The UMass payroll is a joke – a very expensive joke for the taxpayers.

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UMass 2025 payroll database: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Before getting into some of the open and gross hackerama, I want to mention what is probably the most ZooMass job title of the year, at ZooMass Boston.

Meet Calvin Hill (no, not the running back). This Calvin Hill is “Vice Chancellor for Inclusive Excellence and Belonging.”

Pay: $227,532 a year.

Belonging! Who knew that was a job description? Only at UMass. And he’s doing double duty – both Inclusive Excellence and Belonging.

That vice chancellor of belonging title may be an even more classic ZooMass job classification than last year’s winner, with Carolyn Brownawell.

She is, or was, the “Chief People Strategy Officer & deputy executive vice chancellor.”

Big job, I guess, because she made $453,966.45. But last year she tumbled to $147,836.50, and it looks like she’s gone.

Oh no! What will UMass do without a Chief People Strategy Officer?

The fact that Carolyn was the “chief” indicates that there may have been at least one Deputy People Strategy Officer, so let’s hope that “they” can take up the slack in the People Strategy racket.

UMass is a hack’s dream. Believe it or not, it’s an even softer gig than being a judge, and if you don’t believe me, just ask David Lowy.

Lowy is a hack’s hack, formerly of the Supreme Judicial Court. He’s married to another member of the Hack Hall of Fame, Ginny Buckingham. She was running Massport in 2001 when Muslim terrorists used commercial airliners flying out of Logan Airport to kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

Good job, Ginny!

Then her hubby, another Beacon Hill payroll patriot, got the do-nothing SJC job, where he was making $226,187 in 2023.

Only one problem: the pension. Lowy needed those three highest years, as they say, to rake in the really big bucks.

This is a tradition at UMass. Remember Billy Bulger, the Corrupt Midget, brother of Democrat serial killer Whitey Bulger? He parlayed the presidency of the state Senate into the same job at UMass.

Since his “retirement” in 2003, Bulger has been collecting a kiss in the mail of first $202,000 a year, and then, since the death of his wife in 2020, $274,000 a year.

Hacks study these numbers. Hey, they have nothing else to do all day long. They sure ain’t working. Am I right Justice Lowy?

Now, despite his impeccable hack pedigree, Lowy couldn’t hope to become president of ZooMass. That sinecure is owned by Marty Meehan, the former Congressman. He made $879,453.66 last year and couldn’t be pried out with the Jaws of Life.

But wait, what about… General Counsel?

That’s one of the great hack consolation prizes at UMass.

Remember Gerry Leone, the former DA of Marty Meehan’s old home county of Middlesex. He decided he’d quit and go into private practice and make the big bucks, but somehow, his dream failed to bear fruit.

Soon Leone was crawling back to the hackerama, where his old county crony Meehan made him… General Counsel. Leone got in his Three Highest Years, including in 2023 a total of $371,421.05.

In 2024, he pocketed another $32,209.30 and another $93,761.84 in “leave/buy back.” In other words, Gerry Leone did even better in hack payouts than LaMar Cook did last year.

Now Leone has a pension — $200,201.52 a year.

So guess who decided to, uh, retire from the SJC in 2024. You only get one guess.

The new General Counsel of ZooMass is lifelong payroll patriot David Lowy.

Another nationwide search!

In 2024, in first (partial) year in his new no-heavy-lifting sinecure, Lowy pocketed $351,050.

Last year, Mr. Ginny Buckingham’s pay skyrocketed to $449,772 a year. And behind that comes the (tax-free) pension, plus I believe a hack judicial pension, which according to the state Comptroller’s records, Lowy doesn’t seem to have started collecting yet.

So 80% of $450,000 will be… not bad! Just think how much the Buckinghams would be pocketing if only the Muslims had decided to fly out of some other US airport back in 2001.

This of course is just the tip of the payroll-patriot iceberg not just at ZooMass, but in higher education generally.

Did you know that UMass has a “head football coach” who made $1,406,376.56 last year. He is not to be confused with the other “head football coach” who made $705,439.54 in 2025.

As the old athletic saying goes, it’s not the high cost of excellence that’s ruining sports, it’s the high cost of mediocrity. Or in the case of UMass, below mediocrity.

A few more from the Forgotten But Not Gone brigade of public higher ed.

John Quinn, 18-year hack state rep, failed candidate for Bristol County sheriff. Now “Assistant Dean of Public Interest Law Programs and External Relations” at the ridiculous law school in Bristol County.

Wow! He made $267,950.

Then there are the Vinnys.

Vinny Pedone used to be a state rep in Worcester. Then he died and went to heaven. At age 58, he now makes $251,950 a year in some phony-baloney job at “Mass State Universities Council of Presidents.”

The other Vinny is Vinny DeMacedo, a Republican from Plymouth who got into politics because it was a lot easier (and better paying) than pumping gas for a living.

Now he makes $196,300 a year at Bridgewater State College, er, University. (They all become universities because that way all the hacks could give themselves even more pay raises.)

That’s it for today. Sometime soon, I want to delve into all the titles they bestow on one another at UMass.

For instance, I’ve already found two instances where the “associate vice chancellor” is making more than the “vice chancellor.” Why? And does an “executive vice chancellor” outrank a “deputy executive vice chancellor,” not to mention a “vice chancellor?”

And where exactly does a “senior associate vice chancellor” rank on the depth chart?

Another mystery: what the hell is a provost?

And why does ZooMass need not only provosts, but also vice provosts, associate vice provosts, assistant vice provosts and senior vice provosts?

I don’t ask for much when it comes to a do-nothing hack UMass job. Just make me the associate deputy assistant senior vice provost for… belonging.

You have no idea how much inclusive excellence I’ll bring to my new belonging position. After a few months, I’ll be ready for replace Carolyn as Chief People Strategy Officer. You know why I’ll do that job so well at UMass?

It’s because I’m a people person.

(Order Howie’s new book, “Mass Corruption, Vol. 1: The Cops,” at amazon.com or howiecarrshow.com/store.)