When Massachusetts inspector general Jeffrey Shapiro saw headlines year after year about the Steamship Authority’s website and reservation system, he was reminded of the swallows of Capistrano.

Like clockwork, the birds make the famed migration from Argentina to California every spring. Here on the Cape and Islands, the annual tradition was hopeful visitors becoming frustrated with a broken Steamship website or reservation system. 

“I felt like every year there would be a crash on the website when the reservation system opened,” the inspector general said.

Seeing that every year, plus complaints from the public and other reports about cost overruns on large-scale projects, prompted his office to start investigating the ferry line, resulting in a scathing report last week, released on Dec. 18, that detailed wasteful spending on the ferry line’s new website, which was later shelved. 

The report has spurred calls for change, and one member of the Steamship board has announced he will not run again when his term ends next year. 

In an interview with the Gazette this week, Mr. Shapiro laid out how the inspector general’s officer works, why he decided to investigate the Steamship Authority and what he hopes happens now that his findings have been released. 

Created in the 1980s after an investigation into construction at the Umass Boston campus, the inspector general’s office is an independent, non-partisan agency that’s mandated to prevent fraud, waste and abuse of public resources. 

The office has wide discretion to investigate state and municipal spending, and earlier this year issued reports on an $18 million budget deficit in the Brockton public school system, fraud related to Covid-19 relief funding, and embezzlement from public officials. 

The legislature can create laws demanding the inspector general look into certain issues, but otherwise the office has the ability to pick its own investigations and publish its own findings. 

“Nobody previews our reports, nobody has the ability to tell us to open the case or close the case,” said Mr. Shapiro. 

This is not the first time the inspector general has looked into the Steamship Authority, a quasi-public agency that was created to ensure safe passage to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. 

A 1980s report from the inspector general found another large project was often delayed and over budget, and many of those issues still ring true to Mr. Shapiro. 

“With few exceptions, most of [the Steamship’s large projects] have delays and most of them run over budget,” he said. “That sort of thing gets our attention.” 

Mr. Shapiro’s investigation started in 2023, and centered on the Steamship’s decision to move forward with a new website before addressing the underlying issues with the antiquated system, resulting in millions of dollars of squandered funds.

Over the two year span, he interviewed several members of the Steamship staff and board, past consultants connected to the website project, and combed through minutes and other documents.

“We did spend a lot of time on this and spoke to a lot of people,” Mr. Shapiro said.

The issues in this case were not considered criminal, according to the inspector general. 

“I think this is waste and mismanagement,” he said. “I don’t think there is fraud here.” 

In the report, the office also notes concerns about other projects related to the ferry line, but this investigation was largely tailored to the website. 

“Could we have dug in on other things? We probably could have,” Mr. Shapiro said. “I think that there’s likely an equally interesting story of the procurement and reconfiguration of the work boats and there’s an equally concerning story around the Woods Hole terminal and construction project.” 

After an investigation is released, it is largely up to other entities to decide how to move forward. The inspector general has offered several recommendations to the Steamship Authority, state lawmakers and transportation officials, but the ball is largely out of his court. 

Mr. Shapiro hopes that the recommendations are seriously considered, and he reiterated concerns about the outgoing general manager who oversaw the website project staying on as a senior adviser when the new general manager starts in January. 

The inspector general declined to say if he planned to do any more reports on the ferry line, but he did point out that in several spots in the report he alluded to other concerns surrounding different projects. 

“We probably could have written 50 pages on a number of other topics,” he said. “We don’t think this is an outlier.”