While Governor Carcieri hammers at the need to reduce state spending, his Department of Administration has posted an opening for a new job — at a salary of $66,677 to $75,598 –– for a public-relations person to help Director Jerome Williams with communications and the release of media information.

The only other person in state government with the same job title and classification code — chief public affairs officer — is Dana Alexander Nolfe, who worked for Williams during his stint as state transportation director last year. (Nolfe also answers readers’ questions about roads across the state in a weekly column that appears in The Journal.)

The Department of Administration is the hub of state government with control over hiring, contracting, purchasing, auditing and state-owned and leased property management.

Until a recent rash of retirements and departures, a string of DOA directors have relied on people within the agency to respond to media requests for information, from the state controller to the state purchasing chief to the state personnel administrator.

The application period runs until Aug. 8.

Job qualifications include education “such as may have been gained through possession of a master’s degree in public administration, journalism or a related field … and experience such as may have been gained through considerable employment in a highly responsible position involving responsibility for the research, analysis, policy development and dissemination of information or any combination of education and experience that shall be substantially equivalent.”

The window for applications opened yesterday, on the same day Governor Carcieri announced that he was requiring members of Council 94, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees and any other union that in recent weeks rejected a contract offer to pay more toward the premiums for their health insurance, under basically the same terms the workers rejected.

In his announcement, Carcieri said the action was necessitated by the “the severity of the State’s fiscal crisis.”

“I have a constitutional and statutory obligation to balance the budget,” the governor said. “If I don’t take this action, I will be neglecting my primary duty to balance the budget on behalf of all our citizens.”

Asked yesterday where the administration intended to find up to $75,598-plus-benefits for a new public-relations job in state government, Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe said: “Director Williams’ track record at DOT and DOA has been leaving positions vacant and only filling critical positions.”

When asked why Williams needed a press secretary when his predecessors went without, Kempe said: “The Department of Administration is one of the largest agencies handling a vast array of different issues … the goal is to improve media relations … respond to the large number of requests of documents and information from the media … improve the flow of information … [manage] all state mandated reporting to the legislature or other entities.”

kgregg@projo.com