HOW WE SEE IT Accountability Leads To Firing

Anytime a situation fails to turn out as planned or expected, the best any of us can do is try to learn from the experience.

That’s what keeps rolling through the mind in the wake of news the Boston Mountain Solid Waste District fi red its director.

Maylon Rice accepted the job in 2009, the same year his good friend Marilyn Edwards took off ce as the Washington County judge. None of his previous experience would lead one to naturally gravitate toward him as a candidate for the job of solid waste district director. He’s been a newspaperman, a funeral director, an employment specialist at a trucking company. Early this year, he also ran for state representative but lost to a fellow Democrat.

But hired he was, and for three years he’s been at the helm of a twocounty governmental body charged with overseeing trash disposal issues and recycling. The state has 18 of these districts within its borders.

Then, on Sept. 13, the board of the waste district fi red him. Edwards, who serves as chairman of that board, placed Rice on leave in early August after district employees raised concerns about Rice’s management.

One employee who quit about six months into Rice’s tenure painted an unflattering image of how the situation deteriorated after his hiring.

“He made me cry just about every day because of constant accusations,” she said. “Everything I did was wrong, yet just before he started there, I was employee of the month, and they recruited me to work at the district.”

But allegations about how he treated employees wasn’t the tripwire for the board. What an investigation by Edwards’ staft found would generously be called sloppy handling of public money. Grants to pay for specifi c equipment or programs were at times allocated to purchases the grants were never intended to cover. Documentation, which is critical to ensuring public money is spent appropriately, was missing. The district used $15,000 received through a grant to support employee salaries to help pay for construction of a building.

The evidence shows a lack of understanding about what accountability means.

It should be noted nobody has asserted any money was converted to the personal use of Rice or anyone else. The board clearly felt management of the resources provided to the waste district was lacking, and Rice was responsible for that as the director.

Edwards abstained from voting on Rice’s ouster, citing a 20-year friendship. That friendship likely explains why Rice was in a position to be hired for the position to begin with.

So, what lesson can be learned? Our suggestion is any hiring for a public position should be based on a candidate’s qualifi cations for the job, not his connections.

It’s no doubt tempting for people in power to want to reward supporters with public jobs, but when they hire without focusing on qualifi cations, problems are almost always sure to arise.

That approach didn’t serve Rice well. It also didn’t serve the public well.

Perhaps now the board will fi ll the position with a candidate who demonstrates appropriate experience and sound judgment.