While Governor Carcieri is demanding belt tightening at all levels as he tries to close the state’s budget gap, he’s created a $119,000 job for a longtime colleague.

Adelita Orefice, the former director of the Department of Labor and Training who this month was named deputy director of the Office of Health and Human Services, did not assume a vacant position, as the administration said.

The classified position was established for her.

The governor’s office apologized for what it called an error in characterizing the appointment.

In her new job, Orefice will oversee Rhode Island’s Medicaid program, which Carcieri said in his State of the State address he plans to “transform … from one centered on institutions and agencies to a system that focuses on the people who use it: our children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.”

A Carcieri spokesman offered no details other than to say Orefice will play a key role in overseeing the program.

“Given what is coming in the governor’s budget, he believed it was important to move Adelita Orefice into that job as soon as possible,” his spokesman, Jeff Neal, told Political Scene.

And while she’ll be working with all five agencies grouped in the Office of Health and Human Services, Orefice will be paid by the state’s troubled Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals. That agency now lists her as its executive director, serving under agency director Dr. Ellen R. Nelson, a Department of Administration official told Political Scene.

A four-year veteran of the Department of Labor and Training, Orefice found herself in the middle of a political battle last year, with the governor withdrawing her name for reconfirmation after learning that she faced an almost certain no-confidence vote by a Senate committee. Her job remained in limbo in the months that followed.

Back at the Labor and Training Department, Orefice’s replacement, interim Director Sandra Powell isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Neal said the governor hasn’t yet started looking for a permanent director. He named Powell to the job “because he did not want to make a snap decision about Orefice’s replacement.”

Powell, Neal said, is “a strong candidate” for the permanent job.

Dueling caucuses?

Who’s the real minority on Smith Hill?

The Republicans, with fewer legislators, are certainly the minority party in the General Assembly.

But after a group of black and Latino representatives calling itself “the minority caucus” held a news conference blasting the Republican governor’s budget cuts last week, some at the State House decided it was time for a little clarification.

Rep. Anastasia Williams, a Providence Democrat, offered a distinction, telling colleagues that she is a member of the minority caucus but, obviously, not the Republican caucus.

But East Greenwich Republican Robert A. Watson, the House minority leader, asserted that “the Rhode Island House Minority Caucus is referring to the minority party. … It is referring to the Republicans, unfortunately because we’re not the majority party.”

Despite those comments, Watson said the exchange got him thinking.

Representative Williams, he said later, “brought up an important point. I agree that maybe it’s more appropriate that we call ourselves the House Republican caucus. And perhaps going forward that’s what I’ll do,” he said.

“… I have no problem doing that. I like to promote the Republican label.”

Budget Office rechecking forecast on phone fines

Don’t put down those cell phones just yet.

The state Budget Office says it plans to reexamine its estimate that banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving could generate $1.2 million in $50 fines this fiscal year and close to $5 million in the year that begins July 1.

Democrats jumped all over the estimates last week, saying they didn’t “make sense.” For the state to garner that much in fines, the police would have to issue 100,000 $50 tickets each year, or more than 270 every day, House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox pointed out.

The Budget Office had said its calculations were based on the average number of drivers on Route 95 and the percentage of them who use cell phones on the road. But on Friday, budget officials reversed course, telling the House Finance Committee that they’ll take a second look at the numbers.

House and Senate fiscal staff will reportedly be involved in that analysis. No word yet on when the new numbers will be ready.

Kilmartin asks ethics opinion on law firm link

When in doubt, ask the Ethics Commission.

That was the tack House Majority Whip Peter Kilmartin chose after joining the law firm of a well-known name in Pawtucket Democratic circles whose brother is a gambling industry lobbyist and daughter is a member of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island’s board of directors.

Kilmartin, D-Pawtucket, spelled out the interconnections in a Jan. 9 letter to the state Ethics Commission that asked if there were any potential conflicts of interest for him that he needed to avoid.

In short: Kilmartin disclosed his new role as an associate in the law firm of Michael F. Horan. Horan is the brother of lawyer-lobbyist R. Kevin Horan, whose 2007 State House lobbying clients included Newport Grand, the New England Cable and Communications Association and the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island; and the father of Monica Horan who, besides being a lawyer in his firm, is also “an unpaid director” of BCBS.

The brothers Horan are also former members of the General Assembly: Michael a former senator, and Kevin a former member of the House.

While the brothers have separate law practices, Kilmartin acknowledged that Kevin Horan rented space for his law office in the same building as his brother, that Michael Horan is a principal in the realty corporation that owns the building and that “Michael Horan is the principal to whom Kevin pays rent.”

Kilmartin, a retired Pawtucket police officer, asked the Ethics Commission “what, if any conflict may exist in my legislative role and legislative position, given this factual situation.”

The commission is slated to take up his request when it meets tomorrow.

184 qualify for delegate spots in March primaries

The secretary of state’s office has certified that 184 people — 114 Republicans and 70 Democrats — obtained enough signatures to appear on their parties’ ballots as delegate candidates in Rhode Island’s March 4 presidential primaries.

Democratic voters will elect 13 delegates and 4 alternates to their convention. Republicans will elect 17 delegates and 17 alternates. (In all, including ex-officio participants and appointees, Rhode Island will send 20 delegates to the GOP’s convention, in September, and 32 to the Democrats’ convention in August.

Of the Republican total, 41 delegate candidates support Mike Huckabee; Governor Carcieri supports Mitt Romney. Of the Democratic total, 31 — including former Providence Mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr. — support Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Also among the delegate candidates are former Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, a Democrat who supports Barack Obama; Republican Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, who supports Rudolph Giuliani, and House Minority Leader Robert Watson, who supports John McCain.

On Friday, Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis will hold a lottery to determine the order in which the candidates’ names will appear on the primary ballots.

See all the names and numbers of potential delegates on the secretary of state’s Web site, www.sec.state.ri.us/candidates/presdelegates/.

bjeffers@projo.com