ALBANY – Gov. Paterson was on the defensive yesterday as he scrambled to explain why he secretly rehired a top aide one day after the governor publicly announced his dismissal from a highly paid job.
“Actually, I didn’t rehire him. We just put him back where he had been,” Paterson said as he was peppered with questions about the circumstances under which his former secretary and chief of staff, William Cunningham, was fired on Feb. 25 and then rehired a day later at almost the same pay.
“We just needed to make some changes in our leadership,” added Paterson, who has seen his approval rating plunge to a record low.
“He’s been very hardworking and had been very effective there,” continued the governor, who had privately told several associates he was dumping Cunningham for poor performance.
When Cunningham, a former law partner of the governor’s father, Basil, and a longtime Long Island Democratic activist, was dumped from his $178,500-a-year position, a press release said he had resigned “effective today” and noted he would stay on only for “a transition period.”
But despite the governor’s claim to have imposed a “hard” hiring freeze, Cunningham was rehired the next day as a $170,000-a-year “deputy secretary,” a post he had once held.
Cunningham, who once ran for Suffolk County executive, is now working at the state’s Long Island office in Hauppauge.
Stephen Madarasz, a spokesman for the Civil Service Employees Association, the state’s large public-employee union, said Cunningham’s rehiring showed Paterson’s “lack of leadership, his inconsistent positions, and his failure to lead by example.
Paterson came under blistering criticism after The Post revealed last month he had granted pay hikes of as much as 46 percent to senior staffers despite seeking to eliminate a 3 percent salary increase for 130,000 unionized state workers.
“I couldn’t believe it and it raises the question of how you can believe anything the governor says,” said a prominent Assembly Democrat, who demanded anonymity.
A source close to Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) said, “This just undermines the governor further. People don’t believe you can believe anything he says.”