Projo Politics Blog

PROVIDENCE -- The Carcieri administration has given its chief of legal services, Louis DeQuattro, a new title and a $33,183 raise.

In response to inquiries, the state personnel office acknowledged DeQuattro's promotion to associate director of administration / purchasing agent, with a raise that takes his salary from $95,215 annually as chief of legal services to $128,398 a year.

The last person to hold this job full-time was Peter Corr, who left state government in January 2005 after a public falling out with then-director of administration Beverly Najarian.

In recent years, the job has been performed on an "acting'' basis by Lorraine Hynes, but she was "not one of the applicants'' when the job was posted a few months ago, according to Governor Carcieri's spokeswoman Amy Kempe.

Kempe said the Department of Administration is combining DeQuattro's job as chief of legal services with Corr's former job as head of purchasing. Hynes will return to her former job as assistant director for special projects, which she held before she was thrust into the limelight last year during the Senate Government Oversight Committee's hearings into the state's purchasing practices.

While it might appear that DeQuattro is getting a 35-percent raise for working the same five-day state week, Kempe said the state is saving $68,000 a year by consolidating the jobs, instead of hiring a new full-time purchasing chief.

Kempe was unable to say how many others applied for the state's top purchasing job, but said DeQuattro was chosen because he is "extremely qualified.''

While not exactly a household name, DeQuattro emerged in a lead role in the administration's hiring of Smart Staffing Services to provide "temporary'' state workers under emergency terms and conditions that were the focus of months of Senate investigatory hearings.

DeQuattro was one of two state lawyers who negotiated the emergency Smart Staffing contract, according to the Senate Committee's report.

The firm was subsequently replaced by a less expensive competitor, and the Department of Administration has since removed from its Website the name, job titles and biweekly pay rates that enabled the public -- and lawmakers -- to track how heavily the Carcieri administration was relying on hundreds of temporary employees.These employees are hired outside the civil-service testing and hiring system for what, in many cases, were long-term jobs. One was serving as the CFO of a state agency, another as the press secretary for the state's Office of Health & Human Services.

Asked why this information was removed from the controller's Web page, a spokesman for the Department of Adminstration, said months ago the information was being compiled from Adil Business Systems, the company that replaced Smart Staffing. As of today, however, the information is still missing.

As a side note, Kempe said the recent rush of retirements has left the department with 122 fewer employees than authorized by the budget. She said leaving all of these jobs empty would save the state an annualized $5.4 million in salaries. The state has not yet released a list of the vacant jobs, but the Department of Administration "does not have plans to fill [its] vacant positions,'' said Kempe.

 Tags  Carcieri DeQuattro purchasing Rhode Island Senate Government Oversight Smart Staffing

Comments

administration jobs in london said:

I am shocked to read this article. It is so informative. The last person to hold this job full-time was Peter Corr, who left state government in January 2005 after a public falling out with then-director of administration Beverly Najarian.

In recent years, the job has been performed on an "acting'' basis by Lorraine Hynes, but she was "not one of the applicants'' when the job was posted a few months ago, according to Governor Carcieri's spokeswoman Amy Kempe.
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