Will it be the "dozing dispatcher" or the "disabled" bodybuilding firefighter who becomes the poster boy for this fall's tax-repeal effort?
This week saw yet another court victory for John Brophy, who's fighting efforts to remove him from the Peabody Fire Department for sleeping through a 911 call, getting into an altercation with a superior officer at the scene of a fire, failing one drug test and refusing to take another, and putting his job as a plumber ahead of his duties as a firefighter.
An Appeals Court judge upheld Brophy's bid for an injunction preventing his dismissal. Falling asleep on the job is usually enough to get anyone fired. But in Massachusetts it takes a lot more than sleeping through an emergency call to get one booted from the public payroll.
As for Boston fire inspector Albert Arroyo, his alleged back injury was sufficient to win him paid disability leave — but not to prevent him from competing in a professional bodybuilding contest. Now, despite the recent, embarrassing revelations, he says he won't return to work without a doctor's note.
It's nonsense like this that has enraged the public to the point an increasing number of voters may feel they have no choice but to repeal the income tax this November in order to send a message to the unions, the courts and Beacon Hill.
According to the Massachusetts Municipal Association, doing so "would reduce annual state revenues by about $13 billion or 40 percent ... triggering a state and local fiscal crisis that would force major cuts in municipal services and higher property tax bills and fees."
Not only would cities and towns no longer be able to afford keeping the Brophys and Arroyos on the payroll, they would be forced to make deep cuts in employee salaries and benefits generally — or else eliminate many jobs and some departments entirely.
But then this is where the entitlement mentality that's been allowed to prevail in the public sector for so long has brought us. What's considered public service in other places is viewed as self-service here. And only a fiscal tsunami of the type income-tax repeal would bring, may be capable of convincing those in the Statehouse that change can and must happen.
