Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 10, 1994                   TAG: 9404100003
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FRANK GREVE KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

TAXPAYERS ARE SUPPORTING SOME PRETTY CUSHY JOBS

He's chaplain of the U.S. Senate. His job is to open Senate business with a brief daily prayer. Sometimes, he counsels members or staffers.

It's a 9-to-3 job, says Halverson, and, like his flock, he often takes Mondays and Fridays off. They worked 156 days last year.

You could find a cushier hundred-thousand-dollar job in Washington, but you'd have to look hard.

Most bureaucrats are paid less than benched major-leaguers to run billion-dollar programs, but some federal jobs are truly lush.

Ebersole Gaines, a Kellogg heir, used to have one. Gaines was consul general to Bermuda under President George Bush. Since Bermuda remains a British colony, there's no heavy diplomatic lifting.

But, oh, the taxpayer-provided amenities: A big, breezy hilltop residence with flower gardens, household staff and beachfront. Another glittering plus: privileges at the island's eight fabled golf courses.

The post pays $104,000 a year, and the Clinton administration hasn't filled it yet.

Labor mediator Anthony Ingrassia has it good, too. He makes $120,000 a year at a job where, he says, "you've got to take it easy."

Ingrassia is chairman of the Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee. It ensures that government blue-collar wages are equitable with those in the private sector.

Almost always, Ingrassia says, local unions and government managers can work things out under a complex formula devised in 1972. His job, basically, is to let them.

Lawyer Douglas Patton has it even easier. He pulls down $104,000 at a job that doesn't legally exist. He's the House clerk's liaison to the Federal Election Commission, which monitors compliance with laws about campaigns and fund-raising.

Patton was "severed" from the commission in October after an appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a legislative-branch representative to sit on an executive-branch commission.

An appeal is pending. In the meantime, Patton can't touch an FEC matter. He did not return repeated phone calls, but FEC security guards say they often see him.

Until being supplanted by a Clinton nominee, Gordon Durnil had one of the best federal jobs - making $115,700 working out of his Indianapolis home as chairman of the U.S. side of the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission.

Created by a 1909 treaty, the commission holds hearings on both sides of the border and then advises Washington and Ottawa on how to calm gathering tensions.

Like most cushy-job holders, Durnil had the right qualifications. "I'd been Indiana Republican chairman, and I'd known Dan Quayle since he was a teen-ager," he said.