Michael Trainor will be joining the Chafee administration after all.

Trainor had told WRNI’s Ian Donnis yesterday he was “undecided right now” about whether he was going to stay. But in a brief phone interview following a meeting at Chafee HQ late this afternoon, Trainor told me he will be serving as Chafee’s communications director.

“I’m delighted and honored to be asked to serve in the Chafee administration and look forward to helping him deliver his message over the next four years,” Trainor told me. He managed Chafee’s campaign after J.R. Pagliarini resigned in October and has served as the transition’s spokesman since the election.

Trainor, 62, also said the administration will be combining the communications director and press secretary jobs into one – his – as part of its frugality push. “We’re going with a governor’s staff that’s well below the budgeted level in terms of payroll and manpower,” he said. Chafee and his team will take office next Tuesday, a week from today.

This is Trainor’s first time working in the public sector. He previously had a long career in public relations, notably as a founding partner with what’s now the RDW Group.

The Projo ran a story earlier this month detailing how Trainor and three business partners defaulted on a $250,000 Economic Development Corporation loan taken out in 2007 to fund a storm-safety supply company. Chafee rejected Trainor’s resignation offer after the article was published, and this evening’s announcement shows the governor-elect wasn’t particularly worried about the optics of the loan default even in light of his own criticisms of the EDC.

Update: Just to be clear, the meeting at Chafee HQ I referenced near the top of this item was an internal transition meeting to discuss what to do about the press secretary job – not a meeting I attended. Apologies if the wording was a bit ambiguous.