The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Several of Sheriff Frank G. Cousins Jr.’s 37 part-timers, in addition to giving generously to his war chest, are retired former employees, including:

• Thomas Goff, 65. Goff hit mandatory retirement age in January as jail superintendent - Cousins’ second in command - with a $105,731 state pension. Goff then returned to work on a six-month, $14,500 contract as a consultant on the prisoner re-entry program. Since 2005, Goff has donated $1,825 to Cousins, a Republican and sheriff since 1996, campaign finance records show.

• Kenneth Gagnon, 61, retired in 2002 as an assistant deputy superintendent with a $48,283 state pension. He now gets $13,844 to transport hundreds of urine samples collected from probationers and parolees to the department’s lab 16 hours a week. Gagnon gave Cousins $175 in 2007, and his wife, Nina, has donated $1,175 since 2005.

• S. Michael Backry Sr., 66, was a major for the sheriff’s office until he retired in 2003. In addition to his annual $37,650 state pension, he is paid $19,996 to give guided tours of the Essex County Correctional Facility in Middleton to school children and civic groups. Since 2005, Backry has donated $775 to Cousins.

Massachusetts allows state, county and municipal pensioners to continue working in the public sector up to 960 hours a year, or to make up the difference between their pension and the current salary of the position they left.

Even so, an astonished Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said of Cousins’ hirings, “It may be perfectly legal, but it’s the kind of double dipping that’s offensive to taxpayers.”

• Thomas Lowry, 69, retired in 2003 as a Lynn building inspector with a $37,992 pension. He now works for Cousins as a lobby officer, greeting and assisting inmates’ families and friends 20 hours a week for $14,560 per year. Since 2006, Lowry has given Cousins $575.

It’s not just the long arms of the law reaching for another taxpayer-funded check. Until recently, Jack Christian, 64, was the sheriff’s department’s plumber. Cousins now pays him $13.94 an hour to monitor a different kind of plumbing, collecting urine samples.

The part-timers do not receive benefits, but all told, they are costing the state more than $600,000 in salaries.

Cousins said he spent the past month trimming $1.2 million from his budget by trimming six days’ pay from command staff salaries - including his own - and moving correctional officers from a four-days-on, two-days-off rotation to a five-and-two schedule.

“That’s been accomplished by not laying off anyone,” Cousins stressed. “A lot of people aren’t happy about it, but a lot of people are happy because they’re still working.”

In addition to not filling positions like Goff’s, Cousins said his longtime assistant, Barbara Kowalski, voluntarily gave up her $64,384 job so no one else would be put on the street.

Still, Jerry Enos, president of the Essex County Correctional Officers Association, said, “We have objected to all payments to retirees and vendors at a time when our members are being forced to work an extra 17 days without payment and they’re having their personal lives completely disrupted.”

Said Cousins: “This is ragtime. I know where the complaints are coming from and I’m not going to let a few ignorant, uneducated, rogue officers dictate public policy.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1156341