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‘Silver’-spoon gal climbing the ladder

• By BETH DEFALCO, Post Correspondent
• Last Updated: 3:51 AM, May 30, 2013
• Posted: 1:13 AM, May 30, 2013

EXCLUSIVE

ALBANY — A former state assemblywoman and close ally of Speaker Sheldon Silver has quietly left her cushy job at the state Education Department for an even higher-paying one in state Family Court.
Janele Hyer-Spencer, a motorcycle-riding former beauty queen, left her post as a legislative liaison for the Education Department on Jan. 29.
Hyer-Spencer, a Democrat, was hired in September 2011 — after voters had booted her from her Assembly seat.
As The Post reported last year, Silver — who has sway with the Board of Regents, which oversees the education agency — recommended Hyer-Spencer for he $84,000-a-year position.

Ron Romano

THE WAY UP: Critics say ex-Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer’s rise is tied to her friendship with Sheldon Silver.

In March, Hyer-Spencer quietly took a new job as a “support” magistrate with the New York City Family Court.
She’s now making $99,600 to work on child- support, paternity and other family issues, state payroll records show.
Silver’s childhood friend Jonathan Lippman is chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals and oversees administration of the state courts.
On her LinkedIn page, Hyer-Spencer describes herself as a “self-directed initiator whose career is marked by rapid movement to positions of increasing responsibility.”
But insiders in Albany have been scratching their heads over her elevation from one state government job to another.
The 48-year-old lawyer never worked in the education field before taking the state post. Although most of Hyer-Spencer’s responsibilities involved lobbying Congress, the tall, leggy blonde was based in Albany.
“Many elected officials didn’t care for her. She was known more for her lack of initiative and partying than her legislation,” said one Albany source.
Some politicos speculate that Hyer-Spencer left her job at the Education Department to deflect attention from her connections to Silver — at about the same time a state ethics committee completed its scathing report on ex-Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s sexual harassment of female staffers and Silver’s use of a secret settlement to keep the allegations quiet.
“The word on the street was that too many reporters were asking questions about Janele,” a political source told The Post.
“It’s not by accident that she’s there,” said an Albany insider of Hyer-Spencer’s new court gig. “Going from being a member of the Assembly to the state Education Department to the state Family Court would seem to imply she’s a member of the ‘Shelly Silver witness-protection program.’”
Silver spokesman Michael Whyland insisted that the speaker played no role in helping Hyer-Spencer land a job in the court system.
“Absolutely not,” Whyland said. “It’s a process designed to be free from influence, and decisions are made by a panel.”
Hyer-Spencer was elected to the seat representing the East Shore and Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn in 2006. After losing to GOP Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis in 2010, Hyer-Spencer never showed up to thank her supporters on election night.
bdefalco@nypost.com