Questions swirl around departure of Healey's shelter chief

The sudden and quiet departure of Lt. Gen. L. Scott Rice from his role overseeing the state's emergency family shelter system is drawing criticism from advocates and lawmakers who say they were left in the dark while the program fell further into crisis.

"You have a situation where the administration is navigating this course for all of us, and legislators don't know and haven't known who is in charge," Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr told reporters Tuesday.

Gov. Maura Healey's office confirmed Wednesday evening that Rice was being replaced by Adit Basheer, an assistant secretary at the state's Executive Office of Administration and Finance, who had been Rice's deputy at the emergency assistance program.

But there had been no official announcement naming Basheer to the role. Tarr said Healey caught many by surprise last week when she told the State House News Service that Rice, a former Air National Guard director she'd picked for the role of shelter chief in 2023, had "retired" at the end of December.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Rice disputed Healey's account, saying "retired" wasn't the right word to describe his departure.

"My task was completed, so I'm no longer working in that position," he said. Rice directed further questions to the governor's office.

In a statement to WBUR about Rice, a spokesperson for Healey said the administration was "grateful for his leadership" in setting up overflow shelters, integrating operations with the National Guard, and processing people staying in the shelters for work authorization.

"We are now in a new phase of the [family shelter] system as we wind down the use of hotels, and we wish him the very best in his next steps," the statement said.

Healey appointed Rice, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, to lead the shelter system in October 2023, as Massachusetts saw a large increase in newly arrived migrant families.

Rice had a history of emergency response experience as head of the state's National Guard. He deployed hundreds of Guard members across the region after the fatal Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

Apart from his introductory press conference and a high-profile trip to the U.S.-Mexico border last summer to urge migrants not to come to Massachusetts, Rice was seldom the administration's public face on immigration matters. The last time he appears to have been quoted in an official press release was June 28, when the administration banned migrant families from sleeping overnight at Logan Airport.

The governor's office said Rice has remained on the payroll in the first weeks of January because he was owed money for unused vacation hours.

The transition at the helm of the shelter system comes at a time when the governor is facing intense scrutiny for overcrowding, high costs and a string of serious security incidents.

Last week, after authorities arrested a man on gun and drug charges at a Revere shelter, Healey said she had ordered full background checks last spring but was surprised to learn they were not being performed.

Republicans in the state Legislature criticized the secrecy surrounding Rice's departure and said it was unclear who is overseeing the $1 billion program.

"We need to know that because we in the Legislature are equal partners to the administration, and we cannot fulfill our responsibility unless we have communication and accountability," state Sen. Tarr said.

Advocates for migrant and homeless families also flagged concerns with the administration's communication around Rice's departure.

"We were surprised to learn several weeks after the fact that Gen. Rice had retired as the head of the state's family emergency shelter program," said Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless Associate Director Kelly Turley.

"It's really important for providers, advocates, legislators and concerned community groups to know who is running the program, so that we can work together to make changes," she said.