Projo Politics Blog

A fourth member of the all-Democrat North Providence Town Council has landed a job on the state payroll, and the winner this time is the council president, Joseph S. Burchfield.

With help from Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, D-North Providence, Burchfield was hired on March 12 as the Senate’s newest $50,132-a-year “constituent liaison.”

Job Description: Since “the Senate president’s Office of Constituent Services serves as a liaison between citizens of Rhode Island and local, state and federal departments and agencies on behalf of the Senate members ... a constituent caseworker addresses all manner of requests and inquiries.”

“Duties include intake of constituent concerns and inquiries, oral and written communication whether by phone, fax, email or written letter and on-site meetings with Senate members or constituents on the member’s behalf.”

Required skills: “This individual must possess strong oral, written and interpersonal skills…. Previous experience in a government service or customer service setting is preferred.”

According to his resumé and yearly disclosure statement to the state Ethics Commission, Burchfield is the regional manager for Wealth Mortgage Concepts, in Providence, and public-relations manager for Classic Entertainment & Sports.

At one point, Burchfield reportedly thought of running for disgraced former Sen. John A. Celona’s Senate seat. Then, he considered a run for mayor to succeed newly elected Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, but “graciously stepped out of that race,” according to his fellow Councilman Paul Caranci, to clear the field for acting mayor John Sisto Jr., who subsequently lost the primary.

With Burchfield’s hiring, the number of General Assembly employees now stands at 609. That includes the 113 part-time lawmakers, 96 Senate pages and doorkeepers and 71 House pages and doorkeepers.

(That also includes, by the way, former North Providence Town Councilman Peter Simone, who was hired by the Senate in August 2005 as a year-round constituent liaison. He is currently paid $41,304 annually to supervise the pages and doorkeepers.)

The two other North Providence councilmen who recently joined — or in one case, rejoined — the State House employee ranks are Caranci, a real-estate company owner who is Mollis’ $95,294-a-year deputy secretary of state for policy and planning, and John Fleming, who is Mollis’ $98,781 deputy and chief of staff.

Caranci notes that he was already working for the state -- for the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (1979-1995) -- when he first ran for the council in 1994 and later doubled as a councilman and State House aide to U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin when he was secretary of state, and that Fleming was not yet a councilman when Mollis hired him in January. (A fourth North Providence councilman, John Zambarano, is a $39,266-a-year janitorial supervisor in the Department of Corrections, first hired in 2001.)

Asked how he would explain four of seven Democratic councilmen on the state payroll, Caranci said it’s “a natural progression” for people “interested in public service as a career to also be interested in it as an avocation.” And vice versa. “I’m not sure that is limited to North Providence.”

For the record, Montalbano’s $7,922-a-year gig as a North Providence municipal judge won’t come up again for council approval -- should the new mayor renominate him -- until 2009.

--By Katherine Gregg and Amanda Milkovits

Journal Staff Writers

Comments

next mayor said:

Ask the recycling cordinator what's really spent?

Link | March 27, 2007 9:17 PM
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Lynn said:

Congrats to Charles, I am so glad he finally got in, he is a nice guy , As for the payroll can he put me on it , i only require 15.00 dollars an hour and i hold a bachellortte! Good Luck Charles

Link | April 25, 2007 9:36 AM
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