Projo Politics Blog

By Katherine Gregg
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE - In August 2007, the Carcieri administration confirmed the abrupt resignation of the second-in-command in the governor's legal office, Claire Richards.

As The Journal reported at the time: "News of Richards' departure came the same day Carcieri announced that failed lieutenant governor candidate Kernan "Kerry" King would replace executive counsel Andrew Hodgkin, who left earlier in the month to return to the private sector.

But Richards didn't actually leave the governor's payroll. For more than a year after she gave notice, she worked from home on legal filings in two Narragansett Indian rights cases, including the closely watched Charlestown land case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last month. Some weeks she worked a few hours, but most two-week pay periods she was paid the same $4,129 -- and provided the same state-paid health benefits -- she received before she became a work-at-home state employee.

In the 12 months before she severed her ties with the state last month, Richards was paid a total of $92,712.

"Both things are true," Richards said in an interview last week. "I resigned, but it is also true I kept working."

Carcieri spokeswoman, Amy Kempe, explained: "Claire is considered one the foremost experts on Indian affairs and was the primary legal counsel for the governor's office, working in partnership with the office of the attorney general, the Town of Charlestown and Ted Olson, on the case that was recently heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.''

Richards' situation came to light inadvertently during a weeks-long back-and-forth with Governor Carcieri's press office about the status of two $80,000-a-year-plus aides in the governor's office, Donna Dell'Aquila and Linda Castaldi. One works for Carcieri's chief of staff, Brian Stern, and the other for the deputy chief of staff, Beverly Najarian.

Had both been placed on the governor's employee roster, he would have exceeded his budget and the 39-employee limit.

"For the third time, salaries for Donna and Linda are paid for by the governor's budget,'' Kempe said at one point. She later acknowledged that the two governor's office aides had been listed on the state's books as Department of Administration employees.
She said the governor's office was reimbursing DOA, so her answer was technically correct.

The governor's office provided a list of its employees wich included, as of mid-November, Carcieri's relocated former communications director, Steve Kass. The explanation was that the governor's office had been paying 50 percent of his salary as spokesman for the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency.

That Richards was still on the governor's payroll was more of a surprise.
After giving two weeks' notice in August 2007, she said, she felt so much guilt about leaving with two big cases on her plate she offered to stay long enough to finish a 40-page petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Charlestown land case. When the court agreed to hear the case, she kept on working until the state presented its case to the high court on Nov. 3.

She said she asked at one point for space to work at the State House, but was told "they didn't have any room."

 Tags  Beverly Najarian Brian Stern Carcieri Claire Richards employees governor's office Steve Kass

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