Projo Politics Blog

In case you’re not tired of reading about the governor’s staff reduction plan …

Aside from layoffs and contractor cuts, Governor Carcieri is calling for leaving roughly 400 vacancies unfilled.

Political Scene has learned that exactly seven days before the governor held a carefully scripted news conference to announce the reduction plan, he filled a vacancy in his own office.

Fred Sneesby has been hired as Carcieri’s $69,111-a-year “senior communications and policy analyst.” His first day was Oct. 9, according to the state personnel office.

Sneesby fills the position previously held by Michael Maynard, who swapped a job in the governor’s communication’s office for a position with the business giant Textron in August. Sneesby “will perform the dual role of helping to develop and communicate the governor’s policy initiatives,” according to Carcieri's spokesman Jeff Neal, who occupies the office adjacent to Sneesby.

“In anticipation of your next question,” Neal tells Political Scene, “the governor’s office will participate in the reduction in force that was recently announced. The governor’s office will have fewer staff by the end of the fiscal year than it did at the beginning. I would also note that the governor’s office already has lost a number of staff in recent months, including two policy analysts, the constituent affairs manager and a communications staffer.”

Sneesby wasn’t an obvious candidate for the governor’s communications team.

From 1992 to 2000, he worked with seriously mentally ill Spanish-speaking adults at The Providence Center, a community mental health center. Since late 2000, he worked at the Providence Housing Authority helping to manage social services for tenants of the Providence Housing Authority.

“Governor Carcieri believes that Fred’s experiences at The Providence Center and at the Providence Housing Authority will enable him to make an important contribution to the policy team,” Neal said.

Sneesby, of East Greenwich, received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Our Lady of Providence Seminary College in 1974. He then attended the University of Leuven, Belgium, where he completed a master’s degree in religious studies.

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