Her office is also in the process of reviewing the use of confidentiality, non-disparagement and other agreements in various state agencies over a 12-year period, implementing a review she promised to launch last year.
The Methuen Democrat said she was told last week that she would temporarily hold the title of acting governor on Tuesday morning – since Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll and the state’s three other constitutional officers would all be out of state, many of them in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention.
That didn’t happen. DiZoglio said there was “a misunderstanding or a mistake in another schedule” and Driscoll was supposed to leave Tuesday after Secretary of State William Galvin — third in line — returned to Massachusetts from the convention. A spokesman for Galvin said shortly after 1 p.m. that he had landed in Massachusetts and expected to serve as acting governor from Tuesday afternoon until early Friday afternoon.
The draft order calls for a signature by an “acting governor,” but DiZoglio said she has no intention of signing the order on her own.
“I don’t think that would have been a way to make meaningful and positive change and put the administration in a position to come home and find a signed executive order,” DiZoglio told reporters Tuesday. “It is my intention to work with this administration.”
It was not immediately clear whether Healey would do the same. DiZoglio said she had not spoken directly to Healey, and a spokeswoman for the governor did not say whether she supported the auditor’s proposal.
“We are cooperating with the ongoing review (of the nondisclosure agreements) and will continue to discuss this issue with the auditor,” Healey spokeswoman Jillian Fennimore said in a statement.
The draft The order would prohibit settlement agreements entered into by the governor’s office or any executive agency from containing a nondisclosure, nondisparagement, or confidentiality clause or other provisions that “seek to limit disclosure of unlawful workplace conduct, such as harassment, discrimination, or other forms of misconduct.” It would also void enforcement of similar clauses in previous agreements.
“We should not allow powerful perpetrators of harassment and abuse, discrimination or other forms of misconduct to use taxpayer dollars to shield themselves from accountability,” DiZoglio said.
DiZoglio’s office said Monday that the state’s convention center authority violated state law under its previous leadership by signing a $1.2 million nondisclosure agreement and “concealing allegations of racial discrimination.” The audit found five settlement agreements over a four-year period that had not been approved by the board. Only the $1.2 million deal required that under state law, and most were relatively small amounts of money, but in at least three cases, reasons for the settlement were not included in the settlement itself, according to the audit.
The agency settled the racial discrimination allegations in 2019, resolving a lawsuit brought by a former black human resources manager who claimed she was passed over for promotions and then asked to train people hired in her place. Natasha Hall was required to sign a nondisclosure agreement, employees said, but they only learned how much the confidential settlement was because someone left a copy on an office printer, the Globe reported last year.
DiZoglio said last year she would investigate the agency after Globe article detailing complaints from black employees and a vendor who claimed they faced racial discrimination at the agency. At the time, four black employees claimed in letters to the attorney general that they were paid less than their white colleagues and had fewer opportunities, while a white employee claimed he was the victim of retaliation after complaining that black guests at the convention center sometimes faced increased security at black-sponsored events.
The latter cases were investigated by the firm Prince Lobell Tye, which concluded, according to its audit, that there was “no racism or racist intent” behind the security presence at the events.
Still, DiZoglio’s office said the agency does not have a “transparent or accountable process” for signing settlement agreements, including those with confidentiality or non-disclosure clauses. Given the value of the $1.2 million agreement, the agency’s board also should have approved it, but it was never presented to them.
“If the MCCA Board fails to ensure adequate oversight of workers’ compensation, it could have a negative impact on the well-being and financial stability of the MCCA and its employees,” the audit said. “In addition, public funds could be misused to cover up harassment, discrimination and other forms of misconduct while protecting perpetrators of abuse at the MCCA.”
The agency said in a response accompanying the audit that it was working on a new directive on employee agreements with non-union workers, which would “establish appropriate legal and non-legal review and approval procedures for such agreements”.
The audit focused on a period when the agency was led by David Gibbons, an appointee of former Gov. Charlie Baker. Healey has since revamped the board, and the agency is now led by acting executive director Gloria Larson, whom DiZoglio thanked in a statement for “working with our audit team to immediately address these and other very concerning issues.”
A confidentiality agreement typically prohibits or restricts a party from discussing the terms of a settlement.
Sometimes the language goes even further, prohibiting a former employee from disparaging a former employer. For example, a severance agreement the MBTA signed in 2009 prohibited a former employee from saying anything that was “critical of the MBTA” or any of its employees, the Globe reported.
During her 10-year tenure in Parliament, DiZoglio had advocated a ban on their use and unsuccessfully urged her predecessor, Suzanne Bump, to conduct an investigation into their use in 2019. Bump said at the time that such an investigation was “not feasible.”
DiZoglio launched an investigation last year into the use of settlements and nondisclosure agreements by government and quasi-government agencies, including the Massachusetts Port Authority.
She said on Tuesday that her office had faced a “tremendous challenge” in obtaining all the information she said it needed. Among other things, there had been months of delays in the delivery of documents from agencies under Healey’s administration. Citing the ongoing audit, she declined to say which agencies were involved. However, Healey had “indicated that she intends to help us get access to our documents in a timely manner.”
She said the proposed implementing regulation would also “bring about some significant changes that we can implement.”
“And again,” DiZoglio added, “I look forward to working with this administration on this issue.”
Matt Stout can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @mattpstout.
