The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance issued the following statement in response to Governor Maura Healey’s admission that she spent the past week vacationing in France, while Massachusetts courts began releasing criminal defendants back into the public due to a public defender crisis:

“This isn’t about whether the Governor is allowed to take a vacation, it’s about transparency and accountability. Governor Healey left the country, traveled to another continent, and refused to tell the public where she was or when she’d return. This wasn’t a weekend in Rhode Island, this was a week in Paris while our court system was falling apart and violent offenders were being released. The people of Massachusetts deserved to know where their Governor was during a crisis, and she deliberately chose to keep them in the dark. It’s a stunning failure of leadership,” said Paul Diego Craney, Executive Director for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.