From the Village Soup:
Legislature preserves nonexistent $71,000 job.
Patrick Dostie, the state’s nuclear safety inspector, has been coming to work every day to a job he’s held since 1989 - even though the position was eliminated in 2005 by the Legislature.
Lawmakers were set again this year to eliminate the job, along with the position of nuclear safety adviser, a post currently held by former Senate President Charles Pray.
The thinking was that with the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant closed and officially decommissioned, the two jobs and the $276,000 budget that supports them, aren’t necessary.
But Dostie, or at least his post, has been resurrected again thanks to late-night maneuvering by Sen. John Martin, D-Aroostook, who put the position back in through an amendment to the supplemental budget.
His position, cut in 2005 by the Legislature, still does not officially exist, although he is being paid his $71,000 salary, benefits and office expenses - totaling $118,000. Funding for the job was not cut at the same time the job was eliminated, so money was transferred over to pay his salary.
When the job of safety inspector is officially restored later this summer, Dostie will not meet the requirements.
Patrick Dostie, Charles Pray, Maine
