The Buffalo News reports: With the state’s finances souring, Gov. David A. Paterson in July took an important step to control the spiraling costs of government: a hiring freeze for state agencies.

In a strongly worded missive, the governor’s budget office on July 30 ordered a “hard” hiring freeze. Any necessary hires would have to be approved by Paterson’s budget staff, a rare step for the state.

“Until further notice, only absolutely essential positions will be filled,” the budget office said.

But since the July 30 freeze was declared, 31,684 people have been hired by agencies, according to a Buffalo News analysis of payroll records provided by the state comptroller’s office.

The records do not include hiring at hundreds of state authorities whose payrolls are not maintained by the comptroller.

The numbers suggest the difficulties a governor can run into when trying to wrestle with personnel costs, since, no matter the economic challenges, public colleges still have to hire professors, mental health facilities still need nurses, and the transportation department still must have bridge inspectors.

But critics say the numbers also show a state unwilling to make serious sacrifices to close worsening budget gaps by going after one of the biggest cost centers of government: payroll.

“Clearly, it’s not a hard freeze,” said E. J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative think tank.

He said that unlike previous administrations during sharp economic downturns, the Paterson administration “has not even really scratched the surface” in addressing payroll costs.

The explanations for the hiring are many. For starters, the edict did not affect the authorities, which maintain their own payrolls. Next, a handful of others were specifically excluded, such as the State University of New York, the comptroller’s office and the attorney general’s office. SUNY was left out because state law leaves personnel decisions to the college system, 24,730 were for the fall semester in the state and city university systems, which were excluded from the freeze.

For all the other agencies, the governor’s budget division had to approve every hire. In some cases, agencies were given a blanket waiver for certain jobs. In others, specific job requests had to be individually approved.