MADISON, Wis. – Gov. Scott Walker has ordered that the 27-year-old son of a lobbyist appointed to an $81,500 job in his administration be demoted to his original job at a lower salary that doesn’t involve supervising others.

Walker’s spokesman, Cullen Werwie, said Tuesday that Brian Deschane will return to his previous job within the Department of Regulation and Licensing effective Wednesday.

Deschane had been promoted to head up a division that oversees environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees even though he has no college degree and little management experience. The move was first reported Monday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Werwie says when Walker learned of the staffing decision, he ordered that Deschane be put back in his original job which pays nearly $65,000 a year.

Before Tuesday’s developments, one critic of the administration said it looked to him like political payback. “It has all the markings of political patronage,” said Michael McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and a frequent critic of the new Republican governor.

The newspaper reported that according to Deschane’s resume, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for two years, worked for two Republican lawmakers and held part-time jobs with Wisconsin Builders Association and the Wisconsin Business Council before being hired by the state earlier this year.

Deschane didn’t respond to questions from the Journal Sentinel. On Monday, he didn’t respond to a telephone message and email sent to his office by The Associated Press.

He’s the son of Jerry Deschane, a longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association. The group’s political action committee gave $29,000 to the campaigns of Walker and his running mate, putting it among the campaign’s top donors.

The newspaper reported that members of the trade group also funneled more than $92,000 to Walker’s campaign over the past two years, bringing the contribution total to $121,652.

Jerry Deschane told the newspaper that during the gubernatorial campaign, he might have reminded Keith Gilkes, Walker’s campaign manager and now chief of staff, that his son “was out there and available.”

“I put in good words for every one of my children in their jobs,” he said. “But that would be the extent of it.”

Jerry Deschane also said his group doesn’t lobby his son’s division, which deals primarily with regulating underground storage tanks and petroleum tanks and products. He said he didn’t think his group’s political contributions helped his son. “He got the position himself,” he said. “I didn’t get it for him.”

Some are not so sure.

State Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison, called Brian Deschane’s hiring a case of the new administration using state jobs to repay various industries. He noted the younger Deschane’s resume indicates he lacks environmental or management experience.

“It doesn’t look like he’s ever had a real job,” Hulsey said.

David Carlson, spokesman for the Department of Regulation and Licensing, confirmed to the newspaper that Gilkes recommended Deschane for an interview with the agency.

A month later, department Secretary David Ross, a member of Walker’s Cabinet, named Deschane the bureau director of board services, a job that paid $64,728 a year.

Not long after, lawmakers approved the governor’s plan to convert the Department of Commerce to a public-private hybrid in charge of economic development, with its regulatory functions being moved to other agencies. Commerce Secretary Paul Jadin then appointed Deschane to his new job there to oversee the changes.

Walker spokesman Werwie said the administration knew about the younger Deschane’s drunken-driving convictions – most recently in 2008 – but it “felt he had changed his habits and that these past incidents would in no way affect his performance at this job.”