Pataki Appointees ‘Burrow In' To Civil Service Jobs

Since January, dozens of political appointees in the Pataki administration, including at least three former top aides to the governor, have transferred to career jobs in the civil service, obtaining bureaucratic positions that will keep them on the public payroll after Eliot Spitzer takes office.

A less familiar occurrence in Albany, the conversion of political appointees to civil servants in the waning days of an administration is a time-honored tradition on Capitol Hill informally known as "burrowing in." The practice has occasionally been scrutinized in cases where there is suspicion that the appointees won the jobs at an unfair advantage through cronyism.

The New York State Department of Civil Service has processed 78 conversions from "exempt" class positions to competitive or noncompetitive positions since the beginning of the year, according to state records provided to The New York Sun. At least three of the conversions involve political appointees who held senior-level advisory positions under Mr. Pataki.

Employees in exempt jobs are typically appointed by the agency head and approved by the governor's office. Though they are often paid at a higher scale, they don't have the same civil service protections as the other types of employees. The hiring for competitive jobs in the civil service is based on an applicant's performance on a skills test. Noncompetitive jobs are staffed according to experience rather than a test.

Among those who now have protected civil service jobs is Glen Bruening, an attorney who has served as Mr. Pataki's deputy secretary for energy and environment and has provided legal advice to the governor on environmental issues. Mr. Bruening also worked under Governor Cuomo as an attorney in the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Christopher O'Brien, who advised Mr. Pataki on matters related to tax law, is now an attorney for the state Department of Taxation and Finance, according to state records. Edward Hallman, a homeland security aide to Mr. Pataki, has become a senior adviser in the Office of Homeland Security.

A spokesman for Mr. Pataki, David Catalfamo, said those who have transferred are a "competitive class of employees who have expertise and administrative abilities that transcend politics."

A spokeswoman for the civil service department, Erin Barlow, said the department has not seen a spike in agency requests for transfers to civil servant positions.

"We respond to agency requests reflecting their legitimate business needs," Ms. Barlow said. "The number and percentage of positions in the exempt, noncompetitive and competitive positions are pretty constant and consistent with what they have been over the last several years."

There are roughly 2,800 exempt positions in state government, according to Ms. Barlow.