As he tells it, Randall Hinton is paid $93,803 a year to do nothing. He spends much of his workday at the State Insurance Fund donning headphones, listening to rock ‘n’ roll, blues or classical tunes and his superiors are cool with that. His work agenda involves placing his feet up on his desk, staring out his office window and counting cars on the New York State Thruway. He arrives at 7:30 a.m., leaves at 3:30 p.m., sees no one and talks to no one.
He never does any work. It’s been this way for Hinton for most of this decade.
“I just sit here,” said Hinton, 55, of Niskayuna, a 27-year state employee who has held several high-level posts at various agencies. At 6 feet 4 inches and 265 pounds he is an imposing figure who will begin to tear up when he discusses his situation. A member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine, he said he is being discriminated against because of his national origin and retaliated against for having sued the state. Since February 2002, Hinton has been director of investigations for the Insurance Fund, but he said he has never been allowed to investigate anything. Instead, he builds up pension credits, year after year, but is unproductive at work because his superiors are blackballing him, he and his former boss say. Hinton contends he is without portfolio as retaliation for suing Gov. George Pataki’s administration 10 years ago, alleging discrimination then, too. That was after getting stuck in a storeroom for two years for refusing to leave his post at the Department of Environmental Conservation heading investigations to make room for a Republican appointee, he said.
In a January 2002 settlement in his suit against then-DEC Commissioner John Cahill (who later became Pataki’s top deputy) and then-Assistant DEC Commissioner James W. Tuffey (now Albany’s police chief) he was guaranteed state employment as a director of investigations. “We didn’t offer to settle, they did,” said Tuffey. “They said just transfer him.”
Hinton said he’s treated as a second-class employee with fewer resources than even the lowliest Insurance Fund worker. “I have no Internet access, no printer, no laptop, no car. Every day it’s a struggle for me to bring in something I haven’t read or listened to. I can tell you how many white cars pass on the Thruway . . . I can’t take it anymore.”
On the surface it sounds like a great gig…but I’m sure it isn’t.
guys, im a ny state employee.
he could bring in his laptop and his own internet access. i doubt he would get in trouble for that.
but once he started to do outside “work,” he would get in trouble.
btw, pataki is gone, so i doudt he is still being punished for that, if he ever was.
i got a feeling he is just a prick. sorry i have been in a couple of agencies and ppl get pushed aside.
he likes to sue, so they just put him in an office and dont use him.
#30, Al,
I am ever so happy when people read the article before commenting. When they don’t read the article, they end up sounding like you and Cow-Patty.
BTW, you are a civil servant and this is the way you write? Geeze, just don’t tell me you ever do anything more than fill in potholes.
NY also has this “do nothing” employment situation for school teachers, that they can’t fire for being incompetent. Their union’s legal red tape makes it almost impossible to root out the bad ones, or the sex pervs. So they get to sit in a room all day and stare at the walls, read a book, listen to their iPod, or whatever. And still get paid! So this guy’s situation isn’t all that unique. But admitting to it, might be. What’s in it for him to come clean? Respect? A raise?
So, let me get this straight; he was punished for being too effective an investigator, who stepped on too many toes by actually caring about the law. They can’t fire him for being exceedingly good, so they just stick him in a room and let him rot.
To which, I can only conclude that the people above him are profiting so much from their theft and abuse that it is worth 100k/yr plus benefits to them just to shut up someone who is effective at countering theft and abuse. Only in America. . .or the old Soviet Union.
#33, Glenn,
What’s in it for him to come clean? Respect? A raise?
Sure, why not? He is being denied any meaningful opportunity to earn a raise. Maybe just sitting there doing nothing sounds great, but that is half the thing about putting someone in prison.