Overview of the Massachusetts Environmental Police

This section describes the makeup and responsibilities of the Massachusetts Environmental Police.

Overview

The Office of Law Enforcement, more commonly known as the Massachusetts Environmental Police (MEP), within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, was established under the authority of Section 10A of Chapter 21A of the Massachusetts General Laws. MEP’s website states,

The mission of the Massachusetts Environmental Police is to protect the environment and natural resources of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through enforcement, education, and public outreach. . . .

The Environmental Police is the primary enforcement agency of the Commonwealth’s boating and recreational vehicle laws and regulations. The Office of Law Enforcement is responsible for registering boats, all terrain vehicles and snowmobiles in Massachusetts.

MEP has divided the Commonwealth into seven inland regions and six coastal regions. To discharge its responsibilities in these regions, MEP has six bureaus: the Coastal Bureau, the Inland Enforcement Bureau, the Boat and Recreation Safety Bureau, the Environmental Crimes Bureau, the Marine Theft Bureau, and the Boat and Recreation Vehicle Registration and Titling Bureau. The Appendix to this report contains descriptions of these bureaus.

During the audit period, MEP had 119 employees. Of these, 85 were law enforcement officers with ranks from officer to lieutenant who, according to MEP policies, were entitled to receive overtime;¹ 10 were dispatchers; and 24 were administrative staff members. For the fiscal years ended June 30, 2017 and June 30, 2018, MEP’s state appropriations totaled $10,547,986 and $9,776,081, respectively. Detail² expenses amounted to $377,198 for fiscal year 2017 and $436,913 for fiscal year 2018. Overtime expenses³ amounted to $661,058 for fiscal year 2017 and $633,800 for fiscal year 2018. The table below shows the total pay by position during the audit period.

MEP Total Earnings by Law Enforcement Position

Position	Base Pay	Overtime Pay	Detail Pay	Total Pay
Officer	$6,323,557	$580,816	$430,079	$7,334,452
Sergeant	3,591,084	314,701	284,981	4,190,766
Lieutenant	2,980,497	399,341	99,050	3,478,888
Total	$12,895,137*	$1,294,858	$814,110	$15,004,106*

*     Discrepancies in totals are due to rounding.

 

The average salary for MEP law enforcement officers, including officers, sergeants, and lieutenants, over the audit period was approximately $76,000 plus $4,800 in detail and $7,600 in overtime, for a total compensation average of approximately $88,400 annually.

Background on Overtime at MEP

MEP employees under unit 1, unit 2, unit 5, and unit 6⁴ of MEP’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) are eligible for overtime. MEP requires that any overtime earned by officers be received under a CBA. Section 7.2 of the CBA in effect during our audit period states that an officer is eligible for overtime if s/he works more than 48 hours over a six-day period and “shall be compensated at the rate of time and one-half his/her regular rate of pay for authorized overtime work performed.” Although this work schedule was eliminated in 2007, the language remains in the current CBA (see Other Matters). Currently, MEP officers work 8.5-hour days, with four days on and two days off. According to MEP policy, an officer is eligible for overtime if s/he works more than 8.5 hours in a day or more than 40 hours in six days. In addition, the CBA states that paid time off is counted as time worked and applied toward the overtime threshold. Therefore, if an officer has logged 30 hours of work time and 10 hours of vacation time in a six-day period, any additional hours are paid as overtime. We used the CBA requirement of including paid time off in officers’ overtime calculations, as well as the MEP overtime policy that was in effect during our audit period, as our criteria when performing our audit testing.

Types of Overtime

Asian Longhorn Beetle: Paid $5,997 during the audit period through a contract with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). Asian longhorn beetles are designated as pests by the federal government and require extermination. MEP is responsible for enforcing the transport ban on contaminated wood from designated Asian longhorn beetle contamination sites.

Divisional: Paid $229,390 during the audit period through MEP’s overtime budget. Divisional overtime is time worked for any extra work duties related to an officer’s day-to-day activity that require the officer to work more than 8.5 hours in a day or more than 40 hours in six days. Divisional overtime consists of callbacks,⁵ shift extensions, the Blue Hills Deer Hunt,⁶ and hunter safety classes.

Joint Enforcement Agreement (JEA): Paid $238,212 during the audit period through a federal contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The JEA requires that MEP officers work a specific number of hours of marine fishery enforcement, such as enforcing laws that safeguard sustainable fishing populations and protect endangered marine species and their habitats through sea patrols, dockside inspections, and public outreach.

Boat Instructor Training: Paid $18,870 during the audit period through a federal port security grant program where officers, through the MEP Boat and Recreation Vehicle Registration and Titling Bureau, provide 20 hours a year of boating education for children under the age of 16.

Off-Highway Vehicle and Recreational Boat Safety: Paid $158,993 during the audit period through an MEP trust account. MEP officers are responsible for enforcing safety laws for motor vehicles modified for use over off-road terrain for recreation while not on a public way. This includes off-highway motorcycles, dirt bikes, and utility vehicles.

Recreational Boat Safety: Paid $186,427 during the audit period through a federal grant. MEP is responsible for enforcing laws pertaining to the safe operation of personal watercraft, water skis, canoes, and kayaks. MEP officers also coordinate boating and recreational vehicle safety programs throughout the Commonwealth.

DCR: Paid $421,514 during the audit period through an interagency service agreement with DCR. MEP officers provide a law enforcement presence at designated DCR parks, pools, and facilities to protect and support DCR recreational resources.

State of Emergency (SOE): Paid $35,455 during the audit period through MEP’s overtime budget. An SOE is declared for a specific event (e.g., a blizzard) or an imminent threat of a natural or human-caused disaster for which MEP officers may provide assistance.

MEP’s Time and Attendance Reporting System

The Information Management Corporation Computer-Aided Dispatch system is the computerized dispatch system MEP uses to log officers’ time and attendance throughout their work shifts. An encrypted computer is given to each officer to change duty status, report citations or tickets issued, log in for shifts, log out at the end of shifts, record his/her location, and communicate with dispatch personnel at MEP’s Boston headquarters.

Officers are required to gain approval for overtime from senior management through the following mechanisms:

• DCR: Officers are required to complete DCR Directed Patrol Narrative sheets explaining the work they performed, the time and date of the patrol, and the number of hours worked. Narratives are signed by the working officers and submitted to their supervisors for signature approval.
• Divisional: Shift extensions and callbacks are approved through an on-duty manager (such managers include people at or above the rank of captain). Approvals are recorded in a report called the IMC Activity Report,⁷ indicating which manager gave approval. For the Blue Hills Deer Hunt, officers are required to sign up on a roster and are assigned times to work. At the hunt, each officer must give his/her signature on a form indicating his/her times of arrival and departure. This form is signed by a supervisor at the end of the hunt.
• Off-Highway Vehicle and Recreational Boat Safety: Lieutenants create operational plans detailing their objectives, the number of personnel needed, and the number of hours of overtime needed to complete the operations. Each plan must be approved by managers before the lieutenant can distribute the opportunity to officers.
• Boat Instructor Training: Training opportunities are emailed to eligible officers. Officers email back with their availability and interest in the overtime.
• JEA: Officers are required to fill out a JEA Report Form explaining the work performed, the time and location of the overtime, and the number of hours worked, which are reviewed and approved by the officers’ supervisors.
• Asian Longhorn Beetle: Officers are required to complete DCR Directed Patrol Narratives explaining the work they performed, the time and date of the patrol, and the number of hours worked. Narratives are signed by officers and submitted to their supervisors for signature approval.
• SOE: MEP management told us that officers are instructed to charge overtime only after an SOE declaration from the Governor. There are no required forms for SOE overtime. During an SOE, officers are allowed to work more than 16.5 hours in a 24-hour period in order to maintain public safety.

In addition, MEP requires officers to use the Human Resources Compensation Management System (HR/CMS) operated by the Executive Office for Administration and Finance to track their hours worked each week. The Commonwealth’s payroll system incorporates human resource / personnel and time and attendance information. It is a biweekly payroll system that supports all employees in all branches of government. HR/CMS provides enhanced functionality for state human resources and payroll administrators and ensures compliance with state and federal financial and legal requirements. HR/CMS payroll interfaces biweekly with the Commonwealth’s Labor Cost Management System for fund availability, editing, and labor distribution and then updates the state’s accounting system, the Massachusetts Management Accounting and Reporting System. Timesheets are approved by direct supervisors electronically at the end of each week.

Split Shifts

A split shift occurs when an officer interrupts his/her regularly scheduled duties to work a paid detail or overtime with the understanding that the officer will return to work afterward and complete his/her required hours. For example, an officer could work two hours of his/her shift, work six hours of JEA overtime, and then return to complete the last six and a half hours of his/her regular shift after the overtime is completed. The split-shift policy for details has been in place since 2006, when the current CBA was negotiated. According to a memo dated December 16, 2016 from MEP’s then-Colonel, a split shift must be approved by him and there must be a mission-specific objective or unique public safety benefit for the overtime. The memo also states that MEP will not approve split shifts for private detail or DCR directed patrol. It is uncommon for other statewide law enforcement agencies—including the Massachusetts State Police—to allow split shifts.

1.     The 85 employees were 46 officers, 22 sergeants, and 17 lieutenants.

2.     According to MEP’s “Paid Detail” policy, detail is “any extra work assignment not paid for by the department as overtime.”

3.     The majority of overtime is paid to MEP by outside entities for contracted work.

4.     Unit 1 includes MEP registration tellers. Unit 2 includes law enforcement dispatch employees. Unit 5 includes MEP officers, sergeants, and lieutenants. Unit 6 includes program coordinators, management analysts, and accountants.

5.     Section 7.3 of the unit 5 CBA defines callbacks as occurring when “an employee who has left his/her place of employment after having completed work on his/her regular shift . . . is called back to work prior to the commencement of his/her next scheduled shift.”

6.     The Blue Hills Deer Hunt is a four-day controlled hunt in the Blue Hills Reservation to manage the deer population. It is operated by DCR.

7.     This is a narrative of officers’ patrol activity during their shifts.

Date published:	April 21, 2020