Projo Politics Blog

Meanwhile on another job front, state Democratic Party Chairman William J. Lynch slammed the Carcieri administration’s attempts to fill two empty deputy director positions -- paying between $110,549 and $122,560 a year -- while seeking layoffs and pay cuts to avert a purported “budget crisis.”

“This is a perfect opportunity for [the governor] to lead by example and help reduce government spending through attrition,” Lynch said of the two Department of Administration openings.

Lynch also questioned why Carcieri -- after making speech after speech during his reelection campaign about “how great the state was doing” -- waited until after the election to disclose the fiscal crisis.

But Governor Carcieri stood pat, saying again through a spokesman that the jobs are “critical to the management of one of the state’s most important departments,” and without them, “management and oversight of department activities will suffer … costing more tax dollars.”

Noted his spokesman Jeff Neal: “The elimination of these two positions wouldn’t even begin to achieve the savings necessary to close the $360-million budget shortfall.”

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