Massachusetts Wakes Up To Government Waste

I recently returned from a delightful weekend in Massachusetts, where I was born and raised. I visit my home state frequently, and nearly every time I do, am reminded of why I’m no longer a Democrat.

This time, it took just 5 minutes reading the Boston Herald to refresh my non-Democrat bona fides. The Herald has declined precipitously in recent years in regards both to quality and content (though it isn’t in the same dire financial straits as its main competitor, the Boston Globe), but it still does articulate a populist, to “hell with ‘em all” antipathy to government waste that’s a healthy reaction to Massachusetts’ one party state and old boy patronage system. The latest examples of the state’s sclerotic public sector are debates in the State House regarding the Bunker Hill and Evacuation Day holidays and work rules for police officers directing traffic at construction sites. Readers interested in what makes Massachusetts’ political culture so especially noxious will necessarily have to indulge my parochialism.

Since 1935, schoolchildren and state and local government employees in Suffolk County (which includes Boston and not much else) have taken June 17 off in honor of Bunker Hill Day, which commemorates the early Revolutionary War battle that the American rebels lost. And since 1941, these same privileged public employees have also taken off March 17th for Evacuation Day, which celebrates the British evacuation from Boston in 1776. (Schools in Somerville, part of Middlesex County, close on both holidays, and schools in Cambridge, also in Middlesex, close on Evacuation Day).

There is no good reason for these holidays, and their pointlessness is made all the more egregious by the fact that residents of just one county – and only public employees at that – are allowed to fully “observe” them by taking a day off from work. If the events that these holidays are meant to commemorate are as crucial to the state’s history, then all of its citizens – private and public sector employees alike – ought to partake in them. 

The very narrow group of people who benefit from these holidays shows that the campaign to preserve them amounts to little more than special pleading. No one is saying that the story behind the holidays be eliminated entirely from the public consciousness; that the Governor not sign customary proclamations recognizing their significance or that historical associations be forbidden from staging battle reenactments and the like. Indeed, the Bunker Hill Day parade normally occurs on a Sunday. It is just the work furlough aspect that legislators, led by the handful of good-government Republicans in the legislature, wish to amend. Nevertheless, the prospect of one less day off for the state’s abundant and generously compensated employees has roused the Boston penchant for ridiculous hyperbole. “If we eliminate these holidays today in Suffolk County, then what’s next?” State Senator Jack Hart, Democrat of South Boston, ominously asked. “Do we eliminate maybe Presidents’ Day? Do we eliminate July 4th? Why don’t we get rid of Thanksgiving?” 

The waste of these holidays has been made all the more clear thanks to the economic crisis. 35,000 public employees get to skip work, and while eliminating the holidays would save $6 million, a relatively small amount given the size of the state’s multi-billion dollar annual budget, there’s never a bad argument against cutting government waste. But the greatest benefit of revoking the holidays would be the symbolic value of such a move, a sign of fiscal rectitude in a state that has for too long embodied quite the opposite.

And if none of these reasons for revoking Bunker Hill Day are good enough, surely the fact that it commemorates a battlefield loss is sufficient. Americans are a martial people, with a proud military history and culture. We’ve won plenty of battles in our nearly 250 years of history as a Republic. Why commemorate a defeat with the pomp and circumstance normally reserved for a victory?

A less passionately charged controversy, but one equally emblematic of Massachusetts’ shoddy political culture, is the battle being waged over the monumental question of whether police officers should exclusively direct traffic around road construction. The state’s powerful police union is up in arms that Governor Deval Patrick has made moves to double the number of non-police officers who perform such tasks, arguing that mere civilians are not capable of working as human stop signs on country roads. Earlier this month, police representatives blamed civilian “flaggers” for causing two recent road accidents and warned that further mayhem will be inevitable as long as this policy persists.

If there were any evidence that civilian traffic directors – who must be at least 18 and receive state training in traffic control and first aid – are responsible for more accidents than police officers, then the union might have a point. Except that there has been no statistical increase in traffic accidents since the implementation of this new policy, at least according to the Massachusetts Highway Commissioner. Police officers, it seems, are no better at directing traffic than the rest of us.

The real reason for the union’s ire, of course, is no different than what most labor disputes boil down to: money. While civilian flaggers can earn up to $57 an hour and police details only earn $37 an hour, the state will be able to save millions of dollars (an estimated $5-$7 million according to a state auditor’s report) by avoiding onerous union featherbedding and work regulations that force it to contract a specific number of officers for a minimum number of hours. The new policy will allow the state greater labor flexibility, in turn allowing it to shave unnecessary costs.

Of course, privatizing the whole flagger process never seems to have crossed the minds of any of the officials involved in this dispute. But this is, after all, Massachusetts. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.