County executive, sheriff might be getting raises
Pay increases have been recommended by the Periodic Compensation Review Committee.
KINGSTON, N.Y. » The Ulster County executive and sheriff would get raises, but the county’s other elected officials would not, under a proposal by the county’s Periodic Compensation Review Committee.
The committee is recommending the executive’s salary be increased by $4,000, or 3 percent, to $137,577 per year from the current $133,570; and that the sheriff’s annual salary increase by $2,500, or 2.5 percent, to $103,212.
Neither elected official has gotten a raise since 2009, when the county charter went into effect.
The committee recommended the salaries for the county comptroller, clerk and legislators remain at current levels.
A public hearing on the committee’s recommendation is to be held at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Legislative chamber in the Ulster County Office Building, 244 Fair St., Kingston.
Committee Chairman Glenn Noonan said the recommendations were made to ensure parity between the salaries of Ulster County’s elected officials and those in other New York counties.
“We tried to look at the position and not the people in it,” said Noonan, a former Republican county legislator.
The current Ulster County executive in Michael Hein. The sheriff is Paul VanBlarum.
Noonan said the current salary for the executive is “right in the middle of the pack.”
“He’s paid a lot less than some and a little more than others,” the committee chairman said.
He noted the sheriff is paid less than some of his subordinates.
The sheriff presented the committee with roughly 25 pages of documentation to support his request for a pay hike, but the executive did not reach out to the committee, Noonan said.
He said the committee did not recommend pay raises for the clerk or comptroller because the salaries for those two positions are among the highest in the state.
The committee also did not recommend any increases to county legislators’ salaries despite their vote in December for a 40 percent pay hike.