Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A hefty report released by State Auditor Diana DiZoglio is shining a light on some state employee settlements over the past decade, including the use of tax dollars for non-disclosure agreements. The report details the Baker and Patrick gubernatorial administrations, from 2010 to the end of 2022. The total cost of these settlements reached close to $41 million. But even with this high number, DiZoglio said there are still a few areas that need to be examined a bit closer.
“Some agencies indicated that they ‘lost’ their relevant records our office requested,” Dizoglio said. “What we were being told, and what actually is the case could be completely different things.”
DiZoglio said because all the information in the report was self-reported by each agency, there may still be records the auditor's office did not get to see. More than 150 of these settlements contained non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) preventing the employee from talking to anyone about the incident. The exact details of each were mostly withheld, but the cases ranged from sexual harassment and discrimination to worker's comp and being late to work too many times.
A day before the report was dropped, Gov. Maura Healey issued a formal statement banning NDAs in state government, something DiZoglio approved of.
"I've banned NDAs for a long time, I issued a policy the other day to make it clear that, that was administration-wide, and I think that's been the standard practice," Gov. Healey told WBZ NewsRadio during a conference earlier this week.
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