Malloy cuts three posts held by former Rell staffers

State agencies dismissed three more holdovers this week from former Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s administration.

But unlike some earlier dismissals, this week’s firings did not question the applicants’ credentials, but rather cited ongoing efforts to eliminate positions.

Nora Duncan, 37, of Manchester, was let go as legislative program manager for the Department of Public Works. “It has been determined that the position of legislative program manager at the department … will not be filled at this time,” the agency wrote in its dismissal letter.

Duncan had been Rell’s policy and legislative affairs advisor from January 2008 until she began work at DPW this past August.

Before serving in the Rell administration, Duncan had spent a decade working for the state’s largest association of private, nonprofit social service agencies, spending much of that time as the Connecticut Association of Nonprofits’ public policy director.

Also this week, the Department of Transportation dismissed Philip Smith of Bridgeport, a transportation planning administrator and former fiscal analyst for the Office of Policy Management, and David Gasior of Vernon, a former executive assistant to Rell who had become a transportation planner trainee. Both Smith and Gasior had started at the DOT on Dec. 31.

Similar to the case with Duncan, Smith’s and Gasior’s positions were eliminated.

That wasn’t the case with some other former Rell staffers removed under the Malloy administration.

Christopher Tymniak of Stratford, was dismissed earlier this month from a managerial post he had held at the Department of Motor Vehicles since mid-July. Prior to that, Tymniak, 32, had run Rell’s satellite office in Bridgeport.

The DMV reported that after a test period, they determined Tymniak would not be successful in his job.

The Malloy administration also dismissed Debra Hinman of Burlington, who had experience as a school bus driver and pizza chef before being named an agricultural inspector last year under the Rell administration.