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EDITORIAL
Op-Ed; Layoffs don't prove DA is purging foes
THOMAS M. KEANE JR.

11/27/2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
029
(Copyright 2002)

It's hard to figure out what's going on at the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.

Last Friday 15 staffers were given notice and the office is filled with rumors that another 20 are slotted for termination. Is it just, as new DA Daniel Conley says, a combination of housecleaning and staff cuts in response to tough budget cuts?

Or is it, as others suspect, something darker: Allowing politics to dictate who is fired, who is hired, perhaps even who is prosecuted?

Conley has been the subject of an unusual degree of animosity from the day he first became DA.

Immediately after he was appointed in February by acting Gov. Jane Swift, the dimes started dropping. Conley was intent on turning the office into a haven for hacks, some insisted. He was going to fire top staff. He would turn the clock back to the bad old days, reversing a successful policy of community outreach to minority neighborhoods.

In fact, little of that occurred. Conley went out of his way to stress his commitment to the policies of his predecessor Ralph Martin, who was both enormously popular and the county's first black district attorney.

Although some staffers left, turnover in the office was actually less than in prior years. Conley vowed to run the office as a meritocracy and seemed to keep his word.

But all of that was viewed with suspicion too. Conley was facing an election and some speculated he was biding his time. Just wait until he wins, was the warning.

And Conley did win, decisively. Still, it was an election marked by a bizarre and tragic event. His opponent for the Democratic primary and a Martin protege, Boston City Councilor Brian Honan, died suddenly in July from complications following cancer surgery. Honan's followers were distraught as they watched Conley win the primary by default. The same pretty much occurred in the November general election, when Conley's only opponents were two underfunded independents. Conley won never having faced a serious challenge.

And now? Securely in office for four years, Conley can do pretty much anything he wants. And certainly, it seemed, the warnings of the dime-droppers came true when Conley announced his list of terminations.

Some of those who were fired (none of whom would speak for attribution) are harshly critical. One said the new DA is "showing his true colors," claiming Conley only cut people who had not supported him during the campaign. Under Martin, the staffer said, "It was a different era. Now it's going backward."

Still another pointed to Conley cutting four of the six positions in the special prosecutions unit, which goes after white-collar criminals. It was "decimated," the staffer suspects, "because it ruffled the feathers of well-known people."

Yet Conley makes a strong case for his actions.

The new DA came into office with a difficult management problem. Over the last two years, the DA's office has seen its budget cut by $1.4 million, from $13.7 million to $12.3 million. At the same time, Conley says, staff salaries had shot up. He found himself with too- expensive people and too-little funds. The only choice was to cut jobs and replace critical positions with less costly staff.

Conley says he has spent much of his tenure in office evaluating the people he had, trying to figure out who was most effective and where his priorities lay. He then announced his cuts last Friday. Conley's chief of staff, John Towle, explicitly denies there will be any further terminations, either now or in 2003 - unless there are more budget cuts. Conley figures about half of those fired will be replaced with less expensive staff. Other positions, such as the director of community relations and some secretarial jobs, will be eliminated.

As for the special prosecutions unit, Towle denies there was any effort to undercut its work. Instead, he says, Conley intends to rebuild the unit, giving it a high-tech focus and, he says, making it more aggressive in going after white-collar crime than it has been in the past.

So who's right? In truth, it's not possible to make the call on this one. There's a "Saint Ralph" quality to the former DA; any change by Conley is seen by some as sacrilege. Yet Conley clearly has the right to set his own course - and a reduced budget makes it inevitable that some jobs are cut.

And this should be noted. In conversations, Conley seems sincere. He takes no glee out of his layoffs. He strongly dismisses notions of political vengeance and he continues to talk about the DA's office in the same lofty tones as he did during the campaign. He knows he is being watched, particularly by leaders in the city's minority communities. He knows also that, in time, it will be his effectiveness, not the internal politics of his office, that will matter most.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.