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PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- House Speaker Gordon Fox has embarked on a wave of pre-session firings that appear aimed at State House staffers who owe their jobs to his predecessors, his political enemies, or those who crossed swords with his second-in-command Nicholas Mattiello in the Byzantine world of Cranston politics.
House spokesman Larry Berman would not identify those fired so far in the purge, but acknowledged that an "on-going reorganization began this week .... and will be continuing.''
Asked the aim of the reorganization, Berman said: "Speaker Fox is reorganizing his staff to enable the elected representatives to more effectively and efficiently serve the taxpayers."
It remains unclear how many General Assembly staffers have been fired so far, with State House insiders pegging the number at anywhere from 7 to 14.
It is also unclear whether Fox, D-Providence, and House Majority Leader Mattiello, D-Cranston, are laying off staff to cut the overall number of General Assembly employees, or creating job openings for supporters of their own backers in the House.
Among the first to go was $34,478-a-year legislative aide Steven Sepe, who, in a telephone interview on Thursday, said he was shocked when Fox chief of staff Frank Anzeveno delivered the news Tuesday that he was terminated, immediately.
"I was upset,'' he said. "Right before Christmas. It was my job.''
Sepe is the 32-year son of Cranston Democratic Chairman Michael Sepe. The elder Sepe said he hopes the firing was "not payback'' for his family's close friendship with state Rep. Charlene Lima, a political thorn in Fox's side, or his own refusal to publicly endorse Mattiello's favored candidate, Robert J. Pelletier, in a contest for Cranston City Council president.
The elder Sepe said he told Mattiello: "That wasn't up to me. I am the city chairman, but I don't run the City Council.''
A competing candidate lined up the votes. "I don't think that sat too well with Nick,'' Sepe said. His son was fired three weeks later.
Sepe said he had been informed Fox had also fired Cranston Councilman Richard Santamaria, who has worked at the State House on and off since 1996, most recently as a $53,504-a-year on the House operations staff, according to state personnel office.
Lawmakers on the outs with Fox said they had heard the names of at least four other fired staffers, and believed there were more.
Mattiello was reelected as majority leader, and Fox was overwhelmingly endorsed for reelection as speaker when the full House convenes for the start of the 2011 session during a Democratic caucus held days after the Nov. 2 election.
Ten days after the caucus, Fox submitted his latest 2011-12 spending requests to the state budget office in his role as chairman of the General Assembly leadership panels known as the Joint Committee on Legislative Services.
"In our effort to achieve savings, we have worked diligently to manage the legislative department within the enacted budget levels without seriously impacting day to day operations,'' wrote Fox in a cover letter that also spelled out his bid to increase the part-time legislature's budget from $38.7 million this year, with 299 staffers, to $40.3 million in the new budget year that begins on July 1, 2011, with the same number of employees.
In dollars alone, this would mark a 20-percent increase -- $6.8 million -- over the $33.5 million the General Assembly actually spent in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2009, according the budget filing.
Most of the proposed increase over the three-year span is attributed to "salary/wages and benefits.''
