Mass. Inspector General meets Mayor Van Campen on municipal “listening tour”

Special to The Advocate

As part of his ongoing municipal outreach “listening tour,” Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey S. Shapiro met with Everett Mayor Robert Van Campen early this week.

“As Inspector General, I want to make government work better tomorrow than it did today, which requires listening to and working with the people who are on the ground doing the hard work of governing day in and day out,” Inspector General Shapiro said. “Mayor Van Campen has assembled an outstanding team and I commend them for their work to set a positive tone from the top and strengthen policies and procedures to ensure sound governance.”

“It was great meeting Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro this week. We had productive conversations around best practices, strengthening government transparency and making sure our financial decisions serve Everett residents responsibly. I’m looking forward to working collaboratively moving forward,” Mayor Van Campen said.

As the only statewide inspector general in the country with municipal oversight, Inspector General Shapiro regularly meets with municipal officials to discuss how the Office of Inspector General (OIG) can support them in safeguarding public resources. Thus far, the Inspector General has travelled to over 100 city and town halls across the Commonwealth. As a result of these meetings, he has advocated for commonsense changes to the state’s procurement laws, offered free procurement certification training to municipalities and school districts and separated the OIG’s procurement compliance function from the technical support function.