Massachusetts
Healey’s hiring cooldown off to bad start: $14.2M added to Massachusetts public payroll
Nearly 200 employees joined the ranks of Gov. Maura Healey’s administration in the month after strict hiring measures were put into place across the executive branch to control costs amid flailing state revenues, according to a publicly available database.
The 199 workers who started their jobs between April 4 and April 28 collectively added more than $14.2 million to the $3 billion state payroll through yearly salaries alone with the highest-paid worker, a chief nursing officer at the Department of Public Health, taking home $159,120, a Herald analysis of state records shows.
The top five new hires, including the DPH nursing officer, make at least $134,515 a year, according to state records. Those hires also work in the Executive Office of Health and Human Services and the Department of Transportation.
A spokesperson for Healey’s budget-writing office said the 199 hires included positions for which job offers were made before the hiring measures took effect on April 3.
“It was always assumed and communicated that hiring would continue during this period through exempt positions and waivers for critical needs. We will continue to evaluate the state’s fiscal needs and make determinations about hiring and whether the timeline needs to be extended as we approach the end of June based on revenue collections, year-end spending, and other fiscal conditions,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Herald.
The database covers new hires for externally posted positions and does not include internal promotions or lateral transfers within an agency, according to the Office of the Comptroller. The data does not reference any offers of employment that have been extended by the Healey administration but not yet made official.
Some offers of employment that have been publicly announced over the past month also do not appear in the database, which is organized by effective date of hire.
The list, for example, appears not to feature Alison Brizius, who was appointed last month by Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper to serve as the director of the Office of Coastal Zone Management.
Brizius, who starts in the role on May 6 and will earn a $155,000 yearly salary, accepted a job offer on March 26, according to a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Healey restricted the autonomy of executive branch agencies and departments to seek new employees last month without sign-off from her budget office. The move came in the face of struggling revenues and skyrocketing state-run shelter costs, two factors that have put pressure on Beacon Hill to rein in spending.
The immediate pause on hiring took effect April 3 and is initially scheduled to run through the end of June, according to a memo from the state’s interim chief human resources officer, Melissa Pullin. Hires, rehires, or transfers into the executive department are “permitted only where affordable within existing payroll caps,” the memo said.
But there is a lengthy list of positions across the executive branch that are exempted from needing sign-off from the state’s budget office, including seasonal hires, positions that are required to be filled by a court order or settlement agreement, returns from leave, and offers made before April 3.
Officials were asked to remove job postings that were not exempted and notify “applicants that the job opening has been temporarily suspended due to fiscal constraints,” according to the memo. Agencies had until April 16 at 5 p.m. to submit a waiver to hire new employees.
The spokesperson for the Executive Office of Administration and Finance said 176 waivers have been approved by the office, largely for full-time employees and positions that were posted before the hiring rules started.
Some 216 job postings for a total of 240 open positions were removed as of April 26, the spokesperson said. Job postings for which waivers were sought have not been removed, according to the spokesperson.
About a fifth of the workers who started a job in the Healey administration between April 4 and 28 joined the Department of Conservation and Recreation. A number of those employees were filling seasonal roles like temporary firefighters, greenskeepers, or conservation biologists, among others.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation alone added roughly $2.2 million to the state’s payroll, according to an analysis of the Office of the Comptroller’s database. Only a handful of new employees at the agency were permanent hires, the data showed.
A spokesperson for the Department of Conservation and Recreation said the agency largely operates on a seasonal basis, with spring through fall considered the busiest time millions are welcomed to parks, campgrounds, beaches, and pools.
The agency typically hires roughly 2,000 summer seasonal staff of which 700 to 800 are lifeguards and waterfront and pool staff, the spokesperson said in a statement.
The database also shows that the vast majority of new workers who joined the administration last month started their jobs between April 4 and April 9. Only three people started work in April after those dates, all of them at the Department of Developmental Services, according to the database.
Only one employee on the list who started work on April 7 at the Department of Developmental Services as a direct care worker had a reference letter from an elected state official, according to the data.
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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