Double pols’ pay ffor full-time: Heastie

Voters demanding that serving in the state Legislature be turned into a fulltime job should be prepared to double lawmakers’ salaries, says Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

“Is the public ready to pay legislators $150,000$160,000 a year?” Heastie (DBronx) said in a BronxNet cableTV interview broadcast this week.

“If you’re going to have people go full time, there’s going to have to be a hefty pay raise from $79,500.”

The $79,500 base salary hasn’t been raised in 15 years.

But most lawmakers also receive extra annual stipends for leadership assignments, ranging from $9,000 to $41,500.

A state salary commission is currently studying the pay of elected officials, with recommendations due late next year.

A separate city commission is expected to issue recommendations shortly to boost the salaries of all city elected officials, including the mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough presidents, district attorneys and City Council members.

Heastie replaced Sheldon Silver as speaker in February after Silver was indicted in paytoplay schemes.

A federal jury last week convicted Silver of the crimes, which centered on having realestate developers seeking help from the state steer hundreds of thousands of dollars in referral fees to his legal practice.

Government watchdogs have since urged Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature to ban lawmakers from receiving outside income to prevent conflicts of interest and public corruption.

Heastie said he wanted to see how stricter disclosure rules on politicians’ outside income — approved earlier this year — work before considering a ban on private employment.

“There should be no conflict of interest and you should disclose your income,” he said of legislators.

On another issue, Heastie invoked Hillary Clinton to defend the muchcriticized scheme that allowed former Bronx DA Robert Johnson to resign to run for a judicial seat just days after winning his Democratic Party primary reelection bid.

The move allowed the Bronx Democratic Party to install Darcel Clark as DA without a primary challenge.

“People run for different offices while they maintain an office. Our own Hillary Clinton . . . When she was running for Senate reelection [in 2006], we all knew she was going to run for president . . . This is not something new to politics,” said Heastie, who served as Bronx Democratic Party leader before becoming speaker.