Everett’s mayor was improperly paid $180,000 for “longevity payments” and may have violated state ethics laws, according to the results of an investigation released today by the Massachusetts inspector general.
The investigation, which began in 2022 after a tip to the inspector general’s hotline, also found that Mayor Carlo DeMaria concealed those payments from city council members and the public.
The idea of the payments - a bonus to the mayor for each completed term — was proposed by the mayor himself, the report said, because he participated in the drafting and approval of the ordinance that provided him with the payments.
“The OIG found that Mayor DeMaria used his position to unjustly enrich himself by orchestrating a city ordinance that provided him with a considerable bonus,” the report says.
Late Thursday night, the mayor and “the City of Everett” issued a joint statement on the city’s Facebook page denying the allegations. “I have worked too hard and too long as a public servant in the City of Everett to stand by while the Inspector General attacks my integrity and the integrity of the members of my Administration,” it said. DeMaria’s sixth term as mayor ends in November.
In 2016, the city council approved a $10,000 bonus for each four-year term served by the mayor, but the amount paid ended up being vastly different, said Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro. After an initial payment in 2017 in line with the council’s ordinance, he said, the city began paying the mayor a $40,000 bonus each year.
The annual overpayments were made from 2018 until 2021, when the report says the issue was brought to the attention of the city council. The annual payment was then reduced to $1,700 a year, consistent with longevity payments made to other city employees.
The investigation found the mayor and his administration intentionally hid the overpayments from the city council and the public by moving them from a clearly itemized “longevity payment” in the mayor’s budget to a generic human resources line item.
“We do believe that it was done to disguise it … The administration was paying $40,000 a year versus what the council understood it to be, which would have been $10,000 every four years,” Shapiro told GBH News.
Shapiro recommends the city recover $180,000 from the mayor and that they audit all payments made to the mayor from 2016 to the present to search for other overpayments. He also recommends that the city’s financial controls be tightened.
The report criticized members of DeMaria’s administration — including his chief financial officer and budget director — saying “members of Mayor DeMaria’s administration failed in their public duties and instead took actions that financially benefited the mayor at the city’s expense.”
Separately, investigators also found that the mayor had been paid $30,000 in retroactive longevity payments before the ordinance had actually been approved. The report said investigators couldn’t determine who authorized the payment but said the city had “no authority” to pay the Mayor at the time.
“The ordinance had not yet been enacted yet the financial people that worked for the city were already paying the money out the door,” Shapiro told GBH News, saying that it showed the city’s finance officers were “fast and loose” in their payments.
Because the mayor helped draft and approve the ordinance that ultimately paid him a bonus, the report said, DeMaria may have violated state ethics laws that prohibit municipal employees from participating in matters “in which they have a financial interest.” It will be up to the State Ethics Commission to take up the findings.
The statement posted on the city’s Facebook page disputes all of these allegations. DeMaria was not involved in drafting or passing the ordinance, it says, and “neither the Mayor nor any member of his Administration engaged in concealment.” The statement contends that the longevity ordinance was approved by City Council in “the ordinary course of business” and the council “received information in multiple years concerning the Mayor’s longevity payments.”
The statement alleges that questions about the payments only arose during the 2021 mayoral election cycle, and “any skepticism... was spurred by this political campaign.”
City Councilor Stephanie Martins, who is also the council president, is calling on Mayor DeMaria to resign.
“There is a clear intent to misappropriate the funds. And I think the right thing to do is to step down,” Martins told GBH News.
Martins said when she began serving in 2020, she had “no idea” that the mayor received a longevity payment because it was “hidden” in an obscure human resources budget line. She said that made it “impossible” to know about.
Martins said the city council plans to work with the Inspector General’s office on how to implement the recommendations.
“The purpose of longevity payments is to reward and retain employees for their skill and experience,” Shapiro concluded in his report, “Longevity payments are not a means to pad the salaries of elected officials.”
