Patrick troubled by Big Dig report avoidance
Governor Deval Patrick said today he was troubled that the chief engineer in charge of Boston’s Big Dig tunnels has avoided making written reports since a 2006 ceiling collapse in one tunnel killed a woman, prompting massive lawsuits.
The governor said that might violate Transportation Department policy.
“The question is whether people are abiding by that policy,’’ said Patrick, who was responding to a report about the issue in Sunday’s Boston Globe. “It does not give me the kind of confidence I should have – and I think the public should have – to have the chief engineer reportedly saying what he said.’’
Patrick spoke about the issue after a ceremony in his office in which he signed the $30.6 billion annual state budget.
Most of the governor’s Cabinet stood by his side during the ceremony.
But Transportation Secretary Jeffrey B. Mullan, who oversees the Big Dig tunnels, was not among them.
The governor said little about Mullan, other than to emphasize that both he and Mullan “feel badly’’ about the way the state handled the falling 110-pound light fixture, which crashed in the O’Neill Tunnel on Feb. 8.
Turning his attention to the budget, which was signed into law 10 days late, the governor highlighted several of his priorities that will receive more money, such as education and programs to reduce youth violence.
Patrick also said he reluctantly approved an increase in funding for the scandal-seared state Probation Department, even though the House and Senate have not approved changes intended to reduce patronage and cronyism in the agency.
Patrick said he could not emphasize enough how urgently he wants lawmakers to act on those changes.
Patrick also approved changes that will limit the collective bargaining rights of teachers, police officers and other municipal employees, in an effort to save cities and towns $100 million in health insurance costs.
Patrick said he had received calls about the plan from White House staff, who were responding to calls they had received from national labor leaders concerned about the changes.
Patrick declined to detail his discussions with White House staffers, other than to say they were “checking in.’’
The governor said his collective bargaining limits, unlike more sweeping cuts in public employee benefits approved in Wisconsin and other Republican-led states, will preserve a “meaningful role’’ for unions while delivering “meaningful savings’’ for cities and towns.
That is “no small accomplishment,’’ he said.
The budget will also slash spending on higher education by $70 million, cut home care services for the elderly and disabled, and impose cuts on social services for the poor. Among those cuts: reducing the yearly clothing allowance for poor children from $150 to $40.
Other areas of the budget that the governor highlighted include a measure that will shift some of the state’s criminal defense work for the poor away from private lawyers, toward more public defenders. Patrick has argued that public defenders can perform the work more cheaply.
The budget also includes a change designed to send more homeless people into permanent housing, to reduce the state’s reliance on emergency shelters.
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