Not all transactions in MMARS share the same field requirements for processing. hbbd``b`@ H *X0-)g$%3` According to the Massachusetts Comptroller webpage, a total of 42 quasi-government agencies operate on the state or regional level in Massachusetts. %%EOF That system then records the accounting information at a summary level in MMARS. %PDF-1.5 % The good news is, we are heading in the right direction when it comes to on-line, accessible, government spending information. But with some entities operating in both the public and private sectors, many quasi-government entities opt for the secrecy afforded to private companies. The Commonwealth audited financial statements for each fiscal year (ending June 30) are usually available by the following January. There are two types of employees reflected on the payroll listsalaried employees and contract employees. Many quasi-public agencies also noted that they dont rely solely or in some cases at all on taxpayer dollars for operating expenses, but rather use significant revenue they generate from services, investments, and fees they charge to customers, such as tolls, fares, and rent. Anew story in the Boston Globetoday found at least 19 "quasi-public" agencies in Massachusetts failed to publish millions of dollars in payroll and spending data on the state's transparency website as required by a MASSPIRG backed 2010 law that mandated the public disclosures. But they are still required to submit to public records unless there are other types of exemptions, said Mary Connaughton, the Director of Government Transparency at the Pioneer Institute. When in the Checkbook View of the CTHRU Statewide Spending module, select the Download button in the upper-right hand corner. The top quasi-state is Massport, home to Logan International Airport and Bostons massive port operation. At the Massachusetts Port Authority, one of the largest quasi-public agencies and best known for running Logan International Airport in Boston, about 600 workers made $100,000 or more last year, or 43 percent of its staff. :4._lL=7/D\Blm;T];gZf1k)faz A0OD` HA0C BWJFl$KL9LCT~{~n4C,~,N:`A@n(_ pNYOzV\_urZez+~&+gw5hmO#vv}m5, @m. endstream endobj 22 0 obj <> endobj 23 0 obj <> endobj 24 0 obj <>stream Anyone looking to finance a college loan will recognize that agency. Social Security Number, Bank Account Number, Passwords). 216 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<92844473C1235241B8E404F310D13D09>]/Index[179 87]/Info 178 0 R/Length 145/Prev 706141/Root 180 0 R/Size 266/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream &j I$Ua& D^`Aa4+v $4{Bg`:| + It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. These results are sortable by category: Entering all or part of a query into the Search field will return any relevant results from Department, Vendor, Appropriation Name, Payment ID, and Object Code fields matching your entry. Ancillary payments are typically funded through fees charged for the services rendered. The Office of the Comptroller provides any quasi-governmental agency with access to our transparency records portal, CTHRU, to easily publish spending and payroll data, a spokesman said. A summary transaction is used by institutes of higher education and represents a summary of payments issued for that date through their authorized delegated payment system. Today, many quasi agencies now have a records officer tasked in handling public records requests. Update: Good News / Bad News - Robocalls fall but robotexts soar, Biden administration commits to removing single-use plastic from national parks, EPA announces $5 billion for electric school buses. The agency saw its total payroll spending balloon 12 percent in 2018 compared with the previous year. AA1: Salaries, supplemental. When we wrote our report in 2010, we had to request most of the spending data through Freedom of Information Requests, agency by agency. e$ReqA/M ;E(GPEPEPEPEPEPEPEPEP (Ko fh. Where this field is blank in the source system, we have inserted a value of Unassigned.For example, summary payment transactions do not list a single zip code, as they are typically distributed to multiple recipients in multiple locations. hSKSq?fbjY,5S"g)IWmiKf(1[AYO8(O{@99s 2 y- v% 44 0 obj <>stream hb```f``R (pL#+ fg`d` @-q/-8-l c@ !|F l Top pay there goes to the $403,581 director of aviation. Users can sort, filter, and export (download) data in a variety of formats. It looks like JavaScript is disabled in your browser. The Commonwealth Stabilization (Rainy Day) Fund is a reserve intended to enhance the Commonwealths fiscal stability. The Herald has just posted 16 of the quasi wages from the likes of Massport and the Convention Center Authority to pension and housing boards. [-&W1"eRWQCedmcM>2ls)&Y7_d0w-\+SVFoJY1O}Nn^v?-+%)VA%}Kj_? Many agencies will comply with records request unless they claim exemptions on certain records. Quasi government agencies in Massachusetts provide public services and receive state financial support but operate with less accountability than traditional state offices. ': Sharks attack seal off Nantucket; Cape Cod beaches close to swimming after great white shark sightings, MBTA is not 'necessarily worth saving,' says transportation committee chair, Humpback whales are 'putting on a show' close to shore in Plymouth this summer, Massachusetts Republican governor candidates Geoff Diehl, Chris Doughty rip each other in fiery debate. Deval Patrick to look into quasi-state agencies. Expenditures dating back to Fiscal Year 2010 are updated daily for the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Departments, Independent Agencies, and Constitutional Offices. The data is downloaded as a Microsoft Excel Comma Separated Values (.CSV) file. Please note that the file size is considerable. Charlie Baker and the state Legislature work to pull the state out of the pandemic. For your protection, please do not email personal information (e.g. But the 2020 payroll, posted to bostonherald.com, shows 23 top managers earning $200,000 or more. A16: Professional development Higher education Its a different world than it was 20-30 years ago.. The CTHRU Statewide Payroll database also includes contract employees and individuals who were on the payroll earlier in the year but are no longer an active employee. Taxpayer funds are a key part in sustaining public services and our overall government. The agencys payroll spiked 12 percent from the previous year. Middlesex and Berkshire Sheriff Departments have published their ancillary payroll and payment systems (as described in Chapter 16 of the Acts of 2009) on CTHRU. We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Boston, MA 02108, 2022 Office of the Comptroller of the Commonwealth | Privacy Policy. He was a state inspector general then, but all his recommendations went to the Legislature where they have gathered dust. Deirdre has led campaigns to get lead out of drinking water at schools and daycare centers, protect student loan borrowers from deceptive and predatory lending practices, protect consumers from identity theft in the wake of massive security breaches at Equifax and Marriot, eliminate unfair pricing practices in disability insurance products, improve public records law and require all state spending to be transparent and available on an easy-to-use website, close $400 million in corporate tax loopholes, protect the states retail sales laws to reduce overcharges and preserve price disclosures, reduce costs of health insurance and prescription drugs, and more. Financial summaries for quasi-governmental entities, voluntarily maintained by agencies choosing to participate. Payroll data comes from the Commonwealths Human Resources / Compensation Management System (HR/CMS). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, Office of Performance Management and Oversight, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, were outside the reach of the public records law, NEMLEC Use of Force Policy #5 (6 07 05) (PDF), NEMLEC Use of Force Policy #5 (6 07 05) (Text), FY18 OPMO Report MassConventionCenterAuhthority (PDF), FY18 OPMO Report MassConventionCenterAuhthority (Text), How New England caught the COVID deaths much of the country missed, Six months after the repeal of 50-a, NY police continue to combat the release of disciplinary records, The repeal of New Yorks 50-a could be a boon to defense attorneys, Buffalo judge denies police union attempt to block police disciplinary records. A07: Shift differential pay Zo Mitchell Twitter Producer and Studio DirectorZo Mitchell is a Radio Boston producer and studio director. A15: Research Activity/summer salary compensation Higher education There are eight different categories you can explore. You can select the down arrow to the right of the year indicated (next to the Spending Summary) and change to a different fiscal year, or you can select All Years to view the complete spending data for all years dating back to Fiscal Year 2010. MuckRock is a non-profit collaborative news site that gives you the tools to keep our government transparent and accountable. As is standard procedure for all financial statement audits, samples of prior year expenditures have been audited; data for the current year is unaudited. CTHRU provides users with an intuitive experience for exploring how and where our tax dollars are utilized. This period reflects final transactions recorded for financial reporting purposes. A vendor name may have been entered with a typographical error that has since been corrected and the original record is preserved if there were transactions processed. Four other employees there made $300,000 or more.
And, when the Globe inquired about missing information for some agencies several of them quickly responded to make their data available and on line. 179 0 obj <> endobj Government spending transparency websites give citizens and government officials the ability to monitor many aspects of state spending in order to save taxpayer money, prevent corruption, reduce potential abuse of public dollars, and encourage the achievement of a wide variety of public policy goals. If you would like to filter and sort the data before exporting it, select View. 30 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[]/Index[21 24]/Info 20 0 R/Length 62/Prev 41938/Root 22 0 R/Size 45/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream And at the agency that oversees the states $70 billion pension fund, four Pension Reserves Investment Management Board officials made $400,000 or more, led by director and chief investment officer, Black News Hour presented by The Boston Globe. So individuals are the governing force of the boards. New payroll data show some hefty spending at Massachusetts quasi-public agencies.
Trotsky, Massachusetts highest-paid quasi-public official, has been praised by trustees since his tenure began in 2010, and the agency consistently outperforms its peers in both up and down markets, Macero said. Large authorities in Massachusetts like the MBTA and MASS Port are a lot better than they have been in the past. Please enable JavaScript to view the full site. Visit the website of MASSPIRG Education Fund, our sister 501(c)(3) organization. CTHRU Payroll reporting is done on a calendar year basis, while CTHRU Spending is reported on a fiscal year basis. Mostly because media has stayed on them and its important to do so added Connaughton. He tweets@thebelloblotter.
Today, most government agencies do make theirspending information available on the state website, and do so in a downloadable, easy-to-use format. Information on the number of full-time employees working for the Commonwealth. The Office of the Comptroller does not negotiate or approve the amount of settlements, or the costs of legal services and/or indemnification. A06: Stand by pay As of June 30, 2019, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had a total of 484 exempt employees with a total/cumulative annual rate of $32,300,975.13. Accurate disclosure of financial records is important, she said. In addition to the three branches of state government, the following are also included: Selected quasi-public agencies such as MassDevelopment, MassHousing, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and regional transit authorities. Bump said the reviews found that, in addition to agencies failing to report data at all, some information they posted publicly had errors or appeared more than once. Quasi-state agencies home to pay that tops $700,000 are viewed as shrouded in secrecy with many still not sharing their payrolls with the comptrollers office. endstream endobj startxref Because they are not directly accountable to the legislature and exempt from many kinds of public oversight, these agencies should make their decisions and budgets especially open to public scrutiny. Imagine the lucky pensioners getting 80 percent of their $200,000 salaries each year for life thats quite the benefit so many in the private sector could only dream of, she added. hWmOHOYNd^BJE-5F'7lZ WZ}yvfX0"xDa )p}ADjB D`'CN%d$T#94`II A3dH87!4"hDDaX(/epJ@_Jp +- *@6Qlp p9 7#hpR4$pqBXAAD/$d*U~?yO;-+IMIH![8ze2s~@xYRV 'SW/6nDR2ec@Ty>4H?HtX!zc! . Connaughton said that with the sheer number of sky-high salaries, its no wonder so many agencies lollygagged in entering the transparency age.. If a search in the Statewide Payroll module displays No Results Found, double-check the year being searched, as the module searches only one year at a time. And, often after a number of calls, the information came in the form of a scanned PDF. LRqWi%N42 Y~l2OjS E&mv)nEFq 81PG=CeFs?%+.vRqLmtxTmsu#jU_u"OXEgFwoaCh;"xSzL_D0N6Anw&h+Z;Rdkflv-@*)n<8 =oK_aY}jL*7Cy @Xr 8KFYe`$"xA$_*9"2lr)NhX"1LJ$@qqn3UAchF;)]`CeZ?l xD62 8YfyKU @CF*^?F75TE)wpV+\YPN$C;5OhM}?? Where the blurred line between public and private becomes problematic is when these government agencies function without a clear structure for oversight. Deirdre runs MASSPIRGs public health, consumer protection and tax and budget programs. To download the full data set, select Download. Earnings may be lower than the Annual Rate if the final payroll has not been paid, or if the employee was on unpaid leave during the year. It is best to set search criteria wider, and narrow results from there. Additional information on these payments may be obtained by directly contacting the corresponding sheriffs office. So in June 2014, ACLU filed a public records lawsuit in state court after NEMLEC failed to produce documents. If not, he said, they are ripe for abuse due to a lack of oversight.. Strong legal precedents mean public-private entities cant ignore your public records request in the Bay State. Inquiries regarding future or pending spending, budget plans, and procurement/contract information should be addressed to the specific department. Massachusetts state law includes quasi entities in its legal definition of an agency, which must disclose information to the public. Yet the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development houses its own oversight office for quasi-government entities on economic development called the Office of Performance Management and Oversight. Follow him on Twitter @mrochele. In 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union filed public records requests with five regional police entities in the state, including the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council. Our democracy is responsible for government oversight and ensuring the process of checks and balances works. Fiscal Period 15 runs from the end of the Accounts Payable period to the official close of the fiscal year accounting. hVmo8+%NHJt)-n{C4RHP;@+/=y'xp.B%d>|x8{h^DC("9"D( #_7shc1tsCEnoD81pj7~TX tsD~&YANn]3A:EjsCTd!1F{:% A listing of Massachusetts Tax Credit Transparency Reports administered by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Although some entities might have a governing board, not all quasi agencies have a state required entity in which they must disclose financial summaries to. Data in Statewide Spending comes from transactions recorded by state agencies in the Massachusetts Accounting and Reporting System (MMARS), the statewide accounting system. Joe Dwinell is the Herald's Executive Editor and investigative/enterprise reporter. 0 But Bump said her office did not find discrepancies with the internal financial records of agencies, nor did it find agencies were hiding or obfuscating data deliberately. On their website, the agency lists 16 quasi-government entities and annual reports for each entity including the Mass Cultural Council, the Massachusetts Port Authority, and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. At MassHousing, another affordable housing financing agency, 39 percent of workers made six-figures, including nine whose pay topped $200,000. About 46 percent of the staff at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, which supports and finances affordable housing, made $100,000 or more, including four workers who made $200,000 or more.
Updated quarterly. In 2012, the Comptroller reached out to 40 quasi-government entities for their financial data - about one-third of taxpayer dollars spent in the state, according to the Comptroller. CTHRU is an innovative open records platform that offers transparency into the finances of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.