Governor Asks Ways & Means to Restrict Quinn Bill
December 16, 2009
Once again, Governor Deval Patrick is trying to attack municipal police through the Quinn Bill. We must pull together to stop him.
In a letter to the chairmen of the legislature’s Ways & Means Committees (you can see the relevant pages here), the head of the Executive Office of Administration and Finance asks the chairs to consider legislation that would exempt municipalities from having to pay the Commonwealth’s share of the Quinn Bill. Any municipality with contract language requiring the city to pay the state’s share would be exempt, but only until the expiration of the contract. The governor’s request did not make it into the final economic package passed at the end of this year’s legislative session because of the IBPO’s intervention with the Ways & Means Committees. The proposal, however, is still a subject of interest on Beacon Hill.
No matter how much the governor claims to be focused on saving money, we believe his last-minute attempt to sneak another attack on the Quinn Bill into legislation was yet more evidence of his disrespect for police officers. If he really wanted to give the taxpayers of the Commonwealth our money’s worth, he’d support policies that help officers achieve college degrees, so that we can share our professional knowledge with our communities. He’d support police details, because we provide increased police presence and crime deterrence to our cities and towns for the same cost as flaggers, who contribute no such added benefit.
Please contact your state representative and state senator and respectfully ask them for their support in stopping the governor’s proposals to Ways & Means to restrict Quinn Bill payments. You can call the State House main switchboard at 617-722-2000 or find your legislators’ email addresses through the legislature’s web site at www.mass.gov/legis.