ALBANY - As he faces dropping polls, New York Gov. David Paterson is bringing back his longtime chief-of-staff and friend who resigned in October amid a scandal over his unpaid taxes from years ago.

Paterson says Charles O'Byrne will work as an unpaid adviser in a leadership position for his 2010 election campaign, which is already under way.

“Yesterday evening, I met with Charles O'Byrne to discuss the possibility of us working together again,” Paterson said in a statement he released Saturday. “Charles is very much enjoying his new career and has offered to work as a volunteer in a leadership position with my 2010 campaign.”

O'Byrne declined comment.

O'Byrne has been a critical aide to Paterson, who is legally blind, for a half-decade. During that time Paterson, then a near powerless senator in the Senate's Democratic minority, brought the Democrats to within striking distance of taking the majority. Democrats eventually did that in last November's elections. By then, Paterson with O'Byrne was elected lieutenant governor in 2006, then rose to governor in 2007 when Eliot Spitzer resigned.

Since the fall of 2008, however, Paterson has dropped in the polls as he sought, without success, to call the Legislature back to Albany to act on spending cuts, conducted a secretive and much criticized selection process to appoint a U.S. Senate successor to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and became the target of million-dollar TV ad campaigns by special interests fighting his proposed spending cuts.

On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Paterson acknowledged for the first time that he personally ordered his staff to contest Caroline Kennedy's version of events in the hours after she withdrew from consideration for Paterson's appointment to the U.S. Senate.

The Times reported that Paterson said that he was bewildered when his staffers subsequently leaked unsubstantiated accusations about Kennedy's tax status, marital status and other issues which turned out to be unproven. The leak contributed to Paterson's dropping popularity.

The leak was attributed to a hired communications strategist, Judith Smith. Paterson told the Times she will soon end her service to the administration.

Paterson eventually chose upstate Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, and had said she was always a strong candidate and not a second choice after Kennedy.

O'Byrne resigned in October after it was disclosed in press reports that he paid down more than $200,000 in back taxes from years prior.

Since then, Paterson has seen his own popularity decline without the discipline and focus O'Byrne provided for years.

O'Byrne had said he suffered clinical depression that kept him from paying taxes from 2001 to 2005, before he took the $178,500-a-year job of secretary to the governor. A front-page New York Post article ran under the headline, “He's Crazy.” On Thursday, the Post's editorial was headlined: “Bring O'Byrne Back.”

O'Byrne is an openly gay, former Jesuit priest who officiated at the wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and counseled the Kennedy family three years later after he died in a plane crash.

Last week, Paterson noted that no one disputed that O'Byrne did an excellent job. “I think people make mistakes and, you know, they deserve a second chance after they've paid for what they've done,” Paterson said Thursday.

After O'Byrne left, Paterson divided the well-known workaholic's duties between two positions: chief of staff and secretary to the governor. Those jobs are still filled, although Paterson said a week ago that he was planning changes in staff. He never had time to fully organize his staff, having taken the governor's job on short notice when Spitzer was named in a federal prostitution investigation.

Paterson's communications director, Risa Heller, recently announced she is leaving the administration for other opportunities.

AP-ES-02-21-09 1947EST