I-Team

I-Team: BPW Employees Caught On Tape Slacking

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Boston Public Works crews roll out of the yard and the I-Team is right behind. The I-Team tracked crews all across the city -- from Dorchester to Charlestown and out to Hyde Park and caught city workers doing personal business in city vehicles on your dime. Others were just hanging out doing nothing at all.

The first crew heads down the Expressway to Granite Ave., stops at an office park and puts a little girl into a big city-owned truck. The I-Team loads the tape, hit play and Dennis Royer, chief of Boston Public Works, gets a glimpse of what the I-Team caught on tape. "He just loads her into the truck… Absolutely unacceptable. It's a huge violation. There's no way that should be allowed to happen. It's a huge liability."

It's behavior that's unacceptable, but as we found, pretty common.

In Southie, the I-Team followed one worker for two-and-a-half hours.

He starts his day talking in the park. Then goes to the cleaners, stops at CVS and drops some things off at a house. He empties two barrels then walks across the street to a bar for a few minutes, heads back to the cleaners, then he's off to Store24.

Our worker grabs a load of dirt from a street cleaner, talks on his cell phone and drives back to the city lot. That's about 15 minutes work in two-and-a-half hours, and there's plenty of trash left behind.

"What do you say to the taxpayers of Boston?" asked the I-Team.

"I gotta be honest with you. It's obvious these employees are not doing what we expect them to do, OK? It's not right, I apologize to the taxpayers we're going to take appropriate action," said Royer.

Two other Public Works employees drive to a house in South Boston. One goes inside for about an hour while his partner sits outside. We found trucks dropping dirt and losing trash. These are the crews who are supposed to keep our city clean. "I think we could really do a better job," said resident Dana Kendall.

"At a time where the city is in a really tight budget… This is wasteful spending that can't be accepted," said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau -- an organization that promotes efficient and responsible government.

"What do you think this says about accountability and supervision?" asked the I-Team.

"I think it shows it's lacking," answered Tyler. "It's a waste of taxpayer dollars and it's our job to reign this in."

But the city was warned about issues like this when similar problems in the department were exposed last year. Employees were spoken to, but in several cases, behavior hasn't changed. "The fact you were able to find it commonplace, that upsets me. That should upset everybody."

Not only were many of the crews not working, they were driving all across the city, wasting a lot of gas. The commissioner says he'll take action to fix these problems. Right now, the city and the Boston Finance Commission are in the middle of conducting their own investigation.

The Department of Public Works has about 365 employees and 190 vehicles. Those vehicles are equipped with GPS, but the devices are used mostly to locate trucks to respond to an emergency in the city -- not to track the work ethic of crews.

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