This is VERY common in university and municipal jobs. Many people at those insitutions are supurfluous and literally do nothing useful, or they may have one or two responsibilites carefully assigned to justify their position but in reality it's nothing someone else doesn't have plenty of time to handle. They get away with it because there's no pressure to show a profit, or penalty for a loss, at the end of the day. They have their budgets, and they spend that money. Ultimately these jobs are controlled by politicans, who hate to fire anybody because a) that might make them unpopular and b) political power in those organization correlates highly to the number of people who work under you.
I used to work for a beltway bandit and I experienced the same stuff described in the article. If you want an easy, comfortable job, that sort of work is perfect. If you want to do impactful work, it's the worst place you could be. Yet, that is exactly what you are promised: the opportunity to do purportedly important work, when all evidence points to the contrary. I just wish we could be honest with each other about this sort of stuff.
