BOSTON – State Treasurer Timothy Cahill, criticized in recent days for reaching agreements with several former agency employees that kept the circumstances surrounding their departures secret, asked a former state attorney general on Tuesday to review the policy.
The decision came four days after one of those former employees was fired when his new employer, the University of Massachusetts-Boston, learned from The Associated Press he had departed the treasury for downloading so much pornography it caused his office computer to crash.
Cahill asked former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, a former candidate for governor who went on to lead Common Cause, a government watchdog group, to review the practice. It had been used six times since Cahill took office in 2003, and he had planned to sign a seventh agreement by this week.
“Treasurer Cahill has been successful in bringing private sector practices to many aspects of the Treasury,” the office said in a statement released late Tuesday afternoon. “However, given recent criticism, he understands some modifications may need to be made to separation agreements used by his office in specific instances.”
Harshbarger said in an interview there would be no restrictions on the scope of his inquiry, the initial phase of which he hoped to complete within a month. While he will be paid by the state, his recommendations will be advisory, although they will be made public under the terms of his agreement with Cahill. He said they could include both recommendations to undo the prior agreements or not enter future ones.
“In the corporate sector, the challenge has been to get these folks to go find the problems, solve them and then deal with them going forward, so I’m pleased the treasurer has asked me to take a look at this issue,” said Harshbarger, who now heads a governance practice in Boston at the law firm of Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane.
In 2003, Gov. Mitt Romney tapped him to lead a similar inquiry into state corrections practices after the prison beating death of John Geoghan, a former Catholic priest who had been convicted of sexual abuse.
The confidentiality agreements signed by Cahill are unusual in Massachusetts government. Neither Romney nor former Treasurer Shannon O’Brien, Cahill’s predecessor, have used them.
One clause of the agreements, obtained last week by the AP through a public records request, demanded employees “shall not disparage the state treasurer’s office.” Another said they applied “from the beginning of the world to the date of this release.”
Cahill aides initially said the agreements were aimed at ensuring a smooth transition between incoming and outgoing employees, and to protect sensitive treasury information. However, two of the agreements were executed with former communications directors who did not have access to secure information, and who left their posts before their replacements were hired.
In addition, the aides said none of the agreements concealed personnel or personality problems, but the AP reported last week that one of the employees to sign an agreement resigned in August after downloading so much pornography that it crashed his office computer.
That official, former Deputy Treasurer Jeff Stearns, was subsequently hired by UMass-Boston into a $120,000-per-year post as assistant vice chancellor of administration and finance. University officials did not learn of the reasons for his departure from the treasury until contacted by the AP last week.
The agreement would have prevented both Stearns and treasury officials for talking about the reasons for his resignation, although Cahill’s top aide, First Deputy Treasurer Doug Rubin, said the university did not inquire about Stearns with the treasurer’s office.
Rubin also said normal personnel privacy restrictions would have prevented the office from revealing more than his salary and start and termination dates without his prior approval.
Treasury aides said the cost of Harshbarger’s inquiry had yet to be determined.
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