Matthew Gill, 57, who is president of an asphalt business, is working part-time, earning $20,000 a year, overseeing the transportation of prisoners.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, October 7, 2005

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Matthew Gill, a veteran state worker, former director of the state Department of Transportation under Governor Edward DiPrete and currently president of an asphalt company, has found his way back to the state payroll, this time as a part-time $20,000-a-year employee at the state Superior Court.

Gill, of Narragansett, was hired to help make more efficient the transportation of prisoners from the Adult Correctional Institutions to state courts, said Joseph Conley, deputy Superior Court administrator.

The position was posted, and 15 applicants applied. Gill was hired after extensive interviews, and the hiring had the approval of Superior Court Presiding Justice Joseph Rodgers, Conley said.

"Matt was the most qualified," Conley said. "We needed someone with his background."

Gill, 57, has experience with ACI inmates; he was an assistant director for the Department of Corrections from 1978 until 1985. And he taught corrections policy at Roger Williams College for many years, Gill said.

He said he currently has a private-sector job as president of Hudson Liquid Asphalts Inc., of Providence, which sells liquid asphalt to road contractors. The owners of the company have given him the "flexibility," Gill said, to work 20 hours a week on his state job.

Gill said he does not have a state pension and didn't take the job to become qualified for one. A spokeswoman for the state general treasurer's office confirmed yesterday that Gill withdrew his pension contributions after leaving state government in 1991, when Democrat Gov. Bruce Sundlun took over from Republican DiPrete and dismissed Gill.

The courts have been having difficulty ensuring that ACI prisoners arrive at state courts in time to testify and not keep juries waiting, Conley said.

"It is a real problem, and we felt we needed someone with an outside point of view to work on this," Conley said. He said Gill has been on the job for about five weeks and has been spending more than 20 hours per week at the post.

"I enjoy it," Gill said in a brief interview yesterday.