Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro has put the state’s transportation leaders under a harsh spotlight, sending an investigatory letter to Acting Transportation Secretary Phil Eng that flags conflicts of interest and procedural problems in the award of a 35-year MassDOT lease to Applegreen. The move follows months of public scrutiny, a lawsuit from rival bidder Global Partners, and Applegreen’s decision to walk away from redevelopment talks, all while lawmakers gear up for oversight hearings in March.
The investigatory letter went directly to Eng and, according to Boston Herald coverage, identifies conflict-of-interest issues inside MassDOT and concludes that the procurement “was not a model procurement.” The Herald reports that the Office of the Inspector General found MassDOT failed to follow its own procurement rules and that several selection-committee members did not record written justifications for their scores. Those findings echo the concerns that drove Global Partners to seek court review last year.
What the watchdog called out
Shapiro told the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee that the plaza deal contained enough red flags to merit a formal investigatory letter, warning there are “plenty of lessons to be learned,” according to WGBH. The OIG’s scrutiny follows public-records requests and a sustained push by Global Partners to surface communications it says undermine the fairness of the competition. Shapiro’s letter now gives lawmakers a detailed roadmap for grilling MassDOT officials and contractors about how the deal was put together.
Bidders, text messages and the revenue gap
Global Partners says newly released records include hundreds of messages between the selection-committee chair and members of Applegreen’s bid team, and has asked a Suffolk County judge to block MassDOT from executing the lease, according to a Global Partners press release. A KPMG analysis cited by The Boston Globe found that the competing bids projected sharply different revenue totals over the life of the contract, a spread critics say amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars and, in some summaries, nearly a billion. Applegreen backed out of negotiations last fall, and MassDOT says it plans to restart the procurement for the plazas.
What’s coming next
The OIG letter lands just ahead of a slate of legislative oversight sessions. The Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee has signaled March hearings, and Acting Secretary Phil Eng is expected to appear to defend the procurement decisions, according to NBC Boston. Lawmakers have repeatedly said they will demand transparency and full documentation as they weigh whether the process met legal and ethical standards. Those hearings will help determine whether MassDOT quickly moves to rebid the project or opts for other administrative steps.
Legal implications
Global’s court filings and public statements ask a judge to stop any execution of the long-term lease and place the disputed communications at the center of its claims of improper contact, according to Global Partners. At the same time, the OIG’s investigatory letter could trigger additional administrative review and feed into the Senate committee’s official record, a step that in prior MassDOT matters has led to recoveries and contract adjustments, according to reporting by WGBH. For now, the state’s plan to modernize 18 highway service plazas is on ice while officials, bidders and lawmakers sort through the watchdog’s findings.
