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Stringer: NYS Lawmakers Should Blame Themselves for Pay Hike Link to On Time Budget

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Tie legislators’ upcoming pay hikes to an on-time state budget?

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, one of the state salary commission’s four members, told The Post Editorial Board last week that he opposes withholding the raises if legislators don’t pass a new budget by the April 1 deadline. “I actually don’t support that. I don’t think it should be tied to an on-time budget because there are times when you fight for principle,” Stringer said last Thursday.

He added that there was “not much he could have done about it because it was the legislature itself that including the provision in the law creating the salary panel. “The leadership of the Assembly and the Legislature voted for those provisions to tie the raise to an on-time budget,” Stringer said. “They voted for it. The speaker voted for it.”

The reference, the Post made clear, was to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, “who has criticized the commission for attaching conditions to the 64 percent raises it recommended for legislators, boosting their base pay from $79,500 to $130,000 in 2021. Michael Whyland, Heastie’s spokesman, responded: “The speaker is looking forward to getting the people’s work done beginning on January 9th when we return. Who is Scott Stringer?”

The whole notion of lawmakers passing laws to give themselves raises stinks with most people. As the New York Times recently noted, “Considering Albany’s rotten reputation, the idea of giving New York’s 213 elected lawmakers a raise is a tough sell. On Thursday, they took a giant step toward that goal when a four-person commission recommended that lawmakers get a hefty raise: a $30,500 rise next year, bringing their base pay to $110,000. Two more raises of $10,000 per year will follow in 2020 and 2021.”

Albany’s elected officials currently make $79,500 a year before various perks and stipends, said the Times, “a salary that hasn’t budged in nearly 20 years, when Gov. George E. Pataki approved a salary increase in exchange for the creation of charter schools in the state. That was in 1998. If adopted — the commission is set to issue a final report by Monday — the state’s lawmakers would be on pace to receive the largest base salaries of any state’s elected officials, surpassing California. In exchange, the lawmakers will see restrictions on legislative stipends and outside income.”

According to the web site www.nystateofpolitics.com, under the recommendations outlined, the governor would be paid $250,000 by 2022, up from the current $178,000. The salary would be phased in to $225,000 in 2020 and $250,000 in 2021. Lawmakers would also receive a phased-in hike from $79,500 to $130,000 by 2021. The lieutenant governor’s salary would reach $220,000 in 2021, growing from $151,500 to $190,000 in 2019, $210,000 in 2020.

“The legislative pay raise will begin to take effect in January, reaching $110,000. Their base pay would then go to $120,000 in 2020. Once fully phased in at $130,000, the Legislature and governor would be the highest paid in any state in the country.”

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