You Paid For It: Hiring 'thaw"
ALBANY -- The state has been mired in financial trouble for a long time now.
Last year, Gov. David Paterson ordered a state hiring freeze -- no new hires except for critical positions like state police officers and some health care workers for instance.
I decided to check on how the freeze worked out -- and what I found is the freeze is really a thaw. As the deficit goes up, records I acquired from the State Controller's Office show 2009 hires also have gone up and up and up -- and because you paid for it, I went right to the governor to ask him about it.
NYS hiring freeze? Try hiring frenzy.
From Jan. 1 through Sept. 15, with a hard freeze in place, 12,766 people have been hired to work for New York State.
That's 2,500 more jobs, than there are people here in the City of Watervliet.
Nearly 13 thousand hirings, despite the Governor saying “We cannot spend money that we don't have, and we are out of money.”
The hirings came fast and furious -- EnCon, Military and Naval Affairs, Criminal Justice Services, Racing and Wagering Board, Health Department, Department of Transportation, Office of General Services and the Public Service Commission -- all sorts of initial agencies.
The state senate hired 256 people -- the assembly 151.
Instead of unpaid interns, paid student assistants were big -- 41 in tax and finance. Sixteen at the Attorney General's Office.
How about five boxing inspectors at the Department of State, and five dentists at State Prisons?
And then there's the Governor's Office -- the office that put the freeze in place has hired plenty of new staffers, including three press officers and two press assistants.
I asked him about hiring freeze.
“There are areas that you would have to replace if someone leaves,” Paterson said. “A hiring freeze is a general hiring freeze, but for instance the secretary to the governor left the office I had to get a new secretary to the governor. Someone has to serve in that capacity.”
Six of the new people hired in the governor's office during the hiring freeze are making more than $100,000.
“We’ve had an equal number leave at the exact same job,” Paterson told me.
For most employers, a hiring freeze means that when someone leaves, they're not replaced.
Many of the hires are at SUNY and CUNY -- hundreds and hundreds at Stoney Brook -- 152 at UAlbany -- technically, the governor can't force them to stop hiring -- of course the governor can't stop himself either.
Higher education, public authorities, the legislature and the judiciary are among the segments of government the governor can only ask to go along with the hiring freeze -- he doesn't have the direct control over them that he does over other state agencies.
I counted 175 new hires who are making more than 100 thousand dollars – and about a half dozen making more than 200-thousand.
By the way, it's not just hiring that's gone on during the hiring freeze -- there have also been plenty of raises -- including pay hikes for staffers in the Governor's Office.
