Republican State Reps Slam Governor Over State House Patronage

 With Gov. Deval Patrick seeking an additional $2B in revenue in his Fiscal Year 2014, Republican state reps from the Merrimack Valley said he had better clean up State House patronage before asking citizens to pay more in taxes and fees.

and Marc Lombardo, R-Billerica, called on Patrick to end all patronage in his administration.

 Lyons and Lombardo claim there has been, "an explosion of six figure patronage jobs" under the Patrick administration.

Specifically, the Legislators referenced an article that appeared in the Boston Herald on March 6 that revealed Early Education and Care Commissioner Sherri Killins

As noted by the Boston Herald on March 6, 2013, Early Education and Care Commissioner Sherri Killins has been receiving a full salary of $197,000 annually, while spending much of her time interning in the Ware Public Schools as she trains to be a superintendent.

"Governor Patrick calls his $2 billion dollar tax hike ‘a generational responsibility,'" said Lyons. "Governor Patrick has been irresponsible in his oversight of the tax dollars of the hard working families in the Commonwealth.

"We need reform in state government, not unending tax hikes. Every day news reports chronicle the scandals in the administration's drug labs, lack of oversight of pharmaceutical manufacturing, and political job hires.  It's time to put a halt to these failures.”

“Until this Governor has the courage to end political hack jobs, until this governor has the courage to end EBT fraud, until this governor ends the annual giving of $275M a year in Mass Health benefits to illegal immigrants, I don’t think he should be lecturing anyone on political courage," said Lombardo.