Officials Break City Rule To Pay Harvard Tuition

To cover Harvard's high cost of tuition, an aide to Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn and another city employee received payments for courses taken here which exceeded established city guidelines by thousands of dollars, sources said yesterday.

Paul L. Barrett, a friend of the mayor who was Flynn's education adviser and now works in the parks department, received $7797 from Boston taxpayers for courses taken at the Kennedy School and the Graduate School of Education (GSE).

The city also reimbursed Andrea Bolling, who is the sister of City Council President Bruce Bolling and an administrator in the police department, to the tune of $2779 for courses taken at Harvard and Suffolk universities.

The payments appear to have violated a $500 annual cap on tuition reimbursements set for municipal workers in 1986. The city has spent a total of approximately $25,000 each year for the last three years on such payments, according to City Personnel Director Robert Consalvo.

It is unclear what if any action will be taken in response to the revelations first reported yesterday.

Barrett did not return several phone calls yesterday.

"When the courses cost as much as they do at Harvard" the payments must be more than $500, Consalvo said yesterday. "Harvard is an expensive place."

Consalvo said that the tuition reimbursement program was an important one for municipal employees and that "most progressive firms have them." The program is designed to provide city employees with a better background in their field in order to improve job performance.

Barrett was reimbursed $2715 for a Harvard course in the spring of 1985, $2550 for another course in 1986, and $2532 for a third course.

"The courses I took were job related at the time," Barrett said, according to the Associated Press.

Although Bolling also did not return phonemessages, according to the Associated Press shesaid that she believed the money was madeavailable on a first come, first serve basis. Shealso said the $500 limit was impractical due tothe high cost of college tuitions.

The Education School offers several coursestaken by state and local officials, GSE Directorof External Relations Dudley F. Blodget saidyesterday.

"We're happy to attract local folks who cangain from the experience here," Blodget said. "Butof course it is not an inexpensive proposition tocome here."

"In any effort to attract more local people thehigh cost of Harvard is an obvious deterrent,"Blodget said