The No. 2 official in the state Independence Party has landed on his feet after losing a $100,000-a-year job in the state Senate two years ago.
His new gig? What else but a new job with the state Senate, this time at $75,000 a year.
Records show Tom Connolly, vice chairman of the influential third party, was hired by Republican state Sen. Philip Boyle (R-Islip) soon after he was elected in a tight race last November with support from both the Independence and Conservative parties.
Boyle told The Post that he’d known Connolly for years and that the endorsement had nothing to do with his hiring.
“They’ve endorsed me in my other elections long before I met Tom,” said Boyle, who also happens to be a friend of party chairman Frank MacKay. “I don’t care what party someone belongs to.”
Connolly will be working as Boyle’s office manager and “will not be involved in policy making,” the senator insisted.
Frank Morano, a former Independence Party activist, charged that Connolly’s position is a thinly disguised political sinecure.
“I suspect this is little more than a place to park him as he does political work,” said Morano, who had a falling out with the party in 2010.
Boyle said that would violate a “strict ethical line” and won’t happen.
After hours, of course, Connolly can do whatever he wants. Usually, that involves helping Republicans keep control of the state Senate.
That was the setup he enjoyed for more than a decade until his previous boss, former state Sen. Carl Kruger, was caught taking bribes and hauled off to federal prison.
So for two years, Connolly was off the government payroll. Until now.
But he still had money coming in. Records show Connolly received $25,000 last year from the Independence Party’s “Chairman’s Club,” one of the party’s three separate campaign committees.
Another of those committees figured prominently in the trial of GOP consultant John Haggerty, who was convicted of swiping $750,000 of $1.2 million channeled by Mayor Bloomberg through the party’s “housekeeping” account in 2009 for what was supposed to be an election day poll-watching operation.
Susan Lerner, director of Common Cause New York, said Connolly typifies how Albany operates.
“The is a perfect example of the permanent government taking care of itself,” she said.