State employee: I get $93,803 for no work

Native American claims retaliation by state superiors who set him up in an office without meaningful tasks

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau
Last updated: 1:00 p.m., Thursday, February 5, 2009

ALBANY -- 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." Tuffey said the friction between Hinton and DEC officials developed because he wanted to go to the police academy to become a sworn DEC officer, but had not taken the civil service tests required.

Court papers show the stipulation promised Hinton his post at the Insurance Fund, controlled by Pataki's appointees under multi-year terms that continue years into the future. They gave him a job and an office but told his boss not to let Hinton handle anything of substance, according to Hinton and his former manager.

On Monday, Hinton filed a complaint with the Division of Human Rights claiming discrimination stemming from the retaliation of his original claim against the DEC.

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."

His former boss at the Insurance Fund, Edward Obertubbesing, backed up Hinton's story. He said Hinton is being victimized by GOP superiors who don't want him doing much.

"I think it is because he had the gall to sue Gov. Pataki and he had a high-profile job in a Democratic administration," said Obertubbesing, now an Insurance Fund lawyer. "Quite honestly, it bothered me. Here's someone who could bring value to the organization and he's not being given that opportunity."

Obertubbesing, a Democrat, said several Pataki administration staffers got posts at the Insurance Fund as Pataki was leaving office in 2006. Among them is Obertubbesing's current boss, Greg Allen, who is paid almost $176,000 as chief counsel. The fund employs 2,650 people. It exists to provide workers' compensation and disability policies as an insurer of last resort to 190,000 employers statewide.

Obertubbesing said top brass at the fund specifically told him to not give Hinton any important duties and such directives were a key reason he got out of managing.

Initially, Hinton was assigned to supervise a few customer service representatives taking injury reports. Hinton complained the task was not a duty for the director of investigations. The unit he ran was later regrouped under customer service and Hinton was given just one duty ó approving one person's time sheet every two weeks, he and his former manager said.

"He has nothing to do and has had nothing to do for the last two and a half years and what he had to do before that was relatively insignificant," said Obertubbesing. "It's an unfortunate situation." He said when Hinton arrived from DEC: "I was told a guy is coming to your office, fit him in, but he can't do this and can't do that. It was pretty apparent from Day 1 that they didn't want him to do anything."

He said Hinton thought things would improve when Eliot Spitzer became governor, but the Democratic administrations of Spitzer and Gov. David Paterson have not broken the pattern set by the Pataki holdovers still at the helm of the Insurance Fund.

Hinton points to Christopher Barclay, the deputy director who is now secretary, and Executive Director David Wehner as being responsible for his situation. Barclay and Wehner, Pataki appointees, have multi-year terms. They did not return calls for comment, but spokesman Bob Lawson said the fund's managers tried to give Hinton more responsibilities recently after he complained to Wehner.

The offer extended involved overseeing private detective agencies hired by the fund ó reviewing bid proposals, investigative reports done by the consultants and methods used. "He rejected those additional responsibilities," Lawson said. He defined Hinton's work duties as being a supervisor of the unit Hinton said was disbanded three years ago. Lawson said he is supposed to alert others about complicated or serious injury reports. He could not say how busy the assignment is but said he is unaware of any problems with Hinton's performance.

Hinton said he dismissed the recent offer because he did not want to do contract quality assurance and work for a contract administrator who was in a entry-level management post.
He said he also communicated with Paterson's aides, including appointments secretary Francine James and new Insurance Fund deputy director Thomas Gleason about his lack of work, but was ignored. Copies of e-mails to those officials support the assertion.

A Paterson spokesman did not comment on the matter.

Privately, some of Hinton's former colleagues describe Hinton as obsessed with becoming a cop and sometimes peculiar in his investigative techniques, for instance setting up in cars to conduct surveillances of co-workers.

Hinton said he has handled hundreds of investigations in the past and is trained as a watchdog to weed out theft, abuse and waste in government and has been assigned to check out colleagues sometimes. His resume includes jobs as a deputy inspector general, director of internal audits and investigations at the Department of Civil Service and director of investigations at the DEC. He said he had attempted to become an environmental conservation officer, able to carry a gun, which would allow him to retire to his tribe as a law enforcer.

Hinton wants to be director of investigations for real ó investigating insurance fraud ó for the Insurance Fund. He said that responsibility was given to a GOP appointee, a white male, who is paid $140,800 a year, according to state records. Or, he said, he would be a good director of internal controls, a newly established job also given to a white male in October. The Insurance Fund is paying the newcomer $82,363.

Whenever he has sought advancement or transfers, he said, he has been stymied since his brush with the Pataki administration.

"This is not about me," he said, asserting that he is trying to make a name for Native Americans in public service. "I'm ashamed of my situation. I'm embarrassed. Nobody cares. They don't care about Indians."

He said he has essentially done very little work since about 1999 but has a competitive civil service position so that he is protected should layoffs occur and cannot be fired without due process, unlike the political appointees occupying posts he seeks.

He said he decided to take action when he got an e-mail in November from his manager that said the Insurance Fund wanted to recognize "the significant contributions and considerable role of Native Americans" and that Paterson had proclaimed Native American Month.

He responded by e-mail, copying several Paterson appointees, that his agency does not appreciate diversity, that he has been denied work and stripped of his dignity.

"I want my dignity back," Hinton said in an interview before returning to his corner office in the back of the Insurance Fund's district office along I-90 East.

"I don't know how I could get through the day without my iPod," Hinton said.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or jodato@timesunion.com.