The state agency caught using taxpayer funds to host a party at the home of a prominent Republican leader has turned into a patronage haven for Gov. Charlie Baker, who has loaded it with nearly a dozen GOP loyalists, a Herald review shows.

Matthew Sisk, the $112,000-a-year deputy commissioner of the Department of Conservation and Recreation who was suspended for organizing the July 3 bash, is one of Baker’s top enforcers at the GOP state committee. But he’s hardly the only one there with political connections to Baker.

The DCR, which runs the state parks system, and the Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, which oversees the agency, has four state committee members and four failed Republican candidates on the payroll, records show.

Sisk’s boss is Matthew Beaton, a former Shrewsbury Republican representative, who sits in Baker’s Cabinet as Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

The chief operating officer of EEA is Michael Valanzola, who was appointed to his $115,000-a-year job weeks after losing a state Senate race. Beaton’s communications director is Peter Lorenz, who waged an unsuccessful bid for a GOP state committee seat as part of Baker’s slate of candidates.

The Baker team also gave a plum job at the DCR to Norman J. Orrall, a GOP state committeeman and husband of GOP state Rep. Keiko Orrall, who makes $110,000 annually as chief of engineering.

Lorenz, the EEA spokesman, defended the hires, saying: “All applicants to the (DCR) go through the appropriate application process based on the requirements of the job description.”

The agency came under renewed scrutiny this month after Sisk and DCR Commissioner Leo Roy copped to using taxpayer-funded golf carts to ferry party­goers to a VIP section of the Boston Pops’ Fourth of July rehearsal show on the Esplanade.

Baker has been criticized by Democrats for only giving weeklong suspensions to Sisk and Roy. The two were ordered to reimburse the state more than $800 for the carts and getting state employees to drive the carts and put together invitations.

The controversy has damaged Baker’s image as a fiscal conservative and Beacon Hill reformer who rode into office promising to end Democratic patronage scandals and wasteful spending.

But a Herald review shows the governor kept the patronage tradition alive at the DCR, formerly known as the MDC, which for decades was riddled by scandal and has been a dumping ground for political appointees.

Payroll records show taxpayers are footing the bill for the salaries of other GOP loyalists at the DCR, including state committee member Lisa Barstow, who earns $65,000 annually, and Andrea Farretta, a failed Republican state representative candidate who is a $55,000 budget specialist.

The administration also gave jobs to GOP state committee member Susan Smiley, who earns $92,500 as director of facilities at Energy and Environmental Affairs, and Jared Valan­zola, a Rockland Republican leader and failed legislative candidate hired as a $52,000-a-year “personnel officer” at EEA.

Also finding a home at the DCR is William Cooksey, a former producer at conservative talk radio station ?WRKO. Cooksey earns $70,000 a year as district manager of the South Coast, according to ?payroll records.