We thought hiring Greg Stanton at a $119,000 salary last month was wasteful considering the state is in the worst budget crisis ever. Now we hear that Goddard also hired former County Attorney Democrat candidate Gerald Richard as a “Law Enforcement Advisor” last month. Wonder what salary he was hired at? We know of at least three attorneys who were laid off from the AG’s Office last month. What is Goddard doing hiring political hacks like Richard while letting experienced prosecutors go? Employees at the AG’s Office making over $50,000 received an email Friday instructing them that they would need to take 10 days of furlough this year. Goddard should not be permitted to hire high-priced Democrat crony political hacks to curry favors for his future run for governor, using the office and its employees.

FEBRUARY 12 UPDATE
We thank the left wing Yellow Sheet (which uses the term “railbirds” to identify the left wing sources it quotes to bash Republicans) and the New Times for doing follow-up research on this post and finding out that Richard is being paid the generous salary of $96,740/yr. But we disagree with their cynical reporting (and Rum, Romanism & Rebellion’s post) that our assessment was inaccurate because Richard was hired prior to the first round of layoffs. The attorneys and AG employees who were laid off in the first round of AG layoffs were notified on Jan. 6. Richard was hired on Dec. 8, 2008. The AG’s office obviously figured out sometime prior to Jan. 6 that they were going to lay off 20 employees. Most importantly, they had KNOWN they were in dire fiscal straits due to the state budget being $1-2 billion in the hole for months. They’d had a hiring freeze in place for awhile. How did Richard get around the hiring freeze? Seems pretty irresponsible for the AG to bring on a pricey employee on Dec. 8 considering the dismal state the office was in financially. If this is the best our opponents can do to dissect our reporting, bring it on.