Metro

Gov staffers elect to quit

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Disenchanted members of Gov. Cuomo’s administration, embarrassed by the worsening government scandals and convinced that Cuomo won’t be president, will soon leave their jobs — just as the governor is stepping up plans to run for re-election next year.

Several “significant departures’’ are expected in the coming months, sources told The Post.

“A lot of people are looking to get out. They’re tired and, frankly, it’s not the best place to work,’’ said a source with first-hand knowledge of the situation. “There’s a lot of abuse that’s involved in working for the governor, and more and more people are saying, ‘What do we need this for?’ ’’ the source continued.

An exodus, of sorts, has already begun.

Late last month, state Correctional Services Commissioner Brian Fischer, who oversees the prison system, quietly announced his plans to retire.

Earlier this month, Ellen Biben, executive director of the badly troubled, Cuomo-created Joint Commission on Public Ethics, surprised many by saying she would step down within weeks.

Governors traditionally tell their senior staffers after the end of their third legislative session to either move on or make a commitment to remain in their posts through a re-election campaign.

Three additional factors contributing to the planned departures are the stunning round of political scandals now unfolding involving nearly a dozen Democrats in the Legislature; Hilary Rodham Clinton’s emergence as the presumptive front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016; and Cuomo’s failure to win pay raises for state commissioners and his senior staffers, many of whom are being paid at a rate set in 1999.

“The scandals have made it an embarrassment to work in Albany for many people working for the governor. Hillary’s status as the overwhelming favorite means Andrew won’t be taking anybody to Washington, and people are angry that the governor said they’re paid too little and didn’t do anything to change the situation,’’ according to one of the sources.

Cuomo’s increased use of public and Democratic State Committee funds on a media campaign promoting his agenda, his recent focus on “women’s rights’’ issues and his continuing delay in making a decision on hydrofracking for natural gas are widely seen in political circles as the early stages of his re-election campaign.

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Key state Democrats are finding it hard to believe the breathtaking claim by disgraced former Sen. Shirley Huntley’s lawyer that Huntley provided federal investigators with information on supposed corruption involving Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who once served with Huntley in the Senate.

It’s not that they can’t imagine Schneiderman getting caught in a corruption scandal. It’s that they don’t believe Huntley would have that kind of knowledge about her onetime Senate colleague.

From the time Huntley became a senator in 2007 “she was looked at with suspicion, since she was so clearly a ‘transactional’ person looking to cash in,’’ said a source who has been close to Schneiderman and Huntley.

“She wasn’t the kind of person Eric [Schneiderman] would have had anything to do with — and when Schneiderman became attorney general [in 2011], one of the first things he started doing was investigating Huntley,’’ the source said.