Massive case backlog built during her tenure
August 7, 2009
By Joe Bergantino and Maggie Mulvihill
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Governor Deval Patrick’s appointee to run an agency that makes critical decisions about the status of licensed professionals and the pensions of state retirees abruptly resigned last week amid a massive backlog of cases and complaints about her management of the office.
Patrick administration officials were alerted to problems within the little-known but widely-used Division of Administrative Law Appeals as early as May 2008, including cases that have dragged on for two, three, and
sometimes four years without a decision, according to a review of agency records by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University. Shelly Taylor, the lawyer who ran the division, was placed in the post by Patrick in 2007.
NECIR-BU Director Joe Bergantino interviews Shelly Taylor.
DALA, as it is often known, hears appeals from professionals like doctors, day care center operators, emergency medical technicians, and nurses aides whose state-issued licenses have been revoked or suspended. It also hears cases regarding disputes relating to public construction projects, environmental permits, and wage and hour violations. Local and state government employees appeal to DALA when they disagree with their pension calculations.
Taylor declined numerous requests for an interview. Reached outside her downtown Boston office Monday, she declined comment.
Since Taylor arrived, decisions issued by the agency have dropped by half. In 2007, 348 decisions were rendered by DALA, a number that dropped to 169 in 2008, those records show. To date in 2009, 98 decisions have been issued, according to DALA employees who did not want to be identified for fear of losing their jobs.
Cases filed with DALA since Taylor took over have dropped about 25 percent, agency records show. There were 1,141 appeals in 2006, going up to 1,149 in 2007. Cases filed dropped to 858 in 2008 and through May of this year, when NECIR-BU requested the records, 270 cases had been filed, those records show.
The result of the board’s backlog is that retirees and their survivors are seeing their pension benefits delayed, and suspended professionals are not getting timely appeals to continue earning a living.
The time lag was so great in one case that the Watertown Retirement Board accused Taylor, in a July 1 letter to Patrick, of violating state law which requires her to issue “speedy” decisions.
The board claimed that a case appealed to DALA on June 7, 2007 is depriving a widow of her late husband’s retirement benefits, according to a copy of the letter.
The case is particularly “egregious,” according to the letter, because Taylor herself actually conducted the appeal hearing and has ignored multiple requests from the Watertown officials for an update, the
letter states.
Attorney Nick Poser, who has practiced before DALA since 1987, said he is waiting for decisions on appeals he filed two years ago, including retirement cases. He described the delays as a “very unpleasant prospect” for retirees awaiting word on their pension benefits.
Donald Greeley, a medical doctor who appealed the suspension of his medical license in 2004, has complained to DALA that their delays in issuing a decision have violated his due process rights.
In April 2004, the state Medical Board suspended Greeley’s license for alleged substandard care of five patients. He appealed to DALA and in Sept. 2004, DALA ruled in his favor in three of those cases and against him in two. The Medical Board disagreed with DALA’s decision in one of the three cases he won and appealed. That DALA hearing concluded in Sept. 2006.
Despite Greeley’s numerous requests for a final decision on his suspension, he was not given one until December 2008. In that decision, DALA reversed itself and the board revoked Greeley’s license for five years. Greeley is contesting the revocation at the Supreme Judicial Court.
“I had to declare personal bankruptcy; I wound up getting divorced,” Greeley said, breaking down in an interview. “It was very difficult to find employment in any other field.”
Shelly Taylor, head of the Division of Administrative Law Appeals, is resigning Friday amid a backlog of cases and complaints about her management.
Taylor, in a speech to retirement board officials in June, blamed herself for the backlog and vowed changes, according to three attendees.
Leslie Kirwan, Patrick’s secretary for Administration and Finance, the agency that oversees DALA, praised Taylor’s legal talents in an interview yesterday but acknowledged she was the wrong choice to head DALA.
“I think that we reached the mutual conclusion that it was time for a change,” Kirwan said.
But she also said DALA staff made Taylor’s job difficult as she tried to create a more uniform standard of fairness among DALA’s hearing officers, known as magistrates.
“This involves, among other things, someone who came in as a change agent into a heavily entrenched bureaucracy and met resistance,” Kirwan said. “There are ways to slow down the work if you’re not satisfied with your boss.”
It’s Taylor’s responsibility, however, to schedule hearings and approve the decisions made by hearing officers.
Taylor’s short tenure has produced a number of unfair labor complaints to unions and three complaints filed with the Massachusetts Commission against Discrimination, said former DALA Chief Magistrate Chris
Connolly said.
“It’s a disaster,” said Connolly, 62, who has filed an age discrimination complaint at MCAD against Taylor.
Taylor is paid $108,000 to run the $1.1 million agency, state records show. DALA employs about 14 people and operates out of rented office space near North Station.
Staffing has remained about the same since Taylor arrived, yet the number of hearings scheduled has plummeted, agency records show.
In 2007 there were 399 hearings held, but this year DALA magistrates are doing only 16 a month, which would amount by year’s end to 190 hearings, records show.
The administration was made aware of problems within DALA as far back as May, 2008, when Connolly called to complain about the backlog in decisions to David Sullivan, chief counsel for Administration and Finance.
Kirwan named Taylor to head the agency in July 2007, describing her “impressive record of litigation success that will be invaluable” to the agency, according to an A&F press release. Taylor had previously served as senior litigation counsel at Massport. She also held legal positions in the Office of the Treasurer and for the state Attorney General, the release states. Taylor, educated at Harvard College and the Northeastern University School of Law, was the first woman and first minority to head DALA.
Connolly and other former and current DALA workers said they have also raised concerns with the administration about Taylor’s work habits and treatment of staff, including their safety.
Taylor insisted on blocking the single fire escape to the office, prompting workers to call the Boston Fire Department, according to Greg Sorozan, president of the union representing DALA workers.
“It was clearly out of code for an emergency exit so you should never have locked that kind of a door,” Sorozan said. The order was later rescinded, he said.
Taylor denied one legally blind male magistrate a special viewer for his computer so he could work, Sorozan said. That magistrate has filed an MCAD complaint as has a female worker who claimed Taylor invaded her privacy by inquiring about her medical condition while she was hospitalized, according to current and former employees.
Both employees declined comment.
This story was written and reported by members of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University, an investigative reporting collaborative that includes the Boston Globe, WBUR-FM, and New England Cable News, New England Ethnic News, The Warren Group and The Lawrence Eagle Tribune.
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