PROVIDENCE -- Presumed R.I. Senate President-elect Teresa Paiva Weed announced the appointment of two top staff members this afternoon.

Former state senator Tom Coderre will serve as chief of staff to the Senate president, while former Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council policy director Peter Marino has been tapped to become the Senate fiscal adviser.

Coderre has served as the national field director for Faces and Voices of Recovery, a Washington-based addiction advocacy organization, since 2006. He acknowledges that he has a substance abuse problem, and has been drug and alcohol free since May 2003.

Coderre, who is the son of state Rep. Elaine Coderre, served in the state Senate from 1995 to 2003.

Marino, meanwhile, will lead the Senate's fiscal office beginning Dec. 22, a critical time for state leaders. The Assembly must close massive budget deficits in the coming months and Marino has an opportunity to influence that discussion as the Senate's top budget official.

Marino's perspective may differ from that of his predecessor, recently retired Russell Dannecker, who has taken a job at the Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College.

Marino's longest work experience came at the business-backed RIPEC, where he served as policy director from 1995 to 2006. He had previously worked as a budget analyst for the governor's budget office from 1992 to 1995.

Earlier this year, Marino worked as an independent lobbyist, according to the Secretary of State's office, representing business-related clients in the previous legislative session such as the National Federation of Independent Business, the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, the Rhode Island Health Care Assocation, and the Rhode Island Mortgage Bankers Association.

Marino will earn $125,000 a year in his new position, slightly less than Dannecker's $135,796.80, which included longevity increases, according to Senate spokesman Greg Pare.

It's unclear when Coderre will begin and how much he will earn. The current chief of staff, Ed Morrone, earns $145,154 working for outgoing Senate president Joseph Montalbano.

Pare said that Morrone would "likely stay on in a different capacity."

Paiva Weed "will appoint a transition team to review the staff structure," Pare said, declining to be more specific.