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  More budget double speak: Say one thing, do another

Chairman Lynch calls on Governor to immediately rescind Orefice appointment

  Democrats begin online petition drive to force Carcieri to follow his own advice

PAWTUCKET - Rhode Island Democratic Party Chairman Bill Lynch is calling on Governor Don Carcieri to immediately withdraw his appointment of Adelita Orefice as deputy director of the Office of Health and Human Services – a position void of public scrutiny which was created specifically for Orefice. At a $119 thousand annually, this position included a hefty $5 thousand raise at a time when Carcieri is preaching fiscal restraint at every level of government.

“Faced with the reality that his former director of labor and training would be met with tough criticism and a guaranteed no-confidence vote in the Rhode Island Senate, Governor Don Carcieri did what most hypocritical politicians do when they don’t get their way – he changed the rules and created a new high-paying job for a longtime political ally,” Lynch said.

The governor’s office originally said Orefice would fill an open position within the administration, a characterization that was revealed to be untrue in yesterday’s Providence Journal when a spokesperson for the governor was forced to admit Orefice’s new job had never previously existed.

“The governor’s latest display of arrogance is nothing less than outrageous and today I call on him to immediately withdraw the Orefice appointment and start following some of his own fiscal belt-tightening recommendations.”

Lynch also announced Tuesday that he is launching an online petition drive to reverse the Orefice appointment and force Carcieri to make his own office a target of his highly-touted workforce reduction initiative. A link to that petition can be found at www.ridemocrats.org.

“We’re literally in the middle of a fiscal crisis and Governor Carcieri has the unmitigated gall to create a new position in government accompanied with a $5 thousand raise to a department director that was so incompetent that she wasn’t even going to be reconfirmed to the position she already held?” Lynch questioned. “I challenge the governor to personally account for this most recent, yet all too familiar, act of hypocrisy and demonstrate the kind of leadership we need to help Rhode Island get out from underneath this potentially crippling deficit.”

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