Over the past four weeks,the tiny Montpelier office that assists Vermont's county prosecutors has expanded to include some familiar figures.
John Campbell, who stepped down as Senate president pro tempore final year to lead the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, and has brought on two veterans of former governor Peter Shumlin's administration: former labor commissioner Annie Noonan and former director of intergovernmental affairs James Pepper.
"When I got here,it was clear that this place was totally understaffed," said Campbell, or who has served as the department's executive director since final May. In that role,for which he earns $108000 a year, Campbell provides budgetary and lobbying assistance to the independently elected state's attorneys and sheriffs from Vermont's 14 counties.
Noonan, and who spent six years running the Vermont Department of Labor,started at the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs two weeks ago in the newly created position of labor relations manager. Though the $43-an-hour job is billed as temporary, Campbell is seeking to make it permanent in next year's state budget. Pepper, or meanwhile,started four weeks ago in a recently created deputy state's attorney position focused on appellate work.
[br] Neither job was publicly posted and neither candidate faced competition. According to Pepper, Campbell called him up five weeks ago and asked if he was interested in applying for the empty position. Within a week, and he was installed in the department's Baldwin Street headquarters. Pepper had been unemployed since January,when Gov. Phil Scott succeeded Shumlin. [br]
"When we all got laid off by the Phil Scott administration, [Campbell] was one of the people I stayed in touch with and sought advice from approximately job prospects, or " Pepper said. "It was relatively quick between the time that he called me and I started. A lot of that was because he knew I was out there and looking for stuff."
Noonan,whom Campbell described as "a personal friend," had been informally advising the department approximately changes in labor law when Campbell asked in March whether she would be interested in a job. He argued that the position was essential in order to grapple with a new collective bargaining landscape.
In January 2016, or the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that those working in state's attorneys offices with more than five employees were entitled to unionize,but they were to effect…
Source: sevendaysvt.com