Patrick is calling for "a much more fundamental overhaul" of the beleaguered state agency.
Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo, left, shakes hands with Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Roderick Ireland during a joint press conference at the Statehouse in Boston Thursday, April 21, 2011 where they discussed and unveiled legislation designed to overhaul the state Probation Department. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)By Kyle Cheney
BOSTON — Although a powerful array of lawmakers, lawyers and judges lined up to reject his plan to take control of the state Probation Department, Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday that the solution offered by Speaker Robert DeLeo to fix a scandal-plagued judiciary may not go far enough.
Patrick told the News Service that he appreciates DeLeo’s proposal to “professionalize the hiring and promotion” within the judiciary, as well as across state government, a plan intended to turn the page on a patronage scandal that enveloped the Probation Department last year.
“But I’m also mindful that it’s the Legislature’s interference and the judiciary’s lack of oversight that got us into this mess to begin with,” Patrick said late Thursday after signing copies of his new book at the Prudential Center, “and I think it’s going to take a much more fundamental overhaul to fix it.”
In the wake of the patronage scandal that exploded into public consciousness in November, after an independent investigator described rampant patronage and mismanagement within the Probation Department – likely at the encouragement of the Legislature – Patrick doubled-down on a plan to wrest control of the probation agency from the judiciary. His plan would have merged it with the state Parole Board, already under the control of the Executive Branch.
However, lawmakers and top judges quickly questioned the proposal, and eventually DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray indicated they planned to move in a different direction. DeLeo’s proposal, formally unveiled yesterday at a State House press conference, would maintain the Probation Department under the judiciary’s control but implement several new layers of oversight and revise hiring across state government to publicly identify successful job applicants who received a boost from public officials.
At the House press conference, Roderick Ireland, who Patrick promoted to chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court in December, stood alongside DeLeo to support the speaker’s plan and restate his long-held public view that probation should remain under judicial control.
Patrick said Thursday that DeLeo’s proposal to install a civilian administrator to run the court system’s non-judicial business mirrored a plan he offered in January.
“I think that’s exactly right,” he said.
Patrick said he had yet to see DeLeo’s plan in detail but had read about it.