The number of people whom the state is hiring with big paychecks sure does seem to grow, as if organically:

A new deputy secretary of commerce, native Rhode Islander Thomas Q. Callahan, began work in Rhode Island Tuesday after the last 21 years in various roles at the University of Connecticut.

Callahan, 63, will report to Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor, and his main focus will be to ensure that all agencies whose work falls under the purview of the state’s Executive Office of Commerce are coordinating with each other and fulfilling their missions, Pryor told The Providence Journal.

As I’ve explained before, the Executive Office of Commerce is not technically the same thing as the quasi-public CommerceRI, but it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins; they both use the same logo, for example.  Whatever the case, the state has yet another well-paid employee taking money out of the local economy in order to “coordinate” economic development activity among other well-paid government employees.