Mass Turnpike's former chair & CEO Matt Amorello charged with self-dealing

The Massachusetts Ethics Commission has charged former Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA) chairman and CEO Matt Amorello with altering the Turnpike's sick pay benefits rule to his personal benefit on the day before he announced his retirement in July 2006. The Commission says Amorello changed retirement rules under which he was entitled to $15k of sick leave compensation to a rule which provided him with $75k. It also benefited other senior staff close to him, who also departed from the Turnpike when the state's supreme court ruled the Governor was entitled to proceed with a hearing to remove Amorello from office.

He immediately announced himself retiring - though he hung around for several more months under a deal with Romney.

Amorello had been rebuffing Romney's demand that he step down from the Turnpike after public statements Amorello made on the ceiling collapse in the Big Dig had proved false.

Today Amorello was issued an "order to show cause" to answer the charge that he violated conflict of interest laws.

According to the Commission from 1996 until Amorello ordered the change, the Turnpike's sick leave policy provided that managers would receive 20% of the cash value of their accrued sick time on retirement. They were not at that time entitled to any compensation for sick leave not taken if they resigned or were fired.

Early 2006, the Commission says, Amorello directed human resources director Norman Chalupka to improve the untaken sick pay compensation policy for management (they term it rather mysteriously "buyback").

In early July 2006, the MTA policy was changed from 20% on retirement to 100% upon leaving the MTA for any reason.

On July 26 Chalupka told Amorello of the increase to 100%.

Amorello thought Chalupka had overdone the boost to management's departure benefits.

He told the human resources director to make the policy similar to that of other authorities citing the Massachusetts Port Authority. Chalupka the same day informed Amorello that he had changed the policy from 100% to 50% cash. The new policy provided that the remaining 50% of accrued sick time cash value could be used to pay medical insurance premiums after the MTA manager had retired. Amorello approved the change, the Commission charges.

Three of the MTA employees affected by the policy change, in addition to Amorello, were Amorello’s close senior staff and they also took advantage of the new policy

The next day, July 27, Amorello signed a termination agreement for himself with the MTA that provided him with the benefits that were in effect on July 26. Amorello’s benefit value was $75k versus $15k under the policy applying before he initiated the changes. He gave himself $60k, the Commission says in essence.

The Commission says Amorello breached three parts of the state’s conflict of interest law, GL c268A:

- section 6 which prohibits a state employee from officially participating in matters in which he knows has a financial interest

- section 23(b)(2) by securing for himself and his senior staff the increased sick leave compensation

- section 23(b)(3) of the conflict law prohibits a public official from "knowingly or with reason to know acting in a manner which would cause a reasonable person, having knowledge of the relevant circumstances, to conclude that anyone can improperly influence or unduly enjoy the public employee’s favor in the performance of his official duties."

The Enforcement Division alleges that Amorello violated section 23(b)(3) by approving the change in the sick leave compensation policy.
Amorello's period as chairman and CEO of the Massachusetts Turnpike was marked by abuses extraordinary even for Massachusetts. The former state politician treated his board of directors with contempt refusing to circulate agenda or minutes, ordering inconvenient discussion out of order, failing to publish financial accounts, and eventually refusing to hold a board meeting when he thought the numbers were against him.

Governor Romney moved to eject him from the Turnpike after Amorello had made the claim in several public statements that the fatal ceiling collapse in the I-90 Big Dig tunnel was an anomaly and everything else was safe - even as engineers were reporting systemic deficiencies and widespread danger of further ceiling collapse.

The "Matt Pike"

Amorello, a former Republican state politician also cultivated a kind of joking cult of personality. He had posters and signs of himself made wearing the Turnpike logo black puritan hat (see top left). The "Matt Pike" signs appeared at the Turnpike's rest stops, service plazas, and offices.

The self-dealing changes in retirement compensation rules made by Amorello that are only now now the subject of formal charges against him were accurately reported at the time they happened in Boston newspapers.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-11-05