Latest news with #DianaDiZoglio
Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Towns lose their latest challenge to controversial state housing law
'The Municipalities have neither pled specific costs for anticipated infrastructure costs, nor provided any specific timeline for anticipated construction projects,' Gildea wrote in the ruling. 'Instead, the only allegations and averments before the court are generalized comments about large-scale issues they forsee, which are insufficient to sustain the Municipalities' claims.' The ruling is the latest legal blow to towns that have sought to avoid passing new zoning rules under the four-year-old MBTA Communities Act. Advertisement Last year, the Supreme Judicial Court The suits Gildea dismissed Friday were filed after State Auditor Diana DiZoglio's office Advertisement Gildea rejected that opinion in his ruling. He also said towns had misinterpreted the auditor's opinion by making broad claims about infrastructure costs under the law, when the opinion instead focused on the administrative costs associated with designing and passing new zoning rules. 'We are pleased the courts have again affirmed the intent of the MBTA Communities Law, and we look forward to working with the remaining communities to complete their zoning changes,' Housing Secretary Ed Augustus said in a statement Friday. Of 177 municipalities covered by the law, 134 have now passed new multifamily zoning, and more than 4,000 units of housing are in the development pipeline in those districts, state officials said. Housing advocates — who view MBTA Communities as one of the state's more consequential housing laws of the last several decades — celebrated the ruling Friday, saying it clears the path for the law to move forward. 'Today's ruling is a great victory for all Massachusetts residents, but particularly the communities of color and low-income individuals hardest hit by the affordable housing crisis,' said Jacob Love, Senior Attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights, a legal advocacy groups that has sued towns for defying MBTA Communities. 'Increasing multi-family housing stock is critical to advancing fair housing in the Commonwealth and this decision preserves one of the most important tools we have in the fight for housing equity.' Andrew Brinker can be reached at
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Brickbat: Friends in High Places
Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio reports that Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, mishandled the state's emergency shelter system by approving "improper and unlawful" no-bid contracts for food and transportation services, costing taxpayers millions. Some of the contracts went to Healey's campaign donors. DiZoglio's audit criticizes Healey for not using competitive bidding, leading to overpayments, while highlighting a lack of transparency and oversight in the program. Healey's team says the contracts were necessary due to an unexpected surge in migrant and homeless families. The post Brickbat: Friends in High Places appeared first on
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Unlawful contracts, overpaid for services: 4 takeaways from the audit of state's emergency shelter system
The state's housing division failed to properly manage and oversee its emergency shelter program while it experienced record-high demand in recent years, according to analysts in State Auditor Diana DiZoglio's office. Beginning in December 2022, the state's Emergency Assistance shelter network began to see skyrocketing numbers of families seeking housing. To keep up with the demand, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (ELHOC) — and its precursor under former Gov. Charlie Baker, the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development — placed hundreds of families temporarily in hotels and motels around the state. However, according to the 74-page audit report released earlier this week, state officials signed 'unlawful' emergency contracts with some service providers and failed to adequately oversee and document their agreements with others. The report did not include an overall amount of money that was wasted due to the lack of contract and program oversight. Below are four main takeaways from the auditor's report: Two of the many contracts EOHLC issued to keep up with the shelter demand did not follow the procurement process required for state agencies. Though EOHLC argued that it was justified in signing these contracts because of the emergency situation, the State Auditor's Office disagreed. Typically, state agencies are required to solicit bids from prospective contractors to keep contracts fair and reasonably priced. However, if the delays from this process would cause unnecessary harm, they are able to sign short-term agreements while the proper process is followed. The auditors wrote in their report that EOHLC should have been able to foresee the incoming stress on the system and prepared accordingly before emergency measures became necessary. 'This would have allowed for competition among vendors with improved pricing, terms and fairness,' the report says. 'Emergency contracting is designed to 'buy time' to conduct a fair, legitimate procurement process under normal procurement rules. This did not occur.' In addition, the auditors wrote, the emergency contracts lasted for too long, and should have gone for 'weeks, not several months.' One of the contracts at issue was with East Boston-based Spinelli Ravioli Manufacturing Co. for food delivery to hotels and motels being used as shelters that did not have culinary facilities. The other contract that the SAO deemed improper was with Mercedes Car Company, now known as Pilgrim Transit, which offered transportation to shelter residents for necessary travel to destinations such as medical appointments. The housing agency vehemently disagreed with these findings, with Secretary Ed Augustus writing in an official response letter that the analysis was 'fundamentally wrong and unfounded.' EOHLC signed two other emergency contracts in 2023, with Ascentria Community Services and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay; though the report mentioned these two contracts, it did not list any issues with them. One of the main concerns of the report was that EOHLC's procedures may have led to unnecessary costs, due to both a failure to search for cheaper options and simple administrative errors and oversight. For the food contract with Spinelli, the auditors wrote that the catering company had initially offered a payment option that would have been a flat fee for the services they would provide, but that EOHLC had not inquired further about what this flat fee would be. The agency also could have considered contracting with multiple food providers around the state to decrease delivery costs, rather than having all meals come from the East Boston facility, they wrote. Auditor analysts also took issue with the costs of the deal with Mercedes Car Company, comparing the trip fees to standard taxi rates listed on the Boston Police Department website. A taxi rider would pay $2.60 for the first one-seventh of a mile, then 40 cents per mile afterward. In contrast, trips with the car company had a base fee of $140 for the first person and $40 for each additional person, and $498 for the first person in a wheelchair van. 'The transportation service fees ... are considerably higher than the typical rates observed in the taxicab or ride-sharing industry. In fact, they align more closely with the pricing structures of executive car services,' the report says. In one instance, the state was billed $140 for a trip that lasted 223 feet within a single parking lot. They also noted that EOHLC could have worked with the MBTA or regional transit authorities to provide transportation at a lower cost. However, the report determined that it was impossible to know how much money the agency could have saved if it had not signed the emergency contracts, because EOHLC did not take the time to find out. In addition, the audit revealed that the state was overcharged for 9.6% of food deliveries from Spinelli, for a total overcharge of $4,136 (This was offset, however, by additional deliveries where the state was undercharged, for a net overcharge of $2,306). The overcharges were due to inadequate oversight of invoices the agency received, the auditors wrote. EOHLC disagreed with these findings, saying that the report left out relevant context. In particular, for the transportation contract, the agency said it needed very specialized services, but also encouraged shelter residents to use public transportation when and where possible. The transportation service needed to be available on demand with short notice, able to travel to locations not near public transit, and able to accommodate people with disabilities and families with small children requiring booster seats. Augustus noted that when EOHLC did solicit bids for competitive transportation contracts, they received no 'satisfactory' proposals. 'The lack of satisfactory bids received in response to our competitive procurement speaks volumes to the extremely unique and challenging nature of this service,' he wrote. As for the overcharges, he argued that with a nearly $10 million contract, the $2,306 in net overcharges was just 0.02% of the total. Nearly all of the report's findings dealt, directly or indirectly, with a lack of documentation for decisions EOHLC made when administering the emergency assistance program. For the emergency contracts, the agency did not sufficiently document how it made the decisions to hire those companies, the report said. EOHLC also did not have documentation of subcontractors that worked with some of their contracted service providers, and for some charges for various services that the auditors questioned, the agency could not provide documentation to verify them. 'Without proper records, EOHLC cannot verify whether services were provided according to contractual terms, nor can it ensure that payments were appropriate and aligned with the agreed-upon budgets,' the report says. 'It increases the risk of improper use of public funds and a lack of accountability for the services provided.' EOHLC acknowledged that it could have done more to keep up its documentation, and Augustus wrote that the agency was already 'committed' to updating its policies to do so in the future. EOHLC wrote in its official response to the report that it had already updated its invoice review process to increase oversight of payments to vendors, one of several changes the agency has made since the audit period. It has also clarified some of its policies on how funding is used and restructured its shelter diversion program to have unique contracts for a 'more streamlined process.' Beyond internal policies, however, Augustus said the state has made a number of changes to the shelter program, introducing a maximum number of families that can be served, new eligibility requirements and a cap on the length of time a family can stay in a shelter. This has resulted in fewer families staying in shelters and lower costs. Gov. Maura Healey announced the day before the audit report was released that all hotel and motel shelters would be closed by summer. As a result of these and other changes implemented by Healey, for the first time since July 2023, the number of families in shelters has fallen back below 5,000, Augustus wrote. 'These all represent significant progress toward establishing a Right to Shelter system for families where stays are rare, brief, and non-recurring, and costs are financially sustainable to the Commonwealth,' he added. DiZoglio's office will review EOHLC's progress in six months, according to the typical audit process, according to the report. Closing hotel shelters has benefits but could leave families with no place to go Audit: Mass. housing office mishandled emergency shelter contracts Broken brokers' fees: Mass. lawmakers try again for a fix | Bay State Briefing Springfield housing advocates praise new law that seals eviction records Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Audit shows migrant crisis mismanagement
BOSTON (WWLP) – State Auditor Diana DiZoglio spent the last few months auditing the migrant shelter crisis, and her findings show that the Healey administration's inaction resulted in unlawful contracts with providers. The audit looked at the time period between July 2021 and June 2024, when the state placed over 7,700 families in emergency housing. It found that the state executed several no-bid contracts with food and transportation providers, which resulted in unnecessary spending, including significant and unlawful overpayment to a ravioli company and a 233-foot cab ride, for example. While the state is permitted to use no-bid contracts under emergency circumstances, the auditor says these contracts should have lasted weeks, not months. The governor strongly disagrees with this analysis. She says her administration has made great strides in improving the shelter system she inherited. 'We've made a lot of reforms, a lot of changes, and as a result, we've seen numbers going down for folks who are in shelters, we've seen costs going down,' said Governor Healey. The state's housing secretary released a response to the audit, saying it seriously lacks context on what the Healey administration inherited from the Baker administration, and even called the first audit finding 'fundamentally wrong and unfounded.' The governor says she doubts her administration will make major changes to how they are handling the migrant crisis as a result of the audit. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBS News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Keller: Audit finds "mismanagement" in Massachusetts emergency shelter system, no-bid contracts
The opinions expressed below are Jon Keller's, not those of WBZ, CBS News or Paramount Global. The migrant deluge that overwhelmed the state emergency shelter system is mostly over, for now. But the fallout from the way it was handled continues in a scathing 74-page report from State Auditor Diana DiZoglio. No-bid contracts The audit hits the state agency in charge - the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) - for "mismanagement" and "failing to assess" the surging numbers, and bungling oversight of spending on food, transportation and housing costs while handing out no-bid contracts. Some examples highlighted in the audit: The state overpaid a food delivery vendor by almost 10%. A a cab company hired to take migrants to critical appointments billed the state at inflated rates. In Boston, a one-mile cab ride costs around $5. One company charged the state almost $147. "People are concerned about the lack of fairness when it comes to the execution of millions of taxpayer dollars," said DiZoglio in a WBZ-TV interview. "The administration was unable to provide evidence that they had really gone through a process of any kind." Number of families in shelters decreasing In response, EOHLC issued a statement, saying in part: "The Healey-Driscoll administration inherited an unprecedented surge in families due to failed immigration policies and a flawed shelter system not equipped to handle it. Since that time, we have made major changes to make the system safer and protect taxpayers.... Now, the number of families in shelter and the cost to taxpayers is going down, more than 85% of families seeking shelter are now long-time Massachusetts residents, and we just announced that we will be out of hotels this summer, months ahead of schedule." But while Healey and her defenders say the size of the migrant influx came as a surprise to everyone, DiZoglio says they should have known by early 2023 that tighter controls were needed. "EOHLC then waited January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and then only in August decided to consider these options for food and transportation," DiZoglio told WBZ. "Let's make sure that we are not allowing these types of circumstances to repeat themselves." Potential political fallout Predictably, the governor's critics are all over this audit, claiming Healey wasted billions and showed little regard for state procurement laws. This is sure to be an issue in a governor's race that already includes two former officials in the administration of former Gov. Charlie Baker, who was still in office when the migrant crisis began. And tension between Healey and DiZoglio herself shows up in the audit when it questions the administration's concern for taxpayer dollars. The crisis may be dying down, but you'll be hearing about it for some time to come.
