Questions swirl over panel’s pay-raise OK
Future of increases, outside income rules still lacking answers
A day after a panel voted to give New York lawmakers a significant raise for the first time in two decades, many questions remained, including what reforms state legislators will have to pass in exchange for future hikes – and whether the process implementing the raises is legal.
In addition, some Capital Region lawmakers’ futures is uncertain. If new restrictions on outside income are enacted, lawmakers with substantial outside incomes might be prompted to leave their public positions.
By law, the four-member
compensation committee, which was created by state lawmakers, must send its written recommendations by Monday to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the state Legislature. Ahead of the report’s release, a number of lawmakers were withholding judgment until the specific language of the document is known.
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie — whose conference will have to decide whether to pass the reforms recommended in exchange for future pay raises — declined to comment until the written report is available for review.
Under the recommendations described at the panel’s meeting this week, lawmakers would receive their first salary increase in less than a month, with a $30,500 increase to $110,000 taking effect in January. Their base pay would rise to $120,000 in 2020, and reach $130,000 in 2021.
In order to secure raises after 2019, the Legislature might be forced to adopt legislation that restricts their ability to earn income from private employment.
The committee endorsed imposing on legislators the same limitations as members of Congress, who are limited to earning 15 percent of their government salary from outside income and are prohibited from certain private professions. Any limitations, as proposed by the committee, wouldn’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2020 — or midway through the next two-year legislative cycle and before the November 2020 elections.
After January 2020, legislators could still earn up to $18,000 in outside income under this proposal.
In the Capital Region, Senators Neil Breslin and George Amedore, and Assembly members Mary Beth Walsh, John Mcdonald and Phil Steck, each earned more than the proposed cap from annual outside income in 2017, according to their financial disclosure forms.
Eileen Miller, a spokeswoman for Amedore, a Republican homebuilder with a significant income from that business, said the lawmaker is awaiting the final report before making a decision about his future.
Amedore opposes the pay increases, but also the income limits, because they would limit the ability of people with real-world business experience to serve in the Legislature, Miller said.
“The fear is that it would diminish the quality of the Legislature,” Miller said.
Another Capital Region lawmaker who could be impacted is Mcdonald, a former Cohoes mayor and pharmacist whose family has operated a pharmacy in that city for decades.
Mcdonald said on Friday that he planned to “find a way” to continue operating the pharmacy business while serving in the Legislature.
“I’m not going to let four people in a room decide what to do with my family business of 88 years,” Mcdonald said. “We serve people all over the Capital Region. We deliver to people that work in the state Capitol. I’m not just going to close up shop.”
Also, it’s possible there may be no prohibition to lawmakers with outside income shifting the income from their private business interests to family members, including spouses.
Mcdonald worried, however, that other businesspeople would decide not to run for office if the pay restrictions were imposed. He said the restrictions could also create a new class of lawmakers with less diverse types of experience and who may be more reliant on the support of special interest groups.
Mcdonald noted that following corruption scandals involving former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and others, the Legislature had passed a number of reforms relating to the disclosure of outside income. With Democrats set to take charge of the state Senate next month, a number of previously stalled measures also will likely be passed, he said.
Still, there was no mention on Thursday by compensationpanel members of any proposal to limit the outside income of executive branch employees.
“I find it interesting that the outside income limit applies to the Legislature, but not statewide elected officials,” Mcdonald said.
It’s more than theoretical: While in office, Cuomo has made more than $780,000 off the publication of his memoir, “All Things Possible,” despite the book’s poor sales.
Albany Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, a fellow Democrat, said lawmakers including Amedore and Mcdonald have been valuable assets to the Legislature due to their business experience.
“Small- and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the upstate economy, so having a homebuilder or the pharmacist or a coffee shop owner is very important,” said Fahy, who has no outside income, and took a substantial pay cut to become a state lawmaker. “You want to have a broad breadth of experiences, and people who have the pulses of their own communities.”
Fahy was not sure whether the Assembly Democratic conference would respond to the proposal restricting outside income. She hoped that lawmakers could make it possible for lawmakers such as Mcdonald and Amedore to continue to serve, while addressing the kinds of problems that arose around former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose lucrative but illegal outside work — in the form of kickbacks — led to his federal conviction on corruption charges.
Some lawmakers reacted favorably to the proposals. Democratic state Sen.-elect Andrew Gounardes, an attorney from Brooklyn, said the panel’s proposal is a good one since the significant pay raises come with the requirement that lawmakers essentially serve full-time.
Yet the future of the reform remains murky: Comptroller Thomas Dinapoli, a member of the four-person compensation committee, said last week that it was open to question whether the committee had the ability to impose the restriction on outside income.
Committee Chair H. Carl Mccall, a former state comptroller, concluded Thursday’s meeting by referring vaguely to a number of good government reforms, such as campaign finance reform, that the committee might include in its final report. It’s not clear if those issues would be part of the performance measures used to determine whether lawmakers would receive future increases.
The committee also expressed support for eliminating most legislative leadership stipends, which start at $9,000 a year. They proposed retaining the perk for a handful of top leaders, including the $41,500 for the Senate majority leader and Assembly speaker.
Last week, during the committee’s second hearing, Heastie, the lone state legislator to testify publicly before the panel, voiced support for a pay raise, but wouldn’t make a commitment to limiting outside income.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-cousins, a Democrat, revealed on Thursday that she recently voiced her support for a wage increase in private discussions with the committee members. She also indicated the state Senate will likely pass limitations on outside income in the upcoming legislative session.
Many of the lawmakers making substantial outside incomes are part of the state Senate Republican conference, who will be in the legislative minority in January for the first time since 2010.
A Stewart-cousins spokesman declined to say why she declined to publicly testify, or how she came to be privately in contact with committee members.
It’s unclear how many other state lawmakers may have reached out privately to the committee’s members.
The compensation committee’s website does include a catalogue of written comments it has received.
Besides Heastie, the committee also received comment from Republican state Sen. Chris Jacobs, who recommended ending stipends for committee and leadership positions. In addition, Democratic Assemblyman James Skoufis and Republican Assemblyman Kevin Byrne jointly called for an end to the practice of lawmakers “double-dipping,” or collecting both salaries and state pensions at the same time.
The panel also recommended increasing the governor’s salary of $179,000 to $200,000 in January. It would increase to $225,000 in 2020 and $250,000 in 2021.
The lieutenant governor’s salary of $151,500 would be $190,000 in 2019, $210,000 in 2020, and $220,000 in 2021.
The recommendations for the governor and lieutenant governor would require action by the state Legislature to implement.
The salary for the state comptroller and attorney general would go from $151,500 to $190,000 in 2019, $210,000 in 2020, and $220,000 in 2021.
The committee has been dogged since its creation in the state budget by questions about its legitimacy, including whether the state constitution allows lawmakers to delegate the pay increase issue.
For one, Queensbury resident and constitutional activist Robert Schulz, who has filed lawsuits against state government in the past, says the pay raise is illegal.
Republican state Sen. Sue Serino, a realtor from Hyde Park, issued a statement on Friday opposing the panel’s recommendations because non-politicians across the state were struggling to make ends meet.
“What’s worse, this process completely circumvented the voices of New Yorkers by bypassing the Legislature and the very people elected to represent them,” Serino said. “Further, I believe this proposal put forth by the pay commission creates a situation that will absolutely encourage lawmakers to become career politicians.”