WITH ROUGHLY 15 percent of non-school municipal jobs in New Bedford vacant, Mayor Jon Mitchell is pushing to do away with residency requirements for most management positions.

 New Bedford, like a number of cities and towns across the state, has residency requirements for municipal employees but they are not uniform. Most union city workers are required to live in New Bedford, and police and fire employees are required to live in the city for a minimum of 10 years.

 Most management workers operate under a different system. Up until 2021, they were required to live in the city, but that requirement could be waived on a case-by-case basis with approval of the mayor’s office and the City Council. 

 In late 2020, the City Council approved an ordinance doing away with the waiver process and requiring most management employees who choose not to live within the city limits to take a 10 percent pay cut. Mitchell vetoed the ordinance, which he said was the first of its kind in the country, but the City Council overrode him by a 10-1 vote.

 “A mandatory reduction in compensation from what is already an uncompetitive salary scale is hardly an enticement for applicants who have other professional options – as all highly qualified professionals do,” Mitchell wrote in his veto letter.

A press release issued Tuesday by Mitchell’s office said the concerns he raised in his veto letter have been validated, although the release was vague about what portion of the city’s open jobs have gone unfilled because of what city officials call the “10 percent pay penalty.” The press release said 200 of the city’s 1,300 non-school jobs are currently vacant.

 The mayor is now seeking to repeal the 10 percent pay penalty and do away with the residency requirement entirely for all but seven management positions. He is also jousting with the City Council over a bid to revamp management pay scales to make New Bedford salaries more competitive and to give him more flexibility in adjusting salaries.

 Mitchell indicated in the city’s press release that some city councilors have expressed concerns about the 10 percent pay penalty’s impact on hiring. 

 “Now they’ll have an opportunity to do something about it,” Mitchell said. “There can be no doubt that the 10 percent pay penalty for non-residents has made it more difficult for us to attract talented candidates, so I ask the members of the City Council to give this repeal measure their full consideration.”

 Several members of the City Council who voted for the current pay-cut ordinance in 2020 did not return phone calls on Tuesday.

BRUCE MOHL

 

FROM COMMONWEALTH

Tepper taps former colleague: Rebecca Tepper, the secretary of energy and environmental affairs, appointed a former colleague at the attorney general’s office to head the Department of Energy Resources. Tepper said Elizabeth Mahony “will be at the epicenter of our clean energy transition.” Read more.

OPINION

Call for war on wage theft: Joe Byrne, a high-ranking union official who heads the Responsible Development Coalition, calls for a major crackdown on wage theft in Massachusetts. Read more.

Violence hits home: Lane Glenn, the president of Northern Essex Community College, says the latest mass shooting at Michigan State University, his alma mater, shows how violence is creeping closer and closer. Read more.

 

FROM AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

Gov. Maura Healey is joining with 19 other governors to form an alliance aimed at shoring up abortion rights protections. 

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

Anthony Cogliano, chair of the Saugus Select Board, downplays his decision to sign declarations on behalf of neighbors of the WIN waste-to-energy incinerator, which is battling a class action lawsuit. Other members of the board did not challenge his actions and he said the issue is moot because the declarations have been withdrawn. (Daily Item) 

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

Boston Medical Center says it will wind down the clinical services program it has run at the vacant Roundhouse Hotel near the troubled Mass. and Cass area, citing a “lack of long-term funding.” (Boston Herald) 

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has cast doubts on official accounts of the January 6 attack on the Capitol and called it a “false flag” operation, exclusive access to thousands of hours of Capitol surveillance video from that day. (Washington Post) 

ELECTIONS

The struggling Massachusetts Republican Party may owe vendors more than $600,000, according to its new chair. (Boston Globe) 

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Bedrock Group LLC didn’t reimburse the state for $3.6 million in face masks it failed to deliver, but the company says in court filings the failure to pay is not entirely its fault. (Salem News)

EDUCATION

The Boston Public Schools routinely overestimate the system’s enrollment count, a costly practice that ripples through everything from facilities planning to hiring. (Boston Globe) 

The family of a girl who committed suicide three years ago is suing the city of Northampton for failing to protect the woman from bullying at the city’s high school. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

ARTS/CULTURE

More than $3.7 million in state gaming tax revenue is being parceled out to 43 nonprofit and municipal performing arts centers in Massachusetts. (State House News Service)

TRANSPORTATION

A jury determined the New Bedford MBTA commuter rail station site under construction on Church Street was undervalued by $1.2 million. (New Bedford Standard-Times) (Subscriber only)

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Salem is prepping for an overhaul of its waterfront to set the stage for offshore wind development. (Gloucester Daily Times)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

Court documents suggesting Annie Dookhan may not have been the sole bad actor in the state drug lab are prompting demands for new trials from some defendants whose cases may have been handled by other state chemists. (Boston Globe) 

The New Bedford Light recounts the tale of Robert Burchell, a New Bedford man with a long long criminal record who landed a job at the city’s iconic Whaling Museum, where prosecutors say he continued his thieving ways. 

A sprawling audit of the Holyoke Police Department responding to citizen complaints recommends changes, including rethinking the civil service requirement, bolstering field training, renegotiating union contracts, and reducing paid time off. (MassLive)

MEDIA

Sports Hub radio host Tony Massarotti is suspended for a week after making a “racially insensitive comment.” (Media Nation)