Interim chief of Massachusetts RMV’s Merit Rating Board named

Aug. 23--A manager from the state's division of insurance will take over the office responsible for monitoring out-of-state license infractions after the Merit Rating Board director was fired Tuesday.

Acting Registrar Jamey Tesler appointed Paolo Franzese as interim director of the Merit Rating Board Thursday, according to the MassDOT. Franzese will serve as interim for about two months while a search is underway for a permanent replacement. When asked if the department will look locally or nationally for a full-time director Thursday, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said that's "to be determined."

The announcement comes as the Department of Transportation reactivates the statutory oversight role of the Merit Rating Board, which includes the registrar, commissioner of insurance and a representative of the attorney general. The three-member board decided to fire Thomas Bowes as Merit Rating Board director Tuesday in its first meeting since before Bowes was hired as the director in 2016.

Franzese will be on leave from his position as the manager of market conduct for the Division of Insurance, where he managed processes ensuring compliance with Massachusetts insurance laws, interacted with insurers who needed regulatory intervention or oversight and served as a liaison to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. He previously worked as Prosecuting Counsel for the Division of Professional Licensure and Office of Public Safety, and has worked as a practicing attorney for nearly a decade in public and private capacities.

Both Bowes and the board itself have come under scrutiny in the ongoing investigation into the Registry of Motor Vehicles for its share of responsibility in the agency's failure to keep drivers' records up to date and suspend licenses based on out-of-state driving infractions, which allowed thousands of drivers to stay on the road. One of those drivers, truck driver Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, is now accused of killing seven motorcyclists in New Hampshire in June.

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