Massachusetts: When the Watch Dog is Corrupt......

With the constant Drip! Drip! Drip! of Corruption, Patronage, Nepotism, Campaign Contributions and Back Room Deals, ......

Do we trust these people to regulate the Gambling Industry that has already proven itself ripe for corruption elsewhere?

The Massachusetts "Gaming Commission" would instead be labeled "Hack Haven."

DeNucci’s fine doesn’t reflect harm from improper hires

ADMITTING THAT he’d violated state conflict-of-interest laws by hiring his elderly first cousin as a fraud examiner in 2008, former state auditor Joseph DeNucci agreed to a $2,000 civil fine this week - and then minimized the importance of it. “After a long career in public service, I’ve learned to take the bad with the good,’’ he said in a statement, as if the fine were just a stroke of tough luck. He went on to say that he accepts what he called “the small civil penalty.’’

If only that penalty stung more. However minor DeNucci’s offense might seem in his own mind, the public lost out when he put cousin Guy Spezzano into a position for which, by DeNucci’s own admission, Spezzano wasn’t qualified. And while state conflict-of-interest laws have been toughened - had DeNucci hired Spezzano after September 2009, the fine would have been $10,000 - the penalties in a blatant case of political patronage are still modest in proportion to the damage suffered by taxpayers.

Sometimes, elected officials get their friends, relatives, and political supporters onto the public payroll through a series of subtle winks and nudges. This wasn’t one of those cases. Spezzano, a jazz musician by trade, was 75 and unemployed in January 2008, when DeNucci suggested that he could work for the auditor’s office. Never mind that Spezzano filled out only half of a two-page job application and lacked the required expertise specified in the job description; DeNucci directed his staffers to interview his cousin, and then he hired him for a job in the Brockton office of the Bureau of Special Investigations.

Spezzano’s salary wasn’t extravagant - just over $40,000, plus benefits - but it seems unlikely he ever mastered the legal or information-technology skills that were ostensibly crucial to his job. He went out on sick leave in December 2009, and was terminated the following April.

The State Ethics Commission and DeNucci agreed to a fine under a state law that prohibits public officials from using their positions to gain favors for themselves or others. But while that law may be stiff enough to discourage politicians from accepting one-time favors for themselves, it doesn’t reflect the cost to the system of underqualified political hires - some of whom, unlike DeNucci’s cousin, may stay on the payroll for decades. The actual costs add up, and the perception that the corridors of state government are clogged with patronage hires destroys public confidence.

It’s ironic that DeNucci’s job was to sniff out waste and mismanagement in state government, because his approach to his job was old-school by any definition. His successor, Suzanne Bump, broomed out or demoted dozens of his employees after an outside review showed that his staff lacked the training and competence to perform adequately. In changing such a dysfunctional culture, tougher laws alone are no substitute for a change of leadership. Still, it’s a disturbing sign of tolerance when a public official hires a demonstrably unqualified relative in clear violation of an agency’s own procedures - and ends up with “a small civil penalty.’’