Overview
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) is an independent public authority of the Commonwealth that owns and operates several public facilities primarily for conventions, trade shows, and industry meetings. MCCA was established by Section 31 of Chapter 190 of the Acts of 1982 to acquire and operate the Hynes Convention Center and the Boston Common Parking Garage. The Hynes Convention Center in Boston has 176,480 square feet of exhibition space, including a multipurpose auditorium; 38 meeting rooms; and a 24,544-square-foot ballroom. The Boston Common Parking Garage is beneath the Boston Common and holds 1,350 vehicles. It provides parking for commuters, nearby residents, and tourists.
Through Chapter 152 of the Acts of 1997, MCCA was tasked with overseeing the construction and operation of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) and acquiring and operating the Springfield Civic Center, now the MassMutual Center. The BCEC is in South Boston and has approximately 2.1 million square feet of meeting and exhibition spaces. The MassMutual Center, in Springfield, contains 100,000 square feet of flexible meeting space, including a renovated 8,000-seat arena.
MCCA also owns and operates the Lawn on D and its parking lot, the Lot on D. The Lawn on D, in South Boston, is a 2.7-acre outdoor venue with a capacity for 4,000 people. The venue includes two private event spaces: the Pavilion on D and the Signature Pavilion.
According to its website,
The MCCA’s mission is to generate significant regional economic activity by attracting conventions, tradeshows, and other events to its world-class facilities while maximizing the investment return for the residents and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
MCCA is governed by a 13-member board of directors. The Governor appoints nine members and the Mayor of Boston appoints two members to this board. Additionally, the Secretary of Administration and Finance and the Collector-Treasurer of the City of Boston, or their designees, are members. The board appoints an executive director to serve as MCCA’s chief executive officer.
According to MCCA’s fiscal year 2022 financial statements, “The BCEC, Lawn on D, Hynes Convention Center and [MassMutual Center] revenues consist primarily of rental income and income for services, such as electricity, commercial revenue, . . . telephone, cleaning, rigging, security, internet access, equipment and food and beverage revenues.”
Discretionary Spending
MCCA voluntarily participates in the Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Office’s (SDO’s) Supplier Diversity Program. According to the Supplier Diversity Office Comprehensive Annual Report Fiscal Year 2022, SDO was established within the Massachusetts Executive Office for Administration and Finance in January 2021 to provide “resources for, and support a wide range of diverse and small businesses in competing for contracts being bid across the Commonwealth.”
Through consultation with the Operational Services Division, SDO sets annual benchmark percentages for spending with minority-owned, woman-owned, and veteran-owned businesses.4 During the audit period, SDO set the following benchmark percentages for participating agencies’ total annual discretionary spending for fiscal years 2021 and 2022: 8% for minority-owned businesses, 14% for woman-owned businesses, and 3% for veteran-owned businesses.
MCCA’s chief financial officer calculates MCCA’s discretionary budget5 by calculating the total amount of money spent on all operating and capital expenditures. MCCA’s chief financial officer excludes non-discretionary items that have set price points (such as payroll, contracted expenses, utilities, insurance, and payments to the Boston Police Department and other agencies), then deducts an additional percentage to account for purchases related to existing contracts. The remainder is MCCA’s discretionary budget, which MCCA can use for procuring goods and services through bid invitations or quotes.
Procurement
While MCCA is not mandated to follow Chapter 30B of the Massachusetts General Laws, MCCA has elected to incorporate the law into its “Procurement, Purchasing and Payment Policy and Guidelines.” Specifically, Section 4 of Chapter 30B of the General Laws states, “For the procurement of a supply or service for a governmental body in the amount of $10,000 or greater, but not more than $50,000, a procurement officer shall seek written quotations from not fewer than 3 persons customarily providing the supply or service.” MCCA also has a documented public bidding process for purchases over $50,000 that requires it to advertise a bid invitation or request for proposals.
Section 5 of Chapter 30B of the General Laws mandates that bid invitations “remain posted, for at least two weeks, in a conspicuous place in or near the offices of the governmental body until the time specified in the invitation for bids.” According to MCCA, bid invitations are posted on its website, the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Central Register website,6 with The Boston Herald, and the COMMBUYS website.7 According to MCCA’s director of procurement, they also directly reach out to minority-owned, woman-owned, and veteran-owned businesses to encourage diverse vendors to participate. MCCA’s departments submit requests for goods and services to MCCA’s centralized procurement department in the form of a purchase quote through MCCA’s procurement system. MCCA may use COMMBUYS to make purchases from contractors, which are approved by the Operational Services Division.
Crowd Management
According to MCCA in its response to this audit report, dated August 6, 2024, “The MCCA Public Safety Department consistently conducts safety and security operations at the MCCA with the highest standards of care and custody for our clients, employees, and contractors. . . . The MCCA Public Safety program is the only such program in the convention industry to be formally recognized by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a DHS Safety Act Designation. The only other venue in the Commonwealth to have received such an award is Gillette Stadium.”
The Massachusetts Comprehensive Fire Safety Code (outlined in Section 1.00 of Title 527 of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations) requires certain venues to provide a certain number of crowd managers for their events. According to the Massachusetts Comprehensive Fire Safety Code, crowd managers are assigned to assist with the safe operations of venues that operate as nightclubs, dance halls, discotheques, or bars. Their duties include maintaining clear paths of egress, initiating fire alarms, directing attendees to emergency exits, and ensuring that venues stay within occupancy limits. The Massachusetts Comprehensive Fire Safety Code also requires venues to provide at least one crowd manager for events with over 100 attendees and additional crowd managers for events with more than 250 attendees, with one crowd manager for every 250 attendees. Many events hosted by the MCCA are exempt from certain crowd management requirements of the fire code due to the nature of the events.8
MCCA hosts events, considered ballroom or non-ballroom events, at both the BCEC and the Hynes Convention Center. MCCA also hosts non-ballroom events at the Lawn on D. MCCA’s public safety department employees serve as crowd managers, and it uses a third-party security company—Allied Universal—for additional coverage. MCCA’s Event Planning Guides for the BCEC, the Hynes Convention Center, and the Lawn on D require one crowd manager for every 500 attendees.
MCCA’s Public Safety Department begins to plan for an event once an event manager has scheduled it in MCCA’s system related to event management. The planning process begins with a meeting between the public safety director and the client to discuss preliminary event information, such as the number of expected attendees and the duration of the event. MCCA’s deputy director assigns a public safety manager to each event. The public safety manager for the event, with the assistance of an intelligence analyst, sends the client a pre-event security survey via email and conducts research to assess the preliminary risk for the event. Using this information, the assigned public safety manager drafts a security proposal that includes the event security concerns, an evacuation and technology plan, law enforcement details, and a staffing schedule that outlines the minimum number of crowd managers required for the event.
After the deputy director and director of public safety approve the security proposal, the intelligence analyst or deputy director disseminates this security proposal to the client and all first-responder agencies that were identified in the planning process. At the conclusion of the event, the public safety manager finalizes the event security plan to ensure that it bills the client for the number of crowd managers present at the event.
Non-Union Employee Complaints and Settlement Agreements
MCCA’s Human Resources Department has a “Non-Discrimination/Non-Harassment Policy” that it issues to employees annually. This policy describes what discrimination and harassment are, as well as the process for handling internal complaints of that nature. While MCCA does not have a documented procedure for handling employee complaints9 outside of discrimination or harassment, the resolution process generally involves an investigation of the complaint to include interviews with the affected parties and their managers, and mediation and disciplinary action, if necessary. The process is initiated when the employee brings a complaint forward to their supervisor or an employee of the Human Resources Department. The Human Resources Department is supposed to retain documentation of these incidents in hardcopy files.
When resolving legal matters concerning employees, there have been instances where MCCA entered into settlement agreements with employees. MCCA has internal legal counsel but sometimes uses private outside legal counsel to handle employee settlement agreements. MCCA does not have a standard process for approving settlement agreements; they are handled and approved on a case-by-case basis.
Before the audit period, MCCA executed a widely publicized $1.2 million settlement agreement arising out of employee allegations of racial discrimination. We extended our review to include this and other settlement agreements, as well as non-union employee complaints, starting on January 1, 2018.
| Date published: | August 19, 2024 |
|---|