Such violations are rarely, if ever, flagged by the retiree, but most don’t have Cunha’s background. In February, Cunha told the head of the State Retirement Board that he did not correctly track his earnings, but also that he misunderstood what he was entitled to make after leaving the inspector general’s office, according to a copy of the letter provided to the Globe.
A spokesperson for Kathryn Kougias, the board’s executive director since January 2023, said it was the first time in her experience that a retiree had self-reported making too much money under the law designed to limit a retiree’s public earnings.
“It’s a flawed system, and it’s an honor system. And I knew that,” Cunha said in a phone interview. “That’s why, as soon as I figured it out, I made arrangements to pay the money back. I was trying to be diligent.”
The situation is laced with irony: an attorney and former state watchdog admitting to contributing — mistakenly — to the type of wasteful or illegal spending he was once in charge of helping investigate. But it also illustrates how the state’s Byzantine rules around retiree pay can trip up even those who once helped police them, and how state officials rely on an honor system to catch violations of the complex rules.
Under state law, those who are newly retired from a state or municipal job face two sets of limits if they return to a public sector job in Massachusetts. They can’t work more than 1,200 hours in a year, and they can only earn the difference between their pension and the current salary being paid to the person who now holds their old job. After being retired for at least one full calendar year, the retiree can then earn an additional $15,000.
The limits are designed to curb so-called double-dipping, and to prevent retirees from taking home more taxpayer dollars than they otherwise would have if they had simply continued working in their original job.
But, as the inspector general’s office has argued, the system is hobbled by “non-existent” oversight. There is no central agency that monitors whether retirees in the state’s multibillion-dollar systems are being paid according to the rules, Jeffrey Shapiro, the current inspector general, wrote in a March report. Caps on earnings fluctuate wildly from retiree to retiree, making it difficult for the workers to track themselves.
And even when officials find that someone broke the rules, violators face no penalties beyond having to pay back excess earnings.
For some state agencies and municipalities, the ability to hire back a retiree is a convenient tool, offering a cheaper option than hiring younger, full-time employees to complete specific tasks on a tight budget.
It’s also an area that can stir controversy. Governor Maura Healey, for example, has pushed a proposal to allow the retired police chief leading Massachusetts’ police training agency to take home both his full $150,000-a-year salary and a municipal pension worth $123,187 a year. In essence, she is pushing to exempt him from the limits other retirees face. Shapiro, the current inspector general, warned that would set a troubling precedent.
In Cunha’s case, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden first hired him in 2022 as a special prosecutor to investigate an April 2021 altercation between an off-duty transit officer and a motorist. Cunha ultimately concluded that two MBTA Transit Police officers should not be criminally charged in connection with an alleged coverup.
He remained with the office afterward, helping train district court assistant district attorneys, supervising attorneys at the downtown Boston Municipal Court late last year, and most recently, helping cover cases for short-handed staff at a district court in Chelsea, according to Cunha and a Hayden spokesperson.
Hayden’s office has paid Cunha $187,000 in fewer than 20 months, spending records show, though Cunha expects to leave after his current contract runs out next month.
But the legal onus to track whether Cunha — or other retirees, for that matter — stay with a state-imposed limit on earnings fell on him, not the agency who hired him. Asked what system, if any, Hayden’s office had to monitor such arrangements, Jim Borghesani, a Hayden spokesperson, pointed to a state website that explains the limits on post-retirement work.
“State rules specify that it is the retiree’s responsibility to keep track of their earnings,” Borghesani said.
Cunha said that while he was tracking hours, he didn’t realize until late 2023 that he had surpassed his earnings limit. In his case, it’s the difference between his successor’s $192,700 annual salary and Cunha’s $100,900, or roughly $92,000. Cunha said he also believed he qualified for the additional $15,000 in…
Read More: Former watchdog calls post-retirement work rules ‘flawed system’