New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University

Lawmakers, LePage close ethics disclosure loopholes

Sarah Kuranda — Sat, 05 May 2012 19:08:11 +0000

Maine has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations run by legislative leaders or the spouses of high-level state officials since 2003. But because of a loophole in ethics law, the public didn’t know about it.

That won’t happen again.

Click here to read the full story from fellow INN member the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.

Expired food on store shelves

Sarah Kuranda — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:06:59 +0000

The 22News I-team went through hundreds of files of Springfield businesses who have been visited by a health inspector. Dozens of these businesses have been cited in the past year when the inspector found food for sale that was past its expiration date.

Click here to read the full story from WWLP.

Barnstable Databases

Sarah Kuranda — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:06:20 +0000

Many useful databases for reporters posted by the Cape Cod Times.

Click here to view the databases.

Worcester DA spent seized money on youth sports, not drug-fighting

Sarah Kuranda — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:06:07 +0000

District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. has spent tens of thousands of dollars in public money, from a law enforcement fund intended to fight drug dealing and substance abuse, to buy sports uniforms, spread sand and grass seed on area baseball diamonds, replace backstops, cut up downed trees around athletic fields and repave a basketball court at an elementary school in one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

Click here to read the full story from the Worcester Telegram.

Litchfield fire chief will collect nearly $4,000 monthly pension

Sarah Kuranda — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:30:23 +0000

Frank Fraitzl, who became the town’s first appointed fire chief earlier this month, will work roughly 24 hours a week at a rate of $26.54 an hour, according to his three-year contract with the town.

Fraitzl retired in April 2011 after three years as Milford fire chief, and despite his new position, is entitled to a $3,931 monthly pension payment, or nearly $50,000 a year, which he began collecting Aug. 1, according to New Hampshire Retirement System spokesman Marty Karlon.

Click here to read the full story from the Nashua Telegraph.

‘F’ in national study means Maine ‘ripe’ for corruption

Sarah Kuranda — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:29:29 +0000

Maine has earned an “F” from a national organization’s first-in-the-nation assessment of accountability and transparency across the 50 states.

Maine ranked 46th in the “State Integrity Investigation” by three nonpartisan, national and international journalism and good government groups.

Click here to read the full story from the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.

DATA: University of Maine System employees who received at least 5 percent raises between fiscal years 2006 and 2012

Sarah Kuranda — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:28:34 +0000

Click here to view the Continue Reading »

Hundreds More Veterans Discharged Illegally

Sarah Kuranda — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:27:34 +0000

The Department of Defense has illegally discharged hundreds of veterans since 2008 for alleged personality disorder, skirting requirements intended to reduce such diagnoses and depriving veterans of benefits, according to an analysis of data by the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).

In a new report, the VVA national organization and Connecticut chapters, working with the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School, found that since fiscal year 2001, the military had discharged more than 31,000 service members on the basis of personality disorder (PD).

Click here to read the full story from Connecticut Health I-Team.

Providence mayor’s top aides receive free parking

Sarah Kuranda — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:26:35 +0000

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras has called on retirees, unions, non-profit groups and citizens to take part in his “shared sacrifice” plan to help keep the city out of bankruptcy.

But the NBC 10 I-Team found out that 36 of the mayor’s top aides get their parking paid for by the city.

Click here to read the full story from the I-Team at Turn to 10.

Mass. Board of Medicine lacking in transparency for malpractice, other disciplinary actions

Sarah Kuranda — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:26:24 +0000

In 2005, a Suffolk County jury decided that Dr. Mary Ames-Castro and another obstetrician caused irreversible brain damage to an infant girl during a delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital. The $23.8 million malpractice judgment was one of the largest in state history.

But the judgment was never entered in a public database maintained by the state Board of Registration in Medicine. The board erased Ames-Castro’s profile from the database because she let her license expire after the botched procedure.

Nowadays, she is practicing medicine in Oregon under her maiden name, Mary Beth Ames, and also holds a license in Wisconsin. Because neither Oregon nor Wisconsin publicly records out-of-state malpractice judgments — and because Massachusetts deleted Ames-Castro’s profile — her current patients are left with the false impression that their doctor has a clean record.

Click here to read the full story from the Initiative for Investigative Reporting at Northeastern University.