Expensive people in unnecessary jobs

From the NY Post:

Mayor Bloomberg’s new pension watchdog has a lackluster track record on investments — but that won’t stop her from making key decisions for one of the largest retirement funds in the country.

Ranji Nagaswami, 46, was hired last week as the first ever mayoral investment adviser.

The city is paying Nagaswami $175,000 a year to essentially do the same job that Comptroller John Liu’s chief investment officer, Lawrence Schloss, gets $224,000 to do: Oversee the city’s beleaguered $103 billion pension system.

The move signals Bloomberg is fed up with the city paying fat fees to poorly performing money managers — and he’ll step on Liu’s toes to change things, insiders say.

From the NY Post:

City Hall has a new address — Mayor Bloomberg’s Upper East Side charity foundation.

First Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris, Hizzoner’s longest-serving and most powerful aide, spends most of her time at the Bloomberg Family Foundation at 25 East 78th St. since being named CEO of the $1.6 billion charity in May, according to two government sources.

“She’s never at City Hall,” a high-ranking official told The Post. “Her chair is always empty. Everyone in government is talking about it.”

Last week, Harris — who gets a $246,000-a-year taxpayer salary for her City Hall job, and received a $400,000 campaign-consulting bonus from Bloomberg last year — was seen spending at least part of her day at the foundation’s $45 million, six-story Beaux Arts eadquarters. She was flanked by two assistants and was driven there in a city-owned,chauffeur-driven Buick Lucerne.

But Harris, 54, was not the only Bloomberg bigwig seen at the foundation, their chauffeured city vehicles at the curb, during the workday last week. Press Secretary Stu Loeser and Deputy Mayor for Education Dennis Walcott paid brief visits.