February 5, 2009 2:52PM # Attention Struggling Workers in New York State… By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) --- SHARE Click [here](http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=767070&TextPage=1) to see a good example of how your state government is spending *your* money. For those disinclined to click, the headline reads: “State employee: I get $93,803 for no work.” If I were a taxpaying New Yorker I would be miffed that a state employee was getting paid $93,803 *to work*. Of course, defenders of state government employees will dismiss this story as an anomaly. But a key paragraph in the story indicates why societal drains like Mr. Hinton are more common in state bureaucracies than one might think: “He \[Hinton\] said he has essentially done very little work since about 1999 but has a **competitive civil service position so that he is protected should layoffs occur and cannot be fired without due process**, unlike the political appointees occupying posts he seeks.” Having worked in the “management” side of state government, I can attest that due process for state employees = incompetence insurance. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).