


Jennifer Flagg, former chief of staff for the ex-Springfield police commissioner, has been hired at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to execute its cost-cutting plan. Flagg began work on Feb. 4 as chief of administration, a position that pays $115,000.
Flagg reports directly to Alan L. LeBovidge, a former member of the Springfield Finance Control Board and currently executive director at the authority. LeBovidge plans to cut jobs, including some of the toll workers, and make other changes to save money. Mac Daniel, director of communications at the authority, said Flagg is charged with carrying out LeBovidge's cost-cutting plan for the authority.
Robert F. Cullinane, secretary and treasurer for Teamsters Local 127 in Quincy, which represents toll collectors at the authority, said Flagg's hiring smacks of political favoritism.
Cullinane said it is inconsistent for LeBovidge to plan cuts while creating a position.
Daniel said LeBovidge previously cut three positions, including a director of legislative affairs and a director of architecture. He said those positions would equal three times Flagg's salary. LeBovidge also is considering eliminating annual $750,000 tourism grants to communities that abut the turnpike.
The state's secretary of transportation, Bernard E. Cohen, told The Republican last year that the authority is close to bankruptcy and is buried under billions of dollars in debt.
LeBovidge plans to convert at least four toll booths from manual collections to Fast Lane, according to The Boston Globe. The authority has been discounting tolls and reducing the price of transponders to draw more users to the Fast Lane program.
Cullinane said there are 300 full-time toll collectors and about 170 part-time collectors. He said they earn about $25 an hour.
Cullinane said he is worried that turnpike leaders will remove one of two toll collectors from certain areas in order to create traffic backups to build public support for the Fast Lane.
"That's the game," he said.
He said about half the motorists on the turnpike don't have Fast Lane transponders and don't want them. The Fast Lane program was started a decade ago.
Flagg will have direct oversight over several operations including tolls, real estate, human resources and information technology, according to Daniel. "She will more than earn her keep," he said.
LeBovidge was commissioner of the state Department of Revenue in the administration of former Republican Gov. W. Mitt Romney. Flagg's old boss, Edward A. Flynn, was the public safety secretary for Romney, and in March 2006 became Springfield police commissioner. Flynn left Springfield in January to become police chief in Milwaukee.
LeBovidge also sat on the Finance Control Board in Springfield when the board hired Flynn as police commissioner.
Daniel said Flagg's job was advertised and other people were considered, but he couldn't say how many applied.
Flagg, 40, declined comment yesterday.
She was a legislative director and communications director at the state Executive Office of Public Safety in Boston before going to Springfield. She also was a national sales manager for six years for a manufacturer in Leominster.
She has a bachelor's degree from Suffolk University in Boston and a master's degree from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
(masslive.com)