Cuomo Spends $21 Million To Use Headhunter Service For Patronage Positions

The fiscal genius in Albany showing more fiscal genius:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo’s drive to hire the “best and brightest” for state government could end up costing taxpayers $20.6 million, the Daily News has learned.

That’s the amount the Cuomo administration has quietly agreed to pay a Rochester-area company for “talent acquisition services” over the next five years.

Cuomo administration officials defended the contract with the company, Datrose, as a necessary part of the governor’s plan announced last year to reform its recruiting efforts.

As part of that effort, Cuomo replaced his Appointment’s Office with a new “Center for Recruitment and Public Service” located within the Office of General Services.


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But leaders of public employee unions bashed the decision to hire a headhunter as a wasteful extravagance.

“It is ludicrous that the governor would spend $20.6 million on an outside firm to recruit public employees,” said Susan Kent, president of the Public Employees Federation, which represents about 55,000 state workers.

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Under the contract, Datrose will be paid for each new hire resulting from one of its referrals. The company will receive up to 20% of the first-year salary of anyone hired through its efforts.

 

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The company’s hiring comes on the heels of Cuomo-led efforts to streamline the state’s workforce and hold down salaries.

In 2011, Cuomo and state unions, including PEF and the Civil Service Employees Association, signed contracts that called for three-year wage freezes.

“They are laying off and undercutting frontline stat e employees in nearly every agency claiming that taxpayers can't afford necessary services anymore,” said CSEA President Danny Donohue.

“But money is apparently no object when it comes to filling their political patronage positions."

Salary freezes and furloughs for unionized employees because there's no money in the state coffers, but he's spending $21 million in cash for a headhunter services for patronage positions.

I'd say "Unbelievable!", except with Cuomo, it's all too believable.