Mass. Local President Makes Strong Case for Quinn Bill
December 22, 2009
The Springfield Republican newspaper has published a letter from the president of IBPO Local 364 in which the local president makes a strong case for preserving financial incentives for police officers who pursue higher education.
In the letter published December 20, 2009, Springfield officer Joseph Gentile calls both Governor Deval Patrick and House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charles Murphy on the carpet for their opposition to the Quinn Bill program, which offers pay increases for officers who achieve college and professional degrees.
His letter:
Patrick fails to grasp value of Quinn Bill
There has been significant press recently regarding the Quinn Bill. Much of this relates to the state’s failure to honor its obligation to reimburse cities and towns for Quinn Bill payments.
As a police officer, I recognize the Quinn Bill is not a popular program with the majority of the public and the major newspapers in the state. I believe biased news reporting and purposeful, political misrepresentation are unfair to the spirit of Quinn Bill legislation.
State Rep. Charles Murphy was quoted in the Nov. 29 edition of Sunday Republican as saying, “The ends were justified at the time the Quinn Bill was enacted. You want a police force that’s trained. But in today’s times, we don’t have the money.”
He further noted that most police officers today are college educated. Rather than being an argument for ending the Quinn Bill, Murphy’s comments actually underscore the success of the Quinn Bill.
Maybe Murphy is right; if you pass legislation that succeeds, you must not allow it – under any circumstances – to continue.
During an Oct. 3, 2006 meeting with the Executive Board of the Springfield Police Patrolman’s Union, in which he was seeking our endorsement, then- candidate, Deval L. Patrick said the Quinn Bill is a good program that should be funded 100 percent. Fast forward to Oct. 29, 2009 when Gov. Patrick, in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce said, “The Quinn Bill, a once vital program to encourage police to continue their training, is a program we must begin to phase out.”
If the governor is to be believed, he thinks the Quinn Bill is no longer the vital program it once was. In a time when criminals have increased their use of technology to commit their crimes, and investigations are becoming significantly more demanding, the governor believes it is no longer vital to have an educated police force. . . interesting.
The real problem, ironically, for men like Murphy, and Patrick, is that the men and women in blue have become educated enough to know when politicians put political expediency above good policy.
--JOSEPH GENTILE
--President, International Brotherhood of Police Officers
--Local 364
--Springfield
You can also see his letter at the Springfield Republican’s MassLive.com site here. http://www.masslive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/12/giving_jobs_for_teen_yields_go.html (President Gentile’s letter is the second letter from the top.)