Tuesday, September 13, 2011

It's Not What You Know, It's Who You're Cronies With

Who's up for another game of Musical Cronies?

It appears that Scott Walker has been playing his favorite game again.

Cindy Archer, who was the head of then County Executive Walker's Department of Administration and then followed him to Madison, is the most recent game piece for Walker.

Last month, the day after another crony, Tom Nardelli, announced his sudden retirement, it was learned that Archer was also leaving her position.  She claimed it was to take a personal leave to attend to family matters.

It was speculated that the two sudden departures were tied in to the still ongoing John Doe investigation.

However, unlike Nardelli, Archer coyly hinted that she hoped to return to the Walker administration in some other capacity.

She had to be coy about it because it turned out that Walker had already done his shuffling and gave her a new position the day before she left the old one.  And the kicker is that Walker gave her a 61% raise over what the last person in that job had held:
Before she abruptly quit on Aug. 19, she was making $124,000 as deputy secretary in the state Department of Administration, the agency that oversees state contracts, the state budget, the state workforce and other key government functions. At the time, state officials said only that Archer had taken a personal leave of absence, giving no details on reasons for the leave, how soon she'd come back or what her duties would be.

Archer, in her resignation letter emailed to Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, said simply that she was done with her job that same day.

Now, documents provided by the state show she actually was already hired a day earlier on Aug. 18 to a $99,449-a-year job in the Department of Children and Families, as the department's legislative liaison, according to a letter released Friday from Eloise Anderson, who heads the department. Her appointment to the new job was effective Aug. 20. Anderson's letter says Archer would be "performing duties as prescribed by this office."

Whether she's drawing it yet or not, Archer's new salary is about 61% more than the last person to hold the position. Kimberly L. Collins, who held the same liaison job until May, was paid $61,859 in 2010, according to state figures.
And here I thought the state was broke. Apparently not so broke that Walker is able to keep his cronies and special interest friends in comfy and overly well compensated positions in his administration.

1 comment:

  1. Well, on the bright side, it looks like she had to take a $24,000+ pay cut.

    ReplyDelete