Politics & Government

Report: Patrick Legislation Comparable To 'Flyswatter'

Governor Patrick introduced bill earlier this year to tackle questionable unemployment claims in response to letter from Lynnfield town administrator.

Earlier this year, Lynnfield's Town Administrator Bill Gustus made statewide news by leading other town officials in asking Governor Patrick to crack down on municipal workers improperly collecting unemployment benefits.

The , when Gustus reported at the end that he and a group of other municipal officials had written to the governor because of the effect these unemployment claims have had on local budgets. At the time, a 69-year old retired Lynnfield police officer ended up the center of attention in the matter for having collected unemployment, while collecting a pension, after he had done the maximum amount of detail work allowed for the year.  .

Weeks later, , almost half of which went to nine bus drivers who filed claims during non-school year times. The first week of the story, .

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The media attention led Governor Patrick and state Republican lawmakers to announce plans to act on the issue. Governor Patrick filed his own legislation in response, but in the previously mentioned March 16th article on Lynnfield Patch, Gustus also noted that the Patrick legislation only addresses some areas that municipal officials mentioned, while not addressing other areas such as the bus drivers. He has also noted that in order to truly fix the problem, action from both the legislative and executive branch is necessary. At the time, .

This week, Gustus was quoted in the Boston Herald as saying "sometimes government is accused of using an elephant to kill a fly. This (Patrick) legislation is like trying to kill an elephant with a flyswatter." The Herald also quoted state Labor Secretary Joanne Goldstein as saying that the Patrick Administration is also setting up a task force to further examine this matter.

Find out what's happening in Lynnfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 


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